My drive to work entails a scenic drive past Echo Park and Downtown LA, home to the building that gets blown to shreds in Independence Day. I'm actually presently surprised on how fast they were able to rebuild it after the film. It's huge!
Anywho. Before I get back to the books, it was an exciting day. The largest earthquake to hit a populated area of southern California in 14 years hit LA today. 5.4 on the Richter scale. I happened to be in the Operating Room assisting on a prostatectomy. It didn't last very long but the entire hospital shook. It was crazy. After all the shaking stops, your equilibrium is thrown off. Feels just like you stepped off a boat and you have a bad case of the sea-legs. Funny feeling. It was also interesting operating in a hospital that will be closing in a month to move into a new and improved building that is more "earthquake stable".
Well I'm safe. And I learned an important lesson. If an earthquake should occur in the middle of a surgery...just keep operating while listening to Tom Petty's hit single Free Falling* and act like your not impressed. Nobody seemed to care when I announced that it was my first earthquake. I guess I'll just keep it to myself next time.
*The song came on shortly after the earthquake. I couldn't help but chuckle at the irony.
