I am Moved

Along with the rest of LA, San Diego and as far away as Las Vegas.

Earthquakes, when they are not life-threatening, are interesting. I lived in an earthquake area in China, in a four story concrete building of the kind that typically pancake during severe earthquakes, but luckily, never experienced so much as a shimmy.

So today was my first earthquake. It didn't actually fit any of the descriptions of earthquakes I've heard. It was rolling. Things just kind of shook, and there was a bang somewhere in the middle of it. More interesting was that about half of the audience went outside, and about half of the audience stayed at their desks. I would have thought that the office reaction would neatly divide along the lines of those who had earthquake experience and those who did not. (I went outside.) But it did not.

Immediately afterward, all the Californians were trying to guess what it was on the Richter scale. That is apparently typical. The news says it was between 5.4 and 5.8.

The lights in the office didn't even flicker.

We Are Part of a Trend

Census data shows:

• Texas cities showed rapid growth: Houston added the most people, with 38,932 new residents; San Antonio, Fort Worth and Austin were among the top 10 in numerical increases; and McKinney, Denton and Killeen were among the top 10 in percentage increases.
• Cleveland had the largest numerical decline in population over the latest year, losing 5,067 residents, followed by Columbus, Ga.; Baton Rouge, La.; Philadelphia and Baltimore. Cleveland also had the second greatest rate of loss over seven years, losing 8.3 percent of its population to stand at 438,042.