Even thought I resisted thinking about it as a blog for the longest time, I recorded trivial progress in my life: Travels, weather, side projects, and a random scattering of whatnot. Because I didn't lock myself into any particular blog software, the entries did not get reset by a software update along the way.

I realized the peculiar status of this when I was writing the previous post and trying to remember how long I had owned my Trogdor hoodie. I owned it when Cristyn was still living in San Diego, which was before we bought our house. How long ago was that? The readiest way to sort it out was to look at the old news.

As a footnote to the earlier post about storms: This year's weather oddities were compounded by an accumulation of snow before Halloween. It melted away by pumpkin day and the weather now is slightly chilly but sunny.

The Girl Behind the Counter: What's that on your sweatshirt?

Me: It's Trogdor. [...] A dragon. [...] From the internet.

TGBtC: Is that a meme?

Me: It's from Homestarrunner, which used to be a thing.

TGBtC: Oh. I'd have to look it up, then.

I got this sweatshirt several years ago, when Homestarrunner was still updating. It usde to be that people - the girl behind the counter included - would often recognize it and react positively. The inevitable turnover behind the counter means that the girl behind the counter now is a new and different one. Pop culture references from the early 2000s are already retro.

Damn kids, with their dragon ignorance and their not being old. Bah!

The earthquake two weeks ago felt nearer than Virginia. I was in my office, and the building decidedly shimmied. I was in a doorjamb before it had subsided, and quickly outside with several of my colleagues once the shaking had stopped. Cristyn - a native of southern California - scoffs at it; she recounts that she just dismissed the rumble as nearby construction. Although the nearby construction was rather ground-shaking over the summer, this quake confronted me with more noticeable shaking than any of the quakes that I experienced while living in San Diego.

The city shut down for the subsequent hurricane, although it was just a bunch of wind and rain from our point of view. We wouldn't have thought it an especially special storm if there hadn't been so much hype. Friend of ours had a great oak knocked over, which Cristyn poses with in the picture above.

Finally classes began again last week. I'm teaching philosophy of science at various levels this term, which puts the teaching close to my own research - which always makes for equal measures of excitement and discomfort.