A long day

 We had a job candidate in. I raced around to do both classes and listen to their job talk.

Tonight, we went out to a local restaurant for dinner (this is SOP for job candidates, there's a departmental fund that covers the cost of everyone's meal).

We wound up staying pretty late; this was the first time all the professors in my department had been all in the same room in well over a month - we're awfully scattered now with having to teach in different buildings.

So we told a lot of stories. A couple of the newer people heard some of the wild old stories from the "old days" and I shared a couple of my grad school stories (like the time my too-cool-for-school student FREAKED THE FREAK OUT in the field when a stick bug landed on him, and I proceeded to gently lift it off his shoulder, hold it up for the class to see,, and talk a little bit about their ecology before releasing it to a nearby tree). Lots of laughter, which was good: I haven't laughed like that in a long time.