The big news here of course was the magnitude 6.8 earthquake that hit the Puget Sound region on February 28th, 2001. It caused widespread damage, but luckily resulted in few injuries and no deaths. We had a few pictures and things fall from the wall, but otherwise managed to escape unscathed.

I was at work at the time, in our 5-story office building that has a parking lot on the roof. Our building is the kind that has concrete slab floors suspended on pillars. I have always wondered if they would all slide down and pancake together if a big quake hit. The earthquake started slowly, like a big truck driving by. Then it started shaking harder and harder, and all the lights went out. It seemed to go forever, and just about the time that it felt like the entire structure would collapse, it stopped. We all bolted for the doors, and were glad to be out of there, especially not knowing if it would start again. There were only a couple of aftershocks, which I did not feel.

The Garland's lost about 30 bricks from the top of their chimney due to the earthquake, so Brett and I spent a Saturday putting it all back together again. We had to do some dismantling first because so many of the bricks were loose, but eventually got down to a point where they were fairly solid.

It was one of those situations where there is no good way to get to the back side, due to the porch and roof in the way of the ladder. We eventually had the ladder going from the side with a board under one leg to send it up at a slight angle to the side, with the top rocking back and forth on the corner of the chimney. A real stable set-up that I am sure OSHA would have had a stroke over.

Anyway, once we had the top securely lashed to a rope tied around the chimney we were able to get to the back side. The bricks had to be replaced the entire way around for about 3 - 4 courses.  

The weather threatened us all day, but in the end cooperated and only sprinkled a couple of times. With much hanging on and countless trips up and down we eventually got the job done. Luckily it is high enough up that you can't hardly tell that anything ever happened; just don't look too hard the next time you visit!

At least the price was right - all the pop and pizza we wanted.   Daniel came along, but got out of the chimney repairs by doing some roto-tilling of the garden. Grampa rented a machine for him to use, and he got $50 for a few hours of walking the beast (the roto-tiller, not grampa) around the garden, and all Brett and I got was pizza for risking life and limb. Sometimes life just isn't fair.