Wintry

The top two photos were taken this morning as proof that the world did not, in fact, end during the "wind apocalypse" the local TV news people were promising us. Come to think of it, not once have I ever seen a promised apocalypse (weather or otherwise) turn out to be the real thing. Funny, that.



The next two are from last week. You can think of them as "before" photos, showing it was already kind of grim and wintry before last night's non-cataclysm. They aren't of precisely the same trees, but they're in the same part of town. I also realize they're in black and white, which always makes things look more grim than they actually are. Also, both the before & after samples are too small to be statistically useful. Furthermore, I don't have a control group; to really nail my "the world didn't end" hypothesis, I'd also need "before" and "after" images from somewhere the windstorm didn't affect. Current images are relatively easy to find. For example, here are live webcams at Sheraton Waikiki in Honolulu, the Eiffel Tower, and the San Diego Zoo's Panda Exhibit. This still isn't a statistically significant sample, but it's evidence (albeit anecdotal evidence) that at least three widely scattered locations around the planet continue to exist after last night's aeolian assault. Sadly, at present I lack conclusive proof that these three locations also existed on November 8th, when my pre-windstorm photos were taken. My working conclusion at this time is that the world currently exists, although I'll need a great deal of additional data before we can regard this as proven.



In any case, this is my first post (such as it is) since Thursday. Despite being unbelievably busy during the week, and unbelievably sleepy on the weekend, I'm trying to keep posting on a quasi-daily basis (i.e. "daily, except when it isn't"). I can't guarantee that every post will be a gem of wit or insight into the human condition. Nor will I claim that all posts here will be informative or useful for any particular purpose. However, blogging is a nice break from the neverending thrills of RL, even if the result is completely lame.



I think I've said before that photoblogging is a great way to put together a post without having to come up with quite as many words. It's easier and faster and all that. Less cynically, it's a way to keep tabs on what's going on in the outside world. I have a goal, sort of, to take at least one photo a day, and sometimes I actually do, unless I forget, or I'm too busy, or I didn't see anything I wanted to take a photo of that day, which happens sometimes. I expect that taking pictures of bare trees will get really old really fast, and there won't be much of anything else to take pics of until February or so, when the first flowers -- crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils, etc. -- start to come up. I can't wait until it's summer again...