Hi All,

I know you're dying to hear about our trip to Sacramento and mixing business with pleasure surely is the only way to go.

The trip there was rainless, Amen. And despite Sacramento's one way streets, we did manage to find our hotel easily and a really good pizza parlor thanks, to my daughter. Pete's is a place where they still fling the dough and a good pizza with hard lemonade for me and beer for Don was a good way to knock off the stress.

I left Don and Jen at the hotel while I took a cab to the Capital building as the schedule was unknown and I didn't want them to sit for hours waiting for nothing. Well, surprise, surprise, AB1576 was second on the agenda so they missed it! Ooops.

I met with my guide from the Seismic Safety Commission first and got the lay of the land, ie: what to do and when. It wasn't nearly as intimidating as I expected it would be. The hearing was before the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development, minus one member. While they took their seats in a semicircle elevated in the room, there was a center table where Assemblywoman Carol Liu, myself, a member from the Seismic Safety Commission and two others who I did not meet beforehand were allowed to seat ourselves with microphones.

As the session began Assemblywoman Liu presented the basis for the legislation citing the new USGS long term probability study, the fact that it only takes a 4.0 magnitude earthquake to unseat an unstrapped water heater, 5.2 million water heaters in rental units are not strapped, which presents possible property damage, injury or loss of life for the tenants. She also cited proponents of the bill were The Seismic Safety Commission, The National Insurance Federation and the Western Center on Law and Poverty with no opponents. I had received prior instructions not to present all of my prepared statements as time was short, so I delivered the parts which I was instructed to deliver. Then we went around the table until everyone spoke.

Shortly after that is when the trouble began. One of the gentlemen who has a seat on the Housing Committee is a builder and said that he retrofits all of his water heaters and apparently assumed everyone else was acting responsibly. When I informed him that was not the case, he countered with suggesting that it was up to the insurance industry to police this issue. However, Assemblywoman Liu informed him as it is not code, it is not something that can be policed. As there was one missing commissioner there was no vote delivered today. Ah shucks!

Therefore, it was over rapidly, short, but not so sweet, but hey, that's life. When the business end is finished is when the fun starts, right? First my daughter wanted to see the squirrels which inhabit the rear gardens of the Capital building. They were really friendly and I just happened to have a granola bar in my purse, so we took turns feeding them. Well, I did once and the sucker bit my finger, so that was it. They would come right to Don and take the food right out of his hands. If they only knew, he shoots them on weekends.

As the Governor's Mansion was only two doors down from our Hotel we took a drive there and had the tour. My first question was whether the mansion was haunted and by golly it is. This beautiful old Victorian is full of period furniture, lots of photos and badly in need of repairs. But from the exterior it is magnificent looking and the grounds are spectacular.

Then we went in search of Old Town Sacramento. This place looks much like Virginia City with the boarded sidewalks and old brick buildings, cute signs and a plethora of shops from candy stores to fine dining. So we decided New Orleans style dining sounded good and ate some mighty fine BBQ ribs with red beans and rice. Yummy.

By that time we were all full and tired and decided it was time to head home. The weather was fabulous, around 70 degrees, sunny and it could not have been a more almost perfect day.

I've been asked to return in the session following the next one which apparently has some sense of importance. So now at least I have a little experience, which surely makes one feel more at ease.

Speaking of being at ease, as most of you know I always comment on Don's driving and this time will be no exception. Don's driving is either getting better or I'm getting used to it. I hope it's the former and not the latter. Just teasing.

Upon arriving home I was chit chatting with my neighbor and inspected his water heater and low and behold, it was not strapped. But he promised he would do it.

But for tonight, we are going to uncork one of the three bottles of soft champagne from my refrigerator and consume it. Our efforts in seismic have reached a milestone in my opinion. We've been where we never expected to go and that's pretty exciting.

From the road less traveled, and so it goes....Petra & Don

• The Seismic Safety Zone