New Year Update 2012

I made a New Years Resolution to blog more often. Well it is already 24 days into the New Year and this is my first 2012 blog. Oh well so much for resolutions.

What I have managed to do is complete my readjustment to IVRRAC (Shhh top secret, though the 2012 publish date and the edition number beginning with 2012 may just give it away). This was released with a two day free period, now it is back to 99c on Amazon (though my RRP is $3.50 now).

I have also managed to get back into BOAS and have re-read my previous version to get an idea where I am up to so expect a few quotes on the BOAS discussion in the near future..

Other than that, not much has changed. Christchurch is still suffering earthquakes, though the local geologists are now saying that these “aftershocks” will occur for the next 30 years. That is a long time to wait for stability. Apparently, just as I surmised, there is more than one fault line in question here and as one releases tension it puts more tension on the other which then releases and places the tension back on the first. Really a game of tennis with Christchurch in the middle.

Even though we are out of the tennis court we still are questioning every shake and tremor in the house, was that a truck or an earthquake? In fact my wife just announced as I was writing this that she reckons there was another shake and she is not even looking over my shoulder. I have now got the GeoNet website open on my other monitor to see if she is correct.

We flew out of Christchurch to get to Auckland for Christmas a day after the last big shocks 5.8 followed by a 6.0 an hour or so later. I noticed that the parking layby before the parking building was being over utilised and the parking building drop off area almost empty that day. The aeroplanes were still taking off and that was the main thing for us at that particular moment of time.

When we returned we stopped off at Riccarton Mall, one of the few, if not the only, large malls in Christchurch which did not suffer some major damage due to it’s western location, and I had an argument with Diana as she wanted to avoid the parking building. But after 10 minutes of being stuck in the small outdoor carpark (parking lot) with every other potential shopper I finally managed to convince her the car would be safe in the parking building. And it was, there was not even a 2.0 tremor while we were there.

So now we are safely back in Timaru weary of the shaking ground and thinking of our fellow Kiwis two hours drive north who have a lot more to lose each time the faults play another round of tennis.

Oh and Diana was wrong, it was not an earthquake after all.

 

Cheers and Blessings

 

Peter