I have a confession to make. I am a closet crayon user. Not more than three weeks ago during a series of rainy days, I was bored to tears and was yearning for an outlet for my creative juices. Finally I drove up to the corner Rite Aid store, looked around for something to strike my fancy. Not getting the right vibes from anything, I finally choked and bought one of those dinky 8-crayon boxes and a color by number coloring book.

Got home and spent the entire day happily coloring. Not just coloring by number with the 8 color selection, but blending, shading and texturizing within the lines. Didn't stop until I ran out of pages to color. What is silly is that I have oil paints, color pencils and pastel chalks, but none of those hit the spot like those crayons did. I think it was the unique waxy smell of the crayons that did it.

What a fun day that was. I need to do that again.

What's your favorite color from the big box of 64 or today's 96 color box? I think mine is still cerulean.

There is a complete history of crayon colors (when introduced, when discontinued, etc.) on the Crayola site. Click here: http://www.crayola.com/colorcensus/history/chronology.cfm

Only three colors have changed names since Crayola began in 1903.

Prussian Blue was changed to "Midnight Blue" in 1958 in response to teachers' requests. Seems children were no longer familiar with Prussia.

Flesh was changed to "Peach" in 1962, partially as a result of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Indian Red was renamed "Chestnut" in 1999 in response to educators who felt some children wrongly perceived the crayon color was intended to represent the skin color of Native Americans. The name originated from a reddish-brown pigment found near India commonly used in fine artist oil paint.

Posted on Sat, Dec. 23, 2006

Third earthquake in four days shakes San Francisco Bay Area

Associated Press
BERKELEY, Calif. - The third small earthquake in four days rattled the San Francisco Bay Area Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of injury or damage.

The temblor that struck Alameda County at 9:21 a.m. had a preliminary magnitude of 3.5 and a depth of about 6.1 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The epicenter was about 2 miles from Berkeley, 3 miles from Piedmont and 3 miles from Emeryville, across the bay from San Francisco.

Residents throughout the Bay Area reported feeling the jolt, but Berkeley police said there were no reports of anyone being hurt by the quake.

Saturday morning's earthquake was similar in magnitude and location to temblors that struck Wednesday and Friday.

The three quakes erupted along the Hayward Fault, which geologists believe is due for a large quake in the potentially lethal 6.7 to 7.0 range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayward_Fault

Lots of info on the area around the Hayward fault zone. It includes oil refineries, rapid transit, underground tunnels, underwater transportation tubes, many hospitals, universities, major highway arteries, ports, railroads, sports stadiums, several major bridges, and lots of people all residing on top of or near the fault.

Some planning has been done, but not nearly enough actually put into action.

Most people are told to plan to take care of themselves. Some have emergency kits and family plans. Some companies have safety committees that have written plans. The Loma Prieta quake in '89 did a lot of good in that respect.

I spent most of my life in that area and it is not nearly as prepared as it should be, especially after seeing how well the "disaster planning" helped in New Orleans. I hope I am far enough away from it now. Experiencing another '89 type quake is not on my list of things I want to do again. I have my emergency kit in my closet, just in case.

New Mexico is getting quite a bit of snow the last couple of days. Linda sent me pictures of the front and back of their house in Rio Rancho. Mom had to shovel snow from her driveway and walkways in Albuquerque too.



We're freezing here in Sacramento too. Been down into the mid 20's the last four mornings. Orange crops are going to suffer. Cherry and almonds should do well. They love a good freeze now and then. I've kept the thermostat down to 63 degrees and the furnace is still running constantly.

Been wearing wool socks, leggings and jeans over the leggings, a tank top under a long-sleeve turtleneck sweater and another cardigan sweater over that, topped off with a knitted hat pulled down over my ears. If I get cold, I just step outside on my balcony for a few minutes and then it feels cozy warm when I come back inside. This apartment has no insulation so it is useless to keep the thermostat very high. I've blocked the fireplace opening with cardboard and use a ceiling fan to keep the warmer air down at floor level rather than up in the cathedral ceiling. Post-hysterectomy hot flashes also help.

The roads in the apt complex had ice covering them this morning from the sprinkler runoff the night before. So far, just one plant out on the balcony has wilted from frost. The rest are covered with fallen leaves and seem to be doing alright. No frozen pipes yet. I think we're over the worst of it. Some cloud cover is supposed to roll in tomorrow.

My rant is about the media conglomerates. We had a power failure this evening, first we've had in this area in the 3 years I've been here. Lasted about two and a half hours and started during a heavy downpour and lightning storm.

Stumbled around for candles and matches so I could locate my emergency kit with the faraday flashlights and shake them for 3 minutes so I could then find my portable radio to learn what was going on. Spent a half hour surfing both the AM and FM dials (and shaking the flashlight every couple minutes to recharge it), trying to find some local news or talk show. Even some rap DJ who lives in the area, talking about the darkness that came over the eastern side of the Sacramento Valley, would have been great. Nothing, nada, zip. All 50 or so area call-lettered stations in the area run radio programs by a group of people sitting in Nebraska generating fake local program peppered with local ads so it sounds like the crap emanates from here.

Waded through the flooded parking lot to my car, drove around a two mile area to see how extensive the outage was while continuing to surf radio stations on my car radio.

Guess what?!?!? I could get local traffic and news on two stations! But, one of the stations was in Seattle and the other was in San Francisco and neither gave a flop about Sacramento. They were giving traffic and news reports for the Seattle and San Francisco areas. :::grrr:::

So, now the power is back on and I check the TV to see if there is any news. Nada. Now I've come to the internet to see what I find here. I check in with the local power utility website and find nothing. Switch over to the news websites of the three local TV stations here. Still nothing. Lots of state and national news, but hardly any local news.

So, how do we get local news these days? Do I need to call the radio stations in Seattle and Sacramento and ask them what happened here in Sacramento? 24/7 news coverage is nice, but it doesn't do a thing for us locally. I sure hope someone is around the local media outlets next time we have more than a minor earthquake in the area to let us know about any damage and dangers.