5.6 Magnitude Earthquake 8:04 PM - South Bay

There was a 5.6 magnitude earthquake just a few minutes back in the California Bay Area with the epi center at Alum Rock, two miles away from Evergreen where I live. I was in the backyard disposing the garbage in the trash can and initially thought it was a Haloween prank by the neighbours when the wooden fence next to me was shaking along with the ground beneath for a few seconds.



My brother-in-law, sister, mother and neice were downstairs and all of us rushed into the frontyard lawn. Luckily nothing happened and no damage in property or life.



When I entered my room, the penstand was scattered and thankfully the laptop from which I am blogging now was safe.



This particular picture was broadcasted on Kron news on American Television. I emailed them the pictures in a few minutes.

Top Class Roads

A 2005 Post by me

Two months have flown by since I have left my home sweet home namma Bengalooru - Bangalore. It is natural tendency for human beings to be bitten by the comparison bug. So far during my stay in the Bay Area I have been impressed by the road infrastructure and the law abiding public. The legal system is so strong here that people have no other option than to abide by it. Else they need to face the music irrespective of whoever they are.

Coming back to the roads now . Other than the usual main roads like in India, there are also two other categories of roads. The Expressways and the Freeways.

Flora Vista Avenue. One of the many internal roads which run within the city.



Capitol Expressway. An Expressway is a road where there are limited signals and intersections. The speed limits is usually less than the free ways and is between 45 - 55 miles per hour.


880 Freeway. Freeways are roads where there are no signals throughout the entire stretch and the speed limits is usually 65 - 70 miles per hour. It is a totally different experience to drive on a freeway where the vehicles seem to be cruising. One mistake and it ends up in a multiple crash and a pile up. The rush hours on the Californian roads are during 7 to 10 AM and 3 to 7 PM roughly.


Having a road system and implementing a lane discipline on the lines of this back in Bangalore will be an automatic solution to most of the problems with regards to the population, traffic, infrastructure. What I mean to say is , the government should develop satellite towns around Bangalore , in places like Kengeri, Bidadi, Chennapatna, Ramnagara, Nelamangala, Tumkur , Maddur etc and all these places should be well connected with top class road networks. If easy conectivity is achieved which takes only about 30-45 minutes, automatically industries tend to crop up in these areas and people start moving out from the concentarted hub which is Bangalore. Will this happen? Not with the greedy corrupt politicians around. With the kind of comedy going on in Karnataka today for the power it looks a distant dream.

Barren

The vegetation is barren at the moment. In the days ahead I am waiting to witness the spectacle which the valley is going to offer .. The Evergreen Valley.

These are some shots I captured at around 3 pm in the afternoon. The sun at this season is at its harshest at this time. During summers it is bright till 8 pm. As it starts getting cold with the onset of the winter, the length of the daytime also gets shorter. I heard in December it gets dark as early as 4 pm.





This is the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Actually I identified this using this amazing website I found. Click here

Melancholic Mood

Without even a word being said I feel these pictures I have taken convey the melancholic mood ............. that I am in