Doesn't everybody just totally LOVE those kinds of people whenever you ask them ANYTHING, I don't care what it is...you always get an "oh I don't know" or "oh I'm not sure" or "oh I wish I could, but I can't..." I really can't stand dealing with these types of people, and I want to scream at them to grow some sort of a back bone, speak up for themselves, and stop being so damn scared of whatever it is they are scared of....That's why I'm working so hard in my college classes so that I can get away from people like this who can never make up their mind on anything...I'm surprised that they can even decide when to go to the bathroom on their own they're so afraid they might offend someone else...OMG get a life people, puhhhhleesssseee.... (huge eyeroll)
wishy washy: Lacking in strength of character or purpose; ineffective. http://www.answers.com/topic/wishy-washy#ixzz1f9QYUvSA
It seems to me the months that I want to end and get over with are always the absolute most longest...I still can't believe this month is NOT over with....Everything is over with...Thanksgiving is done and over with, Christmas has been shoved at us since summer, now that we have Christmas stuff staring us in the face, next month society will start with Valentine's Day...I'm sure everyone has heard the crazy stories that happened here all over the country on Black Friday...I wouldn't get in that mess for anything...I did my holiday shopping online and was just fine with that...Not the crowd person at all, and I definately don't wanna be pushed and shoved, shot at, pepper sprayed or ran over with a car, or knocked down, and trampled on...That doesn't sound exactly enjoyable to me...I have no idea why others would want to put themselves through that...I guess to impress everyone else around them...Me on the other hand, I stopped caring about impressing others decades ago... Only 2 more days to go I hope the rest of this year flies by like crazy...I'm sooo ready to get my life and my own place back... here's my husband's website again everyone.....http://airmanartless.com/
...and boy, am I EVER ready for them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I've been fuming most of today over something that happened way this morning whenever I woke up and got on Facebook first things as always....I could not believe what I saw....Someone that was in crochet class with all year, posted some "fun" thing where you put others names under labels....When I saw my name on there, I about fell over...This is someone who NEVER speaks to me, we're just in class together, and that's it. We don't get along, we don't see things eye to eye, and she has the nerve to go and publicly call me names and post it all over the internet....This is how it went..."Facebook is a fairytale, go to your friends list, and place them in order with the ones that you see first....enjoy!!!!"
Evil Queen:
Goody-Goody:
Secretly Evil:
Summer Hero:
Good-gone-bad:
Bad-gone-good:
Damsel in distress:
Knight in shining armor:
The Evil Queen's sidekick:
Rightful Queen:
She goes and puts me down as a "goody goody" cause I'm such a perfectionist, on the President's Honour Roll at my University, a Straight A student, always making something, still in touch with my students from before, I have no trouble making friends, I love being in college again, and can't stand to be tied down to one spot for anyone or anything...Someone like her just can't stand that...oh, and I never do anything to get into trouble either...I went a few weeks ago and helped build a playground for the kids here in Oklahoma...or rather I did artwork for part of the day with them, went on a nature walk around the lake, things like that while everyone else did the building stuff cause I'm not a builder...I can't even hammer a nail, but I still had a blast...I think we may have been on the tv, cause news crews were out there, but I sure didn't see anything...I never can sit still long enough to watch tv...Things like that, and this bitch goes and puts a label on me and posts it for the world to see like she's known me since my birth whenever I'm older than she is....I'm just like "wow I can't believe these people are so hateful and jealous of me...I haven't even done anything to them..." Oh, and I also started a group for St. Jude's Children't Hospital...She obviously can't stand anything about me, and is doing and trying everything to run me down, and tell everyone else about it....So I can do the same thing...she's messed with the wrong person...I'm setting up an appointment with the Base Commander this next week, and going there with my husband whenever he gets here in January sometime. I'm filing another formal complaint where it will go on their record permanetely...I've done it bsfore, and that takes an entire day....Then we will be off to Alaska, and she can't touch me or do anything...I'm getting her for spreading lies about me and causing trouble over the internet...I can't understand this attitude, my reason exactly for NOT wanting to ever hang out with military people of any sort....All they ever want to do is fight and argue....I'm done with my "fun" classes...I finished my quilt that took me 2 months to make, and I'm picking it up this next week, and finishing the rest of it here at home...But there is no way I'm going back there for anything now that I know how she and everyone else categorizes me and acts nice to my face....biggest liars I have ever encountered in my life....don't ever trust anyone who runs down your country or your state, cause they run you down as well behind your back....I've been through every bit of this and back again, so I know all too well how that works...
