First two years in Fairbanks...

... and we have experienced record-setting heat, record-setting cold, record flooding, record dryness (we are now closing on the driest July on record), earthquakes, a volcanic eruption, and intense wildfires. And through it all, no-one's batted an eye or thought anything unusual was going on.

Actually, come to think of it, it seems that meteorological records are broken frequently, everywhere. When I lived in the Sili Valley, it seemed that during every heat spell, they would announce that "it was the hottest 22nd of June in 82 years" or something like that. Records are broken frequently, it seems, or newscasters always have a way to report it to sound interesting.

For my first few jobs out of college, it seemed like every time I started a new position, something rather calamitous would happen at the workplace almost immediately thereafter. A long-term high-level manager would quit, or there would be a fundamental reorganization, or a core project would suddenly be canceled, or funding would suddenly be announced for a project that had prior been considered a failure. It seemed that everywhere I went, a shakedown followed. But then, it got to be too much to be believable, and I came to realize that shakedowns happen all the time, it's just that you only notice them when you are there.