I'm sure most of you know we had a strong earthquake last week in the Seattle area. My first fear after my heart stopped racing was I wonder how things are at home - particularly my four curio cabinets filled with my Harbour Lights collection. So I called home and after inquiring about whether my wife was alright or not (she was fine), I asked about other things in the house. She said we had many things on the floor out of shelves and cabinets and off of tables and counters. Then I asked about my HL's, almost dreading the answer. To my surprise, she said the looked to be fine.

When I arrived home, I looked carefully at the lighthouses and with one exception none of them had even moved. The friction between the felt on the bottom and the glass shelves was enough to hold them all in place. The only one that moved was my fresnel lens which had tipped over off of the stand and fell onto the glass shelf. Fortunatly, neither the lens or the shelf was damaged. I had feared that if it ever fell over, it might break the shelf and since it was on the top shelf --- well you can imagine what I thought.

The point of this post is first to let you know that the felt and glass friction seems to be adequate to keep them in place even in some pretty severe side to side motion. Secondly, I have my curios all attached to the wall at the top and I strongly recommend that anyone do this if you have any chance of an earthquake. Finally, I (and probably many of you) need to find a way to display my fresnel lens somehow so it is more stable. Has anyone found a solution? Do you think a rubber or wood disc between the lens and the base would help? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Larry