Black Fridays are so not for me...I heard of stories today of people getting trampled, and actually killed by being stepped on by over 200 people for them to get in some store to get ahold of the new Xbox video game system....Most were after the electronics...I don't know really...I have everything for my house, so I don't care to go through that kind of misery every single year over STUFF that is there the whole entire year long....I did my Black Friday shopping online, and was just fine with that...I still got the deals and the sales, all without having to deal with crazy people....So thankful for the internet...I can shop anywhere in the world without ever having to deal with anyone, being poked at, pushed, shoved, pepper-sprayed trampled or yelled at...I wouldn't give up this kind of convienience to go and deal with crowds ever...
Police: Woman anxious to get Xbox uses pepper spray on other Black Friday shoppers, 20 injured
LOS ANGELES — A woman trying to improve her chance to buy cheap electronics at a Walmart in a wealthy suburb spewed pepper spray on a crowd of shoppers and 20 people suffered minor injuries, police said Friday.
The attack took place about 10:20 p.m. Thursday shortly after doors opened for the sale at the Walmart in Porter Ranch in the San Fernando Valley.
Retailers expect more people to be shopping between Thanksgiving and Sunday, but retail chains such as Toys R Us and Gap are opening earlier and offering more markdowns, which could mean lower profits for most retailers.
Shoppers line up in New York's Times Square and around the nation to begin the holiday shopping season. Americans are expected to spend nearly $500 billion over the next month. (Nov. 25)
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The store had brought out a crate of discounted Xbox video game players, and a crowd had formed to wait for the unwrapping, when the woman began spraying people “in order to get an advantage,” police Sgt. Jose Valle said.
“Faces were red,” shopper John Lopez told ABC News Radio. “This one guy was coming up to my wife going, ‘Call an ambulance! Call an ambulance!’”
Matthew Lopez, 18, told the Los Angeles Times he heard screaming and yelling.
“Moments later, my throat stung. I was coughing really bad and watering up,” he said.
In the aftermath, video showed dozens of shoppers milling around while employees urge them to back up and make room.
It was the only major violence reported at a Southern California store involving Black Friday Thanksgiving holiday sales.
Ten people were slightly injured by the pepper spray and 10 others suffered minor bumps and bruises in the chaos, Valle said. They were treated at the scene.
“People could have gotten trampled,” he said. “Good thing there were no small kids.”
The woman got away in the confusion, but it was not immediately clear whether she got an Xbox, Valle said.
“Walmart is going through register receipts to see if it was purchased,” he said.
The store remained open and those not affected by the pepper spray kept shopping.
“This was an unfortunate situation. We’re glad everyone seems to be OK,” Walmart said in a statement. “We’re working with law enforcement to provide what information we have, such as surveillance video, to assist in their investigation.”
The woman could face felony battery charges if she is found, Valle said.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Rabbi Wolpe
A Jewish Thanksgiving blessing
I am not thankful for cruelty.
Not thankful for the small pettiness embroidered in our characters.
I am not grateful, Dear God, for the hunger and hurt that plague us.
I cannot thank you for the ways, large and small, that we scar our neighbor’s hearts,
Coax tears from angry eyes
Wound those whom we love,
Shame and hurt one another.
But my God, my rock, I am so grateful that you taught us to see;
So we can heal the hurt, soothe the pain,
Raise those who are bowed down.
We are thankful for blessings, oh Lord, but also for the gift of giving blessing.
