Musing's musings

Forward, together forward

It was two years ago today that a troubled young man (and an alumnus of NIU) named Steven Kazmierczak walked into a lecture hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University and opened fire on those gathered there, killing five students and wounding sixteen others, before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life. Before I go on, let's pause for a moment to remember those whose lives were cut short untimely on that sad, cold day:

• Daniel Parmenter, age 20
• Catalina Garcia, age 20
• Ryanne Mace, age 19
• Sgt. Julianna Gehant, age 32
• Gayle Dubowski, age 20

I felt the earth move

Not exactly under my feet, as I was in bed at the time, but I did wake up when this morning's earthquake hit. At the time, I thought it was just a very strong wind gust, since we'd been having those all night long and my bedroom is on the north side of my building, which was the direction from which the prevailing wind was blowing. It was a fairly loud rumble, but it stopped, and it was four in the morning--so I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Then when I heard the report on the news just now that an earthquake had struck, I got up and checked things around the house. Didn't see any obvious damage, and nothing had fallen off the walls or shelves (or even moved, really, except for a couple of pictures that were slightly askew). I did notice that my bedroom door had swung a few inches away from the wall, but otherwise everything was as I had left it when I went to bed last night.

Blizzards, snowstorms, hail, tornadoes: those we expect. Earthquakes, not so much.