“Ahhhhhhh!!! Everyone hide under your desk! It’s the BIG one!”

“We’re going to die!”

“The sky is falling the sky is falling!”

These were all phrases that I did not hear when the earthquake hit Southern California two days ago. Despite what the media reports, it was generally viewed as mild by Californians. This was however, my first earthquake experience.

I was sitting at my desk, jamming to some tunes, and researching websites at work. Suddenly I felt a shaking but thought nothing of it. I looked up at our large industrial lights and saw them shaking pretty hard. I stood up (not the recommended hide under a desk tactic) and checked out the scene in the office. By the time I stood up and realized what was happening the whole thing was over (I did need to hear someone yell, “Earthquake” for me to fully comprehend the situation).

I sat back down, feeling a sense of accomplishment for surviving my first earthquake. At first I thought nothing of it, thinking that wasn’t too bad. I was quite surprised to hear it was a 5.8 because that sounded much more destructive than what I just experienced. Needless to say, I was online getting the news reports as they came, checking out how it was reported. I saw the same pile of bricks from a fallen building over and over again. Honestly, it wasn’t the circus the media made it out to be.

With that being said, I was a bit worried afterwords. I didn’t realize it at first, but my legs were uncontrollably bouncing for about an hour after the quake. I guess my nerves were shaken more so than I first believed.

Here is a video from the Judge Judy shooting the day of the earthquake. It’s a pretty accurate video of what I experienced that day, except nobody at my office evacuated.

* I’d like to thank the three people who contacted me to see if I was alright (surprisingly Mom and Dad were not on that list). Three people huh? Wow, I’m so loved. Thanks everyone.

Today is my 25th birthday and it’s becoming painfully evident that my maturity is stunted compared to my friends. Everyone around me seems to be getting married or engaged. On the other hand, this video made me laugh out loud at work.

One day I too will get married, have a mortgage, and a white picket fence. Unless a girl can fall in love with someone who laughs uncontrollably at this video, it might be a while.

BusinessGreen.com has reported (well actually a lot of people have) that beginning next year, new cars will be labeled with a carbon emissions tag. The tag will have a number, 1-10, ten being the most efficient, to notify drivers how environmentally friendly the car is. The aim is to shame drivers into driving more environment friendly cars. I hate to break it to everyone, but I don’t need a tag on your license plate to know if your car is a gas guzzler. I’m pretty sure Cadillac Escalades produce rather high amounts of greenhouse emissions. Maybe this will have a positive effect, but honestly, I don’t think there will be too much change. If you really want to shame someone, have them drive my Saturn. It’s possible that I have the dirtiest car in all of southern California and parts of NorCal. However, I have no shame…maybe a Hummer is in my future? Naw.

Have you ever noticed how many different varieties of water there are these days? Water is such a large part of our daily lives. It’s what keeps us alive. Seventy percent of the Earth is covered by water and humans are comprised of roughly 65% water. But I thought water was supposed to be simple. Perhaps it was a long time ago, but today water has been turned in sales in excess of eight billion dollars. How has a simple commodity as water turned into such a lucrative business?

Astonishingly enough, drinking water has evolved over the years. We’ve gone from drinking out of our hands in the creek to pumping it out of a well into a bucket to running water straight from the tap. What a luxury it was to take a glass to your faucet and get water! Pretty soon plain water wasn’t good enough; we had to add fluoride to it. Was this the apex of drinking water? Hardly, soon water from the faucet was taboo. We had to drink water out of a bottle. Bottled water was absolutely pure, no toxins whatsoever. We were willing to shell out a few bucks a bottle of this delicious water. The price per bottle has dropped, due to more companies entering the market (or is it because Americans started to question paying $1.99 for water?) Had this fad ended? Not quite.

Take a look at your local supermarket and observe the copious choices of water. You have “normal” drinking water in plastic bottles. You have fancy water in trendy glass bottles. Same marketing theory applies to sparkling water, plastic for normal sparkling water, glass for the special stuff. Don’t like the taste of plain water? Try flavored water. There is lemon, lime, orange, and berry. Not getting enough nutrition from your water? Try flavored Vitamin water. Feeling a bit depleted from that run? Here’s a bottle of electrolyte enhanced water. You don’t want to twist the top off your bottle? No problem, we have a sport top water bottle with grooves for your finger. We’ve come along way from schlepping water out of our hand from a creek. There are choices on top of choices when it comes to water. If you go to the supermarket and ask someone for a bottle of water, beware, they might ask you what kind you want. You’ll have your pick.

All this talk about water has made me parched. Excuse me while I take a drink of sparkling raspberry vitamin water from its eco-friendly bottle with it’s enlarged easy to drink spout. Water has never been so satisfying. Ahhhh.

I know that I said I wasn’t going to blog for a while, but some news came up that I needed to make public to the BoumanBlog community. My long time friend, Nicki Castona, is officially engaged to Jeff Wolf. Nicki and I met in middle school way back in the 1996-1997 school year. Despite Nicki’s best efforts, we have remained friends throughout the years and I couldn’t be more happy for her. Congratulations to the happy couple, I wish you both a lifetime of love and happiness.

On a related note, I am now available to be someone’s marriage back up. I will be accepting applications immediately.

*Marriage backup: When two friends mutually decide if they are both single at 40 to tie the knot with each other.