I started a new group today on Facebook if anyone else out there wants to join...It's under the name "Showing Love For St. Jude." It's the Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee that we passed last week....It got me to thinking of the kids in there how they are ALWAYS there, and can't leave, they are sick with cancer, and yet they still remain happy no matter what...Since I learned to crochet this year, and also learned a variety of other artistic talents, I decided to put them to good use...This year it's too late to send a huge package stuffed with everything imaginable to St. Jude, but next year, I can work the whole year with others and have it ready by next Christmas...Anyone really with any kind of talent is welcome to join cause I truly want to make a difference in these kids lives...I've had it with the complainers, the whiners, the bellyachers, the negativity, the backstabbing, the lying, the acting nice to your face and pretending they're you're friend when they are just the total and complete opposite...the list goes on and on....Not sure how long it will take to launch this group, but I think I have a pretty good feeling that it will succeed....
I spent another day packing and rearranging everything again...Same thing again tomorrow 3rd day of it...I think I'm almost done with this but it's just boring and dragging out too much...I've got everything you can imagine and have no idea what to do with any of it....I watched a few documentaries, then decided I needed a laugh after so much seriousness cause I'm not that way at alll....I laugh at everything all the time...nope I haven't made myself throw up anymore over laughing so hard, but it really did happen...My stomach was aching for 2 days after that one... I came across this article on the worst kind of passwords, and about fell backwards when I came across this one comment.....
I always liked "Ablowjob" until I was sick at home and had to give the password to my former female supervisor"http://finance.yahoo.com/news/25-worst-passwords-2011-revealed-202955980.html I think I'm okay now but wow that was just beyond funny...would love to meet that guy..I'm always around such boring serious people, so I'm thrilled to meet others who actually have a sense of humour like that....
I go to the OSU-OKC branch here in the city...The main OSU campus is 2 hours away from us here. There was a plane crash back on Thursday, and I just found out about it whenever I finally got home...The pilot was 81 years old, and crashed into the side of a mountain in Arkansas....Right where we passed through, but I didn't hear or see anything...The video of the plane crash and them bagging up the bodies is a little bit too much for me to watch....There was another plane crash exactly 10 years and 10 days ago from this one...It was very hard to hear this, esp. since my University is 2nd in the nation on football...I'm not into sports at all, but I'm glad to be attending one of the top Universities out there....Everyone is still heartbroken over it, and I'm going to get my orange ribbon tomorrow...take care everyone....I thought this song was fitting to the situation....a little more difficult than the other one, but I still love it and work on it when I can....http://abcnews.go.com/US/osu-coaches-die-plane-crash-worst-nightmare-university/story?id=14983605 http://www.kfor.com/news/local/kfor-son-loses-both-parents-in-fatal-osu-plane-crash-20111118,0,3507605.story
(my dream house!!!)"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home...."
Today we finally went out to our farm after being away for so long. We found out someone had broken into it, and we finally got to see what they were talking about. Whoever it was, busted out the glass in the kitchen window and just opened the door...They took whatever they wanted...dressers, clothes, family heirlooms that are irreplaceable, fine china, a lawn mower we had there, pulled the mattresses completely off the bed, threw everything out of drawers on the floor, it was really sad. But a house out in the middle of no where on 130 acres is an easy target for anyone to take advantage of....what used to be a fun and friendly place to go, was nothing now but a broken down depressing looking place with broken glass laying all around, and parts of the roof caving in...It was my grandparents farm, then it got passed to my parents, they didn't do anything with it since my grandparents died, I don't want it, so we've really no use for it. I have no interest in running a farm or living out in the middle of no where. I wouldn't know anyone, and I'm just not a small town person....I've never suffered a break-in, but I have now, and it's completely heart breaking. I have no idea who would do this, and be able to use things that wasn't even theirs, and can use them everyday without feeling any guilt. I managed to get a few things, pictures, the family bible, small items, but it wasn't what I came for really. I was expecting to end up with more furniture, but it looks like we're going to just have to end up buying it. This is my last night here, and we drive back tomorrow....this was really just a wasted trip and seeing that upset me even more....The tree we all used to sit under and talk in the summers was struck by lightning or suffered ice storm damage....it had 4 different splits in it, so it looked dead.....The front porch we always used to sit on when we were kids growing up was covered in building supplies and tools fixing up the parts that had caved in....The outdoor furniture was compltely gone, most likely stolen, and just everything inside was trashed....I was crying for a good 2 hours it was just sad someone doing that to us, and not feeling any remorse how hurtful that behaviour is....I think I'm okay now, cause things can be replaced, but it's just where they came from and who they belonged to. We can't get them back, we have no idea who did that, or even when it happened living 4 states away....So I'll be glad to get back home...Not sure what I'm doing for Thanksgiving...I'm really not in a celebrating kind of mood and the movers come sometime next month...It's not even 7pm and I'm totally exhausted and ready to sleep....It was nothing but moving stuff again today...I've been through that so many times, just talking about it makes me tired...thanks for your support everyone who's been talking to me along the way while I've been gone.....talk with you all soon....
