Eventful Day

Today was my first day of classes as I embark on my journey to PhDdom (while finishing off my Masters thesis… yeesh…) but that was far from the most exciting thing that happened today.  North Carolina is likely about to get walloped by Hurricane Irene, which earlier today was expected to reach Category 4 just as it makes landfall in the Carolinas Friday night.  Just after I absorbed this news, the floor under my feet began to shake.  It turns out that there was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in Mineral, VA (northwest of Richmond), the tremors of which were felt from South Carolina up to Boston (and took the social media by storm).  As Andrew put it, it must be Natural Disaster Week here in ol’ NC (to complete the disaster trifecta, check out this video of a water spout in Carolina Beach over at Deep Sea News).  Clearly, I came down south for the nice weather.  Everybody stay safe out there, we may have survived tornadoes and earthquakes but we still have a hurricane bearing down on us…