Personal

5.4 Earthquake rattles St. Louis

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Earthquake… and wakes me up!

I woke up to the sound of things shaking in my bedroom.   Then I could feel the house shake.  The clock said 4:39.  I got up, looked outside but couldn’t see anything.  I walked into my office and could hear things rattling around on my desk. This went on for a couple of minutes before it subsided.  I knew immediately that it was a quake.  It subsided after that.

I turned on the TV and for about 15 minutes there were no news bulletins or anything about the incident.  Then we got the info:

A 5.4 earthquake centered in West Salem, IL shook the St. Louis metro area early Friday morning. The quake happened at 4:37 a.m.  The epicenter is 127 miles from St. Louis.

Reports of feeling the quake are coming far east Illinois and far west and southern Missouri.

More on earthquakes from Wikipedia

Update:

Now, they’re saying it was a 5.2 earthquake.  No real structural damge around here.  There was onh bridge overpass on Kingshighway that was closed for an hour or so becuase some debris fell from it.  It’s a very old bridge anyway… but they determined that it was still structurally sound and they reopened it.  I did hear on the radio that a higheway in Indiana (near the epicenter) had cracked from the quake.

There was an aftershock around 10 am, but I didn’t feel it at work, though I talked to people who did.  They expect a few more of lesser and lesser magnitudes.

Update 2:

Cheryl B sends along a link to the U.S. Geological Service Earthquake Hazards page.  It’s loads of nerdy fun.  You can check out your local quake, get all the info on it and aftershocks.  It’s also nerdy fun to do the “Did you feel it?” and look at the map to see where it was felt, and how intensely.

It shows there have been several aftershocks from this earthquake.    Interesting stuff.

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Die Hard music video

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Language definitely NSFW

This comes from a fellow named Mike Anderson who runs a website, stlmedia,  that deals with St. Louis radio.  I’ve always had a special interest in radio… remember growing up listening to KWK and KXOK as a teenager.  Not sure how many B&P readers would care about St. Louis radio, but I find his stuff very interesting.

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B&P ranked 710th in list of influential blogs

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Well, I’m not sure if it means anything at all, but wikio.com ranks influential blogs and it has ranked Bits & Pieces 710th in it’s list of most influential blogs in the blogosphere. 

I did a little Google research on just how many blogs are out there….

Technorati currently states it is tracking over 112.8 million blogs, a number which obviously does not include all the 72.82 million Chinese blogs as counted by The China Internet Network Information Center. Blog statistics often concern the English language blogosphere but we should not forget about the millions of other blogs that are not always included in estimations.

I find that a little hard to believe… that of all the millions of blogs that Bits & Pieces is ranked 710th in the list of “most influential” blogs.  I know that letting the public know about the recall of Hillbilly Teeth is very important and presenting public safety messages is crucial.  Maybe I’m underestimating the importance of providing guidance on pet maintenance,  household tips, computer repair, hair styles, the animal kingdom, and of course religious practices. 

I think I’ll take my job here as head blogmeister more seriously in the future.

 

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Hillbilly Teeth recalled

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HillbillyTeethIt will be known as the Great Hillbilly Teeth Recall of 2008: Chinese-made ‘Hillbilly Teeth’ recalled.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of about 26,000 packages of Chinese-made “Hillbilly Teeth” due to a health hazard.

The CPSC said the importer, Funtastic of Houston, initiated the recall because gray surface paint on the teeth was found to contain excessive levels of lead, violating the federal lead paint standard.

Thankfully the recall doesn’t affect my Billy Bob Teefes.

Billy Bob teef

via

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This blog is rated EXCELLENT

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ExblawGerard over at The Presurfer presented Bits & Pieces with the “Excellent Blog Award” today. 

The rules state that I now have to award ten other blogs that I find excellent.  I will try to pick ones that haven’t already received the award from someone else (and that’s the hard part).  So what I thought I’d do is select the blogs where I find most of the stuff that I post or that I find very promising newbies.

  • This process was much harder than I expected.  There are just so many that I’d like to include.  I’m leaving out the obvious big ones, like J-Walk, Reddit, Miss Cellania, and some others that always have great content, mainly because they were already awarded the award.

So anyway, hewre are my selection of blogs to be awarded the Excellent Blog Award:

 

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