I absolutely LOVED my time in downtown Memphis, Tennessee today!!!!! It didn't last very long, but I got to see the beautiful sites of Memphis....This is St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital...A place that I've heard so much about, and now I can finally say that I have see it in beautiful downtown Memphis...This is where they send kids from all over the country and the world, who have cancer...I was soo happy that I got to see it finally since I want to spend Christmas there sometime, and not be worrying about getting ready to move....My heart was breaking when I had to leave Memphis, and move on to Mississippi...I"m counting the days and hours until we go back and we go through Memphis again just so I can see it again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish that we weren't so pressed for time, or I would have spent the rest of the month there....Well everyone knows my weakness now!!! Just show me a big city, or take me to one, and I'm gone!!!!! Totally sold on it I mean.....Memphis is outstanding and totally life-changing....anyone who hasn't been I definately recommend it and also Nashville...totally unforgettable and beyond gorgeous.....It's soooo cold here now though....LOVE IT.....
We left today on our roadtrip and made it as far as Arkansas...Almost halfway, but we ran into some mishaps. Couldn't find keys to this and that, then they wouldn't fit, left the keys in, and slammed the door, and they automatically locked. So we were locked out in the rain waiting for the locksmith to get there...I forgot about half of what I was supposed to bring, and had to find Wal-Marts along the way to pick up more than a few things...We drove through Eastern Oklahoma...wow it really is beautiful there. The trees were all changing color for fall, and I've never really been there...It's so far to come out there, so I never really think about it, and not sure what to do in towns I really don't have anything to take care of anyways....Checotah, Oklahoma was really beautiful..A lot of trees, woods, friendly people, and just a simple lifestyle. It's up by Tulsa about 100 miles from the city where I live at now....I leave the city and am just completely amazed on what else is out there....I nearly finished one entire project of mine today, working on it for like the past 8 hours straight. I'm sooooo thankful I didn't get motion sickness either or we would have been stuck the rest of the day with me being totally nausiated like I was with a bunch of kids on the boat when we went and did that ridiculous whale watching....Here's just a heads up....Whenever you go whale watching....you don't see the full whale..you see the back and the end of the tail...The only way to see a full whale is a photograph or a video. Never again on that for me...I never felt so sick ever being on a rocking boat that got to me after about the first 15 minutes....I"m thrilled to pieces cause we're going through about 5 different states and I"m gonna get shot glasses from everyone of them...nope I don't use them...I don't even drink...I love the artwork on them though all together...Each one has a different picture, and each one holds a different memory...I started that back in Italy and it grew on me...Tomorrow I'm going through the Great State of TENNESSEE!!!!!!!!!! Oh how I've missed it!!! Can't wait to see Memphis again!!!!!!!!!!!! Good night everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well my plans sure changed within the last 8 hours...I wasn't expecting to go anywhere, but now it's on again, and I'm leaving for our farm in the morning...I'm picking up a few things to bring with me to Alaska since the movers will be here next month to collect everything, and my parents will sell it off for good sometime next year..So this will be my very last time to go there ever....Really it was my grandparents farm, but they both died, so we got stuck with it. None of us here from a big city wants to move out to a small town and live on a farm. Esp. me. I wouldn't last 10 minutes in a place like that....It's miles away from anything, the roads aren't even paved, it's a dirt road still, very bumpy, and it's out in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing around there, no internet service, no shopping centers, no malls, no activities, no base, I'm surprised they even have electricity and running water out there...So that's gonna be my week...I've got a very long road trip ahead of me tomorrow, it will take about a day and a half to get there, and another 2 days to get back here...I hope to find hotels along the way that have internet so I can connect on here so I don't go out of my mind...I hope to be back by the weekend (late Sunday I'm aiming for) I desperately want to still be gone to purposely miss some dinner with my in-laws at their church. I don't care for that really, cause I'm not Baptist, have no interest in it, and don't want to be around people who are. They are just quirky and weird to me, and if you don't agree with everything they say and do, then they automatically have a serious problem with you..That's the story of my life right there in a nutshell...So if I'm still gone by then, and I'm going to make sure that that will definately happen, I'll miss going to that which will be perfectly fine with me.....Fingers crossed!!!!!!!! talk with you all soon when I get the chance..
