Thanks Don. Interesting coincidence. My very earliest childhood memory is of being carried down stairs during the 1952 Tokachi-Oki Earthquake earthquake in Japan. I would have been only 2 y.o., so I'm not sure the memory is real or not. Dad was a Navy cryptanalyst and we lived there from 1951 through 1953, then in England for a couple of years. I've often thought that my interest in seismology originated, like yours, from that early childhood experience. However it was in the later '50s and through the '60's, when I lived in Santa Cruz, CA, that I experienced a succession of moderate quakes (which ultimately turned out to be foreshocks to Loma Prieta), that crystallized my interest. My CDF career, beginning in 1970, had me all over the state, and I managed to miss that one.

Your friend Hal had it right about the work. Unlike municipal firefighting, wildland firefighting is all about work. Hard, physical, grueling 24 to 48 hour shifts. But I loved it. However it never was much of a mental challenge, hence my new career as a student.

As for prediction, I understand that is the main purpose of this forum, but I remain very skeptical. It is the earthquake process I've always found fascinating. Thanks for the welcome (I've been lurking here for years . . . so I feel I know the other members of the zoo fairly well by now!).