John,

Did you buy that blue shirt I suggested yet? You should and if you haven't make sure you get it before you go to Seattle.

I wrote this e-mail earlier and I decided to get off of my soap box, erase it and have a serious think on it before I said something I shouldn't have and I'm glad I waited.

Putting this in the most simplistic terms, forget about averaging. This thought process is all wrong because you're heaping information, rather than taking it one step at a time. A classic example is that back in the late 1980's when the Bay Area was having 3.0 quakes far more often than now, the average was that a 3.0 quake would hit the immediate Bay Area every 18 days. Now, it doesn't mean month in and month out it will always happen that way, so in the past when I've predicted inner-bay area quakes and have gotten hits on them someone would throw up that 18 day average thing and I got darn sick of it because at the time there wasn't one 10 days before or 10 days after. Though it may not be intended, it comes off as if this is the easiest way possible to attempt to discredit the prediction or the predictor. It smacks and it isn't funny. In the case I presented to you on this FFA series it worked perfectly, but you won't acknowledge that it did, you just cite some data collection effort and throw the darn thing out. It isn't right.

Here's another simple thought. You find disfavor with Jim Berkland because he uses 140 mile radius every month and sets low end magnitudes so we can get whatever comes through. Yet KB for some reason selects emormous territories and a very large window and somehow KB looks good to scientists, but Jim doesn't. In the big picture isn't it all the same? What is useful? This is what we should ask.

I honestly work hard to do what I do and I am the first to acknowledge I could do much better. But I'm learning one step at a time and these days others are coming to help. I'll learn from them, use what they suggest I use and then I'll do better. I always knew I needed help and at long last it's here. I always thought that maybe someone I met through the years would be that helpful person, but apparently it can't be, so now I have the others.

What does the seeker seek? Knowledge? No. The seeker seeks the teacher to teach them. Most people don't have the answer to that question, though it is very simple.

Petra