When I lit knelt down last night, and lit a candle last night and prayed, when I stood back up I felt immdiately changed like the burden from Japan and reoccuring nightmares no longer was with me....I have full and complete confidence that my ultimate dream goal of a lifetime will work out, even if it's several years from now, I will at least have the experience....I'm grateful to everyone I know on here, the longer I know all of you, the more and more you all mean to me cause I move around so much and it's so hard to meet people and start all over again...It really helps to get to talk anytime and whenever I need it, no matter what part of the world I'm in, I always have someone to talk to, listen to me whine it out, and tell me to hang in there, that whatever it is it will all be over soon.....Sometimes I want things to be over, and other times, I want them to never ever come to an end...Even though everything else does end at one time or another, I truly hope that none of my friendships don't...best wishes everyone...I'm still packing for Alaska, I have less than 100 days left here now...It just hit me today how much I'm going to miss it here now since I won't be coming back to live here for the rest of this decade...So glad to have gotten the opportunity to get out of Japan and get to experence life at my fullest once again...I truly and deeply feel so totally ALIVE all over again...
Well I've finally stopped laughing (for now) about what happened earlier, but I'm still aching all over like crazy....I've never ever before made myself sick from laughing so hard....I think it's getting worse cause I seem to think everything's funny...just can't hold back though...wow the stuff some people say sometimes just about kills me...I'm lucky to still be here and alive..... xxxxxx
One of my friends off facebook (who lives here in the same state as me) invited me to a conference over the weekend...I can't go of course cause my whole entire weekend is booked solid through Sunday night, and the regular week hasn't even ended yet...So I'm thrilled to be making other friendships, and getting totally rid of the negative people in my life...Don't like the negative comments, or hearing them complain every minute...It totally ruins my mood, my day, just my everything and I've been in a way better mood than I usually am on Thursday nights when I come home from class...Not one of my college classes, it's just a class I take for fun, just an outlet for something to do other than studies....I was curious about that, and looked up books about it on here, and found sooo many that I want to get a few of them for Christmas...Ones called like "The Two-Legged Snake" talking about manipulative people, mostly how they go to these social events, and want all the attention and everything else turned to them, "Who's Pulling Your Strings??" exactly what I say all the time, and my responce to people when they try and tell me what to do, I tell them I'm not a puppet....Yes I feel very strongly about that someone coming to something and treating it like their own personal therapy session...These girls did that in my Psychology class back at my other college...The whole entire time all they talked about was their pregnancy experiences, and just cause I didn't join in, they had a problem with that...Uhhh NEWS FLASH BITCHES.....IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT A "PREGNANCY EXPERIENCE, YOU HAVE TO HAVE ALREADY GONE THROUGH A PREGNANCY TO SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH OTHER PEOPLE....IF YOU HAVEN'T, THEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT CAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW THE EXPERIENCE, AND PERSONALLY, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW....So I'm done with people trying to take over small parts of the world at a time, they might not like it, but hey, I don't like it either...everyone is entitled to have an opinion good or bad, and I have no problem making friends if people hollar at me all the way across the parking lot to get my attention just to come over to talk with me.....Don't let others out there manipulate you and take over cause that is exactly what they will try and do, esp. if they are starved for attention!!!!
