Three years ago this past February, I spent three weeks in New Zealand with Daughter #1 and son-in-law #1. At the end of that journey, we visited Christchurch (A), the city near the bottom of the world, and the taking off point for many a visit to the Antarctic (viz. Shackleton, etc).
That the city is named for the Oxford college located across the street from my hubby's, Pembroke College, made it feel a bit like it was related to us (I know, it's a stretch but...).
While there, I spoke to the NZ Knowledge Management Network, thanks to Michael Sampson, the collaboration expert who lives there. After the talk, Michael drove Miranda, Jay, and I to his house outside the city for dinner with the Sampson family, numbering 9 at the time; now there are 11 (including the parents).
So no puzzle whom I thought about when the 7.0 (or 7.1, both reported) earthquake struck yesterday fewer than 20 miles from the city center. Michael's done three posts so far, beginning with one just a few hours after. They're all fine (yay). Here are a few paragraphs:
It's almost 16 hours since the earthquake hit near Christchurch. We had a lot of cleaning up to do - broken glasses, fallen bookcases, bedroom furniture on the ground, a huge mess in the garage, and more. Two garage cupboards collapsed, and so Timothy (8) set to work and put one back together. He worked for at least 2 hours with the drill, and has built it much stronger than it was. There weren't enough screws to finish the second one, but that was started too.
My office computers sustained minor damaged. I haven't been able to turn the iMac on yet, but it almost hit the floor. It was half on my desk, face down, and half off. On the lab desk, the 30" monitor fell off the desk backwards and landed on a pile of books. Again, I haven't been able to test anything yet. My brand new Lenovo W510 got scratched - even before I turned it on.
