Earthquake in Pomona

shakin' it in so. california
Originally uploaded by NicaMom

Here's a photo from the earthquake we just had. the Epicenter was somewhere in or near Pomona at 5.8, no make that a 5.4

I was driving in a cart while it was happening and I thought i hit something hard. I looked around and realized everything else was shaking as well. luckily i wasn't near anything that could have fallen on me. For a split second i thought.
"is this the big one everyone's been talking about?"

thankfully it wasn't.

so for everyone let's remember our earthquake safety from elementary school.

"duck and cover" - duck under a table (preferably not a glass one or one made by ikea) and cover your head.
If no table is nearby stand in a doorway. Bathrooms are also structurally stronger than other rooms.

emergency kit - get some canned food and bottled water to last a few days at least 3 preferably a week.

emergency contact- keep your emergency contact information handy and noted on your phone put an asterisk next to it on your cel. phone so people will know it.

stop drop and roll- no wait... that's for fires.

Architecture: Building or Landscape? (Semantics)

Two months have past. I know but I got too ambitious and found I was too busy to maintain a blog. But not too busy to look at others.


arkhi, chief + tekton, builder

So, I recently filled out a form that asked what my industry was. I looked for Landscape Architecture but it wasn't there and I looked under Architecture and it had two subheadings: Building or Landscape.

Now I find this interesting and I think that this language should be used more often. The next time someone says they are an Architect I will ask "Building or Landscape?" When i refer to what most people call Architects I will call them Building Architects. I plan to make this a normalcy in my vocabulary. After all Both Building Architects and Landscape Architects are Chief builders of their respective fields of the "Built Environment" A landscapes are often built just as buildings are.

My GF who is getting her masters in linguistics always calls me on the use of terms and reminds that words are ever-changing. For example "orientate" was not a word until recently(Got a dictionary over a year old? Look it up.), the correct term is orient but because there is a growing misunderstanding that the root words for ALL words with the suffix -ation usually have the suffix -ate. Hence Orientation causes Orient to become Orientate. Don't buy it? More examples... Conversation makes Converse become Conversate. Registration makes Register become Registrate. ( I actually expected orientate to have a red underline when i typed this but it didn't causing me to change some terms on my post. conversate and registrate still have red underlines)

The use of terms also change the way we think. In the past under forms Hispanics were considered white when marking "white or colored" Asians were also grouped under one heading and even STILL we are often told to "mark only one". The differentiation of races is also a linguistic battle. Because Hispanics were no longer considered white a new minority was developed and it also helped to perpetuate prejudices because they are now "different". On the other hand this helped with the Asian Cause because instead of grouping all Asians and assuming that their cultures languages and customs are all the same by using language on forms to differentiate Asians it is helping people understand that there are major differences (No, I don't speak Asian)

Architect is to Landscape Architect and Building Architect
as
Asian is to Korean and Chinese

So what I am trying to do is change the way we speak which will thus hopefully change the way we think. Architect and Architecture are the Suffixes, Building and Landscape are the Prefixes. Building Architects can't (or at least shouldn't) do landscapes and Landscape Architects can't (or at least shouldn't) do buildings.