So I just realized that I have less than 6 weeks of my semester left, and I will have completed another entire year of college...I'm looking on doing this for the next some odd years, since I can't take being/working with kids who just graduated from high school and think they know everything and insist on smarting off to me whenever they don't know anything to start with, and still live with their freaking parents. I've managed 4 apartments, found our first house in Italy on my own, moved all over the world, went to Sydney, Australia on my own to get off that ridiculous island that I was living on at the time, and the last thing I want to hear is someone sitting there complaining about getting in fights with their boyfriend or parents and taking it out on everyone else. So I've at least accomplished one huge event this year, and will most likely pick up in the summer semester up in Anchorage, since I won't be making the spring. I've kept up with the projects, and brought them around to show to others, leaving them speechless of course, so I kind of understand where their "holier than thou" attitude comes from at times. My talent is in Art, and no one knows that, until they see it...I was reading on one of my books today, another Psychology one, since I don't do the fantasy stuff, and read on like 5 different books at a time, including my college ones. Here's an insert of a part that caught my attention. This is from "The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls"
"As one freshman put it, "your friends know you and how to hurt you. they know what your real weaknesses are. They know exactly what to do to destroy someone's self worth. They try to destroy you from the inside." Such pointed meanness, can stay with you for your entire life, It can define who you are." Where relationships are weapons, friendship itself can become a tool of anger. You can, have a friend, and then go over there and become friends with somebody else, just to make them jealous."
I find that to be very true as I've been through that I don't know how many times. I'm old enough now, to know how to recognize it, and cut it off before having to deal with all the drama that follows along with it. I went through that with one of my friends. We'd known each other since we were one year old, grew up together, went to camp together, birthday parties, slumber parties, dance lessons together, spent weekends together, went to concerts together...the list just goes on and on...It was about high school, and she went and moved to a small town outside the city limits. Then suddenly she was calling me a "snob from the city", and I couldn't understand why since we'd known each other our whole lives and had done everything together. I had no control over where I lived or where I was born in the world, just like no one else does....Pretty hurtful for someone who you have spent so much time with and invested nearly your whole life into. I found out that she was making other friends, getting accustomed to living in a new town, and I basically was being shoved out of her life, and replaced by others who she had barely known a week. Really shallow if you ask me, but I can't control other people's emotions and temperment. So yes this does go on, but a lot of it is left unspoken...
An Earthquake and A Tornado are happening at the same time.....
WHERE ARE THESE COMING FROM!?!?!?! WE NEVER GET EARTHQUAKES LIKE EVER!!!!!!!!!!! I felt a rumbling, and a little shaking, not as bad as the other night, and then everything just stopped....Now it's all over the tv's, internet, and being discussed on every single page you can think of....People who have never been through these are totally freaked out, this was like my 6th one now that I have actually felt...They keep happening more and more, and closer together all in the same areas....Yeah, moving to Alaska doesn't sound so bad at all now that Oklahoma seems to becoming a lot like California with an earthquake faultline running underneath...It's sad to see that some homes were damaged, but at least no one was harmed from these earthquake surprises....Experts: Okla. quakes too powerful to be man-madeWASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of times every day, drilling deep underground causes the earth to tremble. But don't blame the surprise flurry of earthquakes in Oklahoma on man's thirst for oil and gas, experts say.
The weekend quakes were far stronger than the puny tremors from drilling — especially the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing. The weekend quakes didn't have the mark of man. They were a force of nature.
Hydraulic fracturing, called fracking, involves injecting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals deep underground to break up rock. While that may sound like it could cause an earthquake, experts say the process doesn't pack nearly the punch of even a moderate earthquake.
The magnitude-5.6 quake that rocked Oklahoma three miles underground had the power of 3,800 tons of TNT, which is nearly 2,000 times stronger than the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
The typical energy released in tremors triggered by fracking, "is the equivalent to a gallon of milk falling off the kitchen counter," said Stanford University geophysicist Mark Zoback.
In Oklahoma, home to 185,000 drilling wells and hundreds of injection wells, the question of man-made seismic activity comes up quickly. But so far, federal, state and academic experts say readings show that the Oklahoma quakes were natural, following the lines of a long-known fault.
