Shaken, not Stirred

Today I experienced my first California earthquake. Berkeley, of course, is located directly on top of the Hayward fault, which is why the stadium was built in two pieces with a crack down the middle so it doesn't collapse as the two halves move apart. There's a campus warning system which sends out test alerts, as luck would have it, the first Wednesday of each month at noon. The earthquake happened at 11:34 (truly!), and the test alarm went off 26 minutes later as scheduled. Brilliant.

I was in my boss's office whipping up a cover letter to NIOSH when I heard, rather than felt, the quake. The door was ajar and it sounded like someone was rocking it back and forth to get my attention, or knocking on it wierdly. It lasted maybe two seconds, and I later read it was a 3.4 (truly!) on the Richter scale. There was a 2.8 aftershock later but I didn't notice it at all. The thought of an earthquake crossed my mind, but I just figured someone would have told me if we'd had one. On my way to class I overheard someone mentioning two earthquakes on her cell phone and I called Mike to see if he could find any news on it. He said there was nothing on the wire, and that ergo I had not experienced an earthquake. Apparently 3.4s don't make the news in this part of the world.