Woo! I love random trivia (especially trivia nights at bars too!). I’ve always been fairly good at it. However, I’ve never been good enough and neither I or any of the teams I have been on have won anything!

Until tonight.

I decide to go study and finish writing a geology paper (I got an extension!) at a local bar/coffee shop/art gallery called the Canvas Gallery. It’s an awesome little place about 5 blocks from my house and usually has these awesome events going on every night.

I checked the calendar tonight to see what would be going on and if it would interfere with my studying. Sure enough, it would! It turns out they were having an event called “Ask a Scientist” and tonight’s speaker was from the USGS! He would be talking about the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (who’s anniversary is tomorrow morning at 5:12am). Even better, they were having a trivia night about earthquakes with prizes to the winners! AWESOME!

So it started in 10 minutes, I packed my bag and booked it down the hill, making it just in time to get a scorecard. The finally tally, I got 8 out of 10 questions right, the highest score there! (And one answer was originally right but I erased it!) Yes! I guess it was kind of cheating… since I’m a geologist. Ah hem. The questions WERE hard though.

Anyway, I ended up winning this awesome book, signed by the author himself! Pretty productive evening.

Well, I never did get to write any more to my paper unfortunately. I should do some of that now though. I have grand ambitions to be downtown at 4:30am to attend the memorial service and should probably get to bed early.

It’s pretty crazy to think about though, especially after walking around the streets tonight. 100 years ago was a night much like tonight. Crystal clear, calm, quiet. No one really knew of the impending doom that was about to be unleashed. And it can happen at any time too.

Of course I’ve already heard numerous people in the last few weeks say, “Wouldn’t that be crazy if it happened again, right on the 100th anniversary?” I suppose stranger things have happened up here of course. We’ll see what tomorrow brings! 🙂

I know I haven’t posted much since I’ve gotten back from New Zealand. School has really been tough this semester with the amount of work that I’ve had to do. Plus, life really hasn’t been all that exciting, leaving little to write about (excessive amounts of rain and excessive amounts of school work).

Anyway, I read this article today and was sad I didn’t know about this earlier. A tricycle race? I totally would have signed up to do that! The pictures in the news article are hilarious. I really do love my cooky city.

And here is another reason I love my crazy city, this news article is circa Valentines Day. And another reason. And even another… though that article is two years old, but they ran the race again this year. Also, the Bay to Breakers (WARNING: Pics of naked people on that page!) run is coming up in May as well and I’m definitely looking forward to that, as it’s always a good time. It’s basically an organized party. 🙂

In other news, Tuesday is the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. A memorial is planned downtown at 4:30am on Tuesday, and I’m going to try my best to attend.

Ugh. Just got a phone call that is not good news.

Two weeks ago, one of my closest friends in the geology program up here got into a horrid motorcycle crash one evening when a car swerved across 3 lanes of traffic to try and get to an exit they were about to miss. My friend Kurt happened to be exiting the freeway at the same time.

Fortunately, he saw the car coming and was able to try and react. Unfortunately, he was basically run off the road. He ended up in extraordinarily bad condition and considering his injuries, it’s amazing he even survived.

Last night was the first chance I’ve had to see him since the accident. Along with a few friends, we spent three hours at the hospital last night. His injuries are numerous. There was a compound fracture in the left leg, his right foot might be broken, ACL and MCL in both knees are ripped, his pelvis was basically broken in half, busted bladder and three broken vertebrate.

Anyway, my friend Peter, who has been spending a lot of time at the hospital, just called to inform me that the doctors are going to have to amputate his left leg, due to the amount of blood lost and muscle tissue that died as a result. Ugh. I feel sick and sad. All we can do at this point is be there for him and keep him in our thoughts and prayers.