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Today I experienced my first real earthquake – a 5.4 magnitude, not too shabby! The center was about 40 miles away in Chino Hills – click HERE for detailed information from the U.S. Geological Survey. Cal Tech has a recreation of the shock waves, which is the video playing above. A closer view of Los Angeles and Orange County is below:

Apollo and I were in my studio at home around 11:45 am when I heard something like the garbage trucks making a lot of racket (which was plausible since it is trash day). Then it got louder and the ground shook a little, as if they dropped a really heavy trash can. And then it got louder and shook more and I thought, that’s weird. And then the ground got wobbly and I realized that it was an earthquake, not just silly trash people. So I grabbed the dog and stood in the door jam of the bathroom and hallway. The rolling feeling got more intense and I could hear our dishes and china rattling around in the kitchen. At about this time I was starting to think, okay, is this seriously going to keep getting worse? I was watching the plant in the bathroom go back and forth as my indicator of how badly things were shaking. Then the rolling slacked off and left just the shaking, and then everything was quiet. Total it lasted about 12-15 seconds, which seems like a really long time when you’re in the middle of it. Apollo had never experienced an earthquake either so he was barking and shaking the whole time he was in my arms, and afterwards.

Once everything settled down I tried to call Steven on my cell phone, and couldn’t get through to any of this numbers. That actually scared me the most, because I thought power or phone lines might have been damaged, or maybe it was worse where he was. He actually called me a couple minutes later, and he was fine. He was in Burbank at the time, and was on the other side of a mountain when it happened so he only felt a little dizzy for a few seconds. Everyone at his work went outside and tried to call home, like everyone else, so phone lines were busy.

All in all, everything for us personally is fine, and according to the news damage in the area is minimal. Thanks very much to all of you that called or texted to make sure we were ok!