"There's a fault there," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle. "You can have an earthquake that size anywhere east of the Rockies. You don't need a huge fault to produce an earthquake that big. It's uncommon, but not unexpected."
But there's a reason people ask if the quakes are man-made rather than from the shifting of the Earth's crusts.
In the past, earthquakes have been linked to energy exploration and production, including from injections of enormous amounts of drilling wastewater or injections of water for geothermal power, experts said. They point to recent earthquakes in the magnitude 3 and 4 range — not big enough to cause much damage, but big enough to be felt — in Arkansas, Texas, California, England, Germany and Switzerland. And back in the 1960s, two Denver quakes in the 5.0 range were traced to deep injection of wastewater.
Still, scientists would like to know if human activity can trigger a larger event. The National Academy of Sciences is studying the seismic effects of energy drilling and mining and will issue a report next spring.
"This is an area of active research," said Rowena Lohman, a Cornell University seismologist. "We're all concerned about this."
One issue is that areas that are prone to earthquakes are also places where oil and gas flow along fractures, experts said. In some studies, scientists have taken earthquake data and, like detectives, tracked its causes to deep injections of lots of liquid under high pressure, such as ones that peaked at magnitude 3.3 at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport in 2008 and 2009, said USGS geophysicist William Ellsworth. The Switzerland quake was in the city, Basel, so it did cause damage, he and others said.
"How big an earthquake might we trigger? That is an open question at this point," Ellsworth said. "We do know we can trigger magnitude 5 earthquakes."
When lots of liquid is injected into the ground it changes the stress and pressure in a place that probably already was a fault, said Oklahoma Geological Survey seismologist Austin Holland. Putting the liquid in is similar to injecting water between two adjacent bricks, it allows them to slide more easily and "the water under pressure is helping push the bricks apart ever so slightly," Holland said.
Holland, who has documented some of the biggest shaking associated with fracking, compared a man-made earthquake to a mosquito bite. "It's really quite inconsequential," he said.
Hydraulic fracturing has been practiced for decades but it has grown rapidly in recent years as drillers have learned to combine it with horizontal drilling to tap enormous reserves of natural gas and oil in the United States.
About 5 million gallons of fluid is used to fracture a typical well. That's typically not nearly enough weight and pressure to cause more than a tiny tremor.
Earlier this year, Holland wrote a report about a different flurry of Oklahoma quakes last January — the strongest a 2.8 magnitude — that seemed to occur with hydraulic fracturing. Holland said it was a 50-50 chance that the gas drilling technique caused the tremors.
That is the largest tremor associated with fracking in the scientific literature, experts say. And the strongest of this weekend's natural quakes, magnitude-5.6, released nearly 16,000 times the energy of the worst from that January flurry.
An industry-funded study into a 2.3-magnitude tremor in June near a fracking site in England linked the drilling activity to the quake, but it was a "worst case scenario" of fluid injection into the exact wrong place in a fault, said German geologist Stefan Baisch, lead author of the study.
But wastewater from hundreds of wells is often collected and disposed of deep underground through so-called injection wells. In Lincoln County, Okla., where the recent earthquakes hit, there are approximately 1,982 active oil and gas wells, according to Matt Skinner, spokesman for the state agency that oversees oil and gas production. There are 181 injection wells.
These wells pump wastewater often much deeper underground, all day and all night, for years. The weight and pressure from all of this fluid has been known to cause relatively large earthquakes, including recently in Arkansas, home to another large shale gas field.
After a swarm of small earthquakes hit north-central Arkansas near a formation called the Fayetteville Shale, the state issued a temporary moratorium last year on new injection wells. The state found that three wells were operating near an unknown fault and were likely contributing to earthquakes. The state shut those wells and banned future ones near the fault.
Oil and gas production can lead to tremors another way: When drillers suck all the oil from underground and leave nothing to fill the gap for where the oil was, the emptying reservoir can collapse. If this happens at all, it usually happens slowly over decades. It triggered a series of earthquakes in Los Angeles county in the 1930s, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Now, water is injected into depleting wells to maintain pressure. The water also helps keep oil flowing.
