Perhaps the seriousness of what is happening in Japan has changed my outlook.  

I have watched hour after hour of NHK TV as they rattle off the mind-boggling numbers of problems and issues they are sorting through a half a world away, and that half-world never felt closer.  When the tsunami crossed the Pacific and our sea level went up and down here you couldn't have ignored the scope how that might have been if you were 5700miles closer to the quake.

Those of us who felt the San Simeon quake in 2003 just need to remember what happened in Japan is thousands of times more powerful, and that is simply difficult to comprehend.

In a way it was like a time machine for us here on the Central Coast.  I remember the uncertainty of the moment.  And now with the nuclear crisis in Japan, those issues are again up for debate locally.  I drive past Diablo Canyon everyday on my way to work.

It all feels like a very small world to me.