Wakey Wakey Shakey Shakey

So the other day I was reading in one of my vintage neon sign and lighting books and came across an improvised method to check for impurities in a completed neon tube.  No, not as good as a real spectroscope, as it will not tell you what impurities you have, only if they are present.  It seemed like an interesting concept, one of those old timer’s trade secrets that if nothing else was worthy of some experimentation with the intent of publishing it here.  All well and good.  I also knew that I had some if not all of the needed materials to build the test device down under the house….and I had a couple of days before I needed to leave on my next work trip.  So it seemed a good endeavor to pursue.  But…

I went downstairs and before getting to the box where the materials I needed were, I heard water.  This is an unmistakable sound and when heard inside either a basement or a boat, it is usually an unpleasant sound.  Abandoning my initial parts search, I quickly located the small torrent of water and the resultant puddle.  A pipe had corroded through and a nice little stream was spraying out.  Ugh.  So with more than a few choice words, I set to work on this unscheduled maintenance item.  I was able to solder up enough of a patch to get by, but could tell that the entire section of pipe needed replacement since other places showed similar damage and would likely soon take the opportunity to provide additional water outlets in new and interesting places.  So, after a fitful night’s sleep that included a bad dream of having set something on fire with the blowtorch–I actually woke up thinking I smelled smoke.  The mind can play some very realistic tricks on you.  …trick or not, I checked the house and even went downstairs at 0330 to make sure all was well.  It was.  And my makeshift patch was fine too.  So, Thursday, I obtained new pipe and fittings and went back downstairs to work on replacing the section.  This, naturally, did not go as smoothly as planned as there is a BIG difference between soldering up copper that is new and that is old, wet, and intent on continuing to drip.  And, thanks to a diet, we had no bread to use for the temporary dissolving stopper trick that is so helpful in these situations.  So.  I was unable to gain a good flow of solder and had the opportunity to do it over again after “borrowing” some bread from our daughter who lives around the corner.  This whole process also involved more choice words.  Much like the father in “A Christmas Story” it is a bit of a coping mechanism for me….never directed at anyone, just general bitching.  ….and some would say, I work in that medium with some degree of expertise as I weave my own tapestry of profanity.  Part of the reason for this has to do with the house itself.  We do not have a real basement, it is just a half-assed one of about 4 to 5 feet deep….perfect if you are a dwarf or a hobbit, but no good otherwise….at my age, working while partly bent over is not ok and only leads me to be more akin to a dwarf named “Grumpy.”   But.  It all got done.  And I got to sleep Thursday night so that I could awake Friday nice and sore from the effort and rested well enough to know it.

So, Friday, I was supposed to leave on a business trip.  This trip was to have me fly down to Los Angeles, pick up some Lidar equipment in Santa Maria, and deliver it to Bend, Oregon where I would help install it to a helicopter to go do a job in South Dakota.  Such a trip, in addition to the obvious monetary benefits, would also allow me to stop and visit several neon folks along the way whom I regularly converse with on forums such as Facebook.  And that is always a nice thing to get to do!  Therefore, Friday morning I was drinking coffee and tying up a few loose ends (like paying the internet bill) prior to packing up to leave that evening.

So, right around 8:28 or 8:30, I heard the unmistakable rumble.  Much like an approaching locomotive….but not quite the same.  As the sound intensified, the building began to vibrate.  No, slummy or not, we do not have tracks running past the house.  This was an earthquake.  I’ve been in earthquakes many times, it is part of living up here, but this one was more intense than most I’ve experienced.  The shaking became violent enough that I put my hands up on a few items on a shelf in order to keep them there.  About this time, the lights began to flash on and off and my coffee removed itself from the cup that remained sitting on the workbench…and then, darkness enveloped me as the power failed.  After a bit the rumbling and bits of miscellaneous stuff skittering about came to an end and I found my immediate problem was standing barefoot in my robe in the workshop in the dark and knowing that, since I do neon work in there, that newly placed broken glass on the floor was a near certainty.  One of the items I collect is vintage flashlights of various types.  And as if to add insult, none were within arm’s reach of where I stood.  After some careful and methodical movement, I located one–remarkably still where I’d left it.

After confirming that Elizabeth and our dogs were ok, we began doing a quick assessment of the place.  No gas leaks, no water leaks (thankfully, as I sure didn’t want to redo that job again!!) and no apparent structural damage here. Pulled out the small generator, the one I keep indoors so it is always warm and ready, and got it going to run some lights and to, potentially, be used to preheat the larger units that stay out in the cold.  The latter was not necessary as the power was back on within an hour.  We had water in 5 gallon jugs, extra food, etc.  One can never be as prepared as one wants to be, and with each new minor disaster you learn a few new things (flashlights with glowing markers will be an addition for us) but we are generally better prepared than some.  Upon closer inspection we found no damage to the house and only a few minor things knocked about.  Only one picture had fallen.  And our thousands of books were still shelved….and the shelves still standing.  Wow.  Pretty good for a 7.0 just 11 miles away.  One benefit of the “less than desirable” part of town….the ground here is more geologically stable, if not as pretty, than the other side of town.

Of note is that other than roads and infrastructure damage, most buildings here came through this in good order.  Damaged, sure, but nothing fell and crushed anyone….much unlike similar magnitude quakes in other parts of the world.  We were fortunate…..partly just plain fortunate, but partly fortunate to have learned from the lessons of the big 1964 quake that decimated the area.  The building codes here are a pain in the backside…until you find yourself sitting in a warm house sipping coffee and having a hot breakfast an hour after the place was rattled as if placed into the hardware store paint mixer.

Needless to say, with this disruption, the multitude of aftershocks, airport closures, and our poor little dogs being traumatized I did not go on my trip.  I also did not get that internet bill paid until later in the day.  Nor did I get to build that test instrument to play with.  Oh well…another day.

I should also add that absolutely NONE of my neon artwork was broken.  NONE of it.  All of the stuff I’ve made and put here at home, and even the pieces I put in the antique store booth all survived.  Even the Cleveland Clock that took the express elevator ride to the concrete floor.  All still working.  As for the rest of the items in that booth and the store in general, well….with all those shelves and trinkets and glass and pottery….well….it looked like a heard of buffalo ran through it after being startled by a hand grenade. The nature of such a place I suppose.  But we cleaned up our booth and helped with some of the other cleanup there as well and it should reopen tomorrow.  I should have an “Earthquake Sale”   …you know, “Come quick, these deals won’t last, items are flying off the shelves!”

As the aftershocks are mostly subsiding, the dogs…and us, are therefore calmer and other than an apparent tooth failure (I have painfully rotten timing.) all is well and more sleep is possible without being startled awake every half hour with the new shaking.

Hopefully, my contract work projects will get shifted around such that I will still be able to do another rotation before Christmas, the toothache will get fixed, and I will still get around to making that test article in the near future.