As was posted by a number of well wishers, thanks for your kind words.
My wife, who just survived where 2 others got killed, is doing well.
The big news is the wide spread distruction at various wineries.
I had looked at many wineries and noted the high stacks of wine barrels. My opinion, which I kept to myself, was that there would be big problems in case of a earthquake. However, the last major quake in this area occured roughly 150 years ago and the assessment that it was roughly a 6.
In my old age, I felt that it wouldn't have gone over too well -- simply that most would have said that nothing could be done about it. Well, the impact perhaps could be mitigated, but not eliminated. So, I just kept my mouth shut.
I went out to Stephan Asseo's winery, to whom I sell my grapes. Stephan is presently in France, due to return on saturday (12/27). There was a nice jumble of barrels, smashed bottles of wine and the big fermentation tanks which had been move roughly 1 foot -- even though they had 3,000 gallons of juice in them. My understanding is that the wine in the tanks are spoiled because when the tanks moved, the cooling lines (for fermentation temperature control) ruptured, putting gycol into the juice.
I spoke to Dave Debusk, who is Stephan's assistant. Turns out that he had just stepped out of the winery when the quake occured. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have either been killed or crippled when the barrels come tumbling down, if he was in the storage room.
My opinion is that SLO county needs to address building code to provide barrel tie-down points to at least minimize what occcured. But that will not happen overnight, let alone arguments that another like quake wouldn't be seen in another 100 years (cynic I am).
I hape that you had a nice wine imbibing Christmas. We in Paso will recover and will do our best to provide top quality wine to you.
As an after thought:
I got up in the middle of the night (12/25 am), went to the toilet, went back to bed and then felt an after shock. The AP says that it was a 4.4, from roughly 10 miles west south west of Paso, roughly 30 miles from the original quake epicenter. This location is interesting because it is in the area of Atascadero, where I was went the original quake occured. In my previous posting on this topic, I noted that it felt as though that Atascadero was at the epicenter. Perhaps my gut feel about the force I felt in Atascadero does have some basis of reality.
As the USGS states, that after shocks as high as 5 can be expected for the next few days. Hopefully, there isn't more winery damage. Except for the possiblilty of underground irrigation pipe damage, there isn't much to damage in my vineyard - however, tomorrow I will check out my well depth (I should have done it sooner). Wind and vine loading on the trellis is compariable to the quake shaking. I will only be able to check out the underground plumbing once I turn on the irrigation come this spring.