Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Proper Course.

Yes, this blog is 8 years old today, born on February 17 2005.

The picture above is pretty much how the blog looked for the first year or two. It's actually a screenshot from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine from May 2006. They don't seem to have an earlier archived copy.



I wonder what else was going on in the world in February 2005? Let's see...

Ellen MacArthur broke the world record for the fastest sailing solo circumnavigation of the globe.

The Pope took ill and was taken to hospital. He died a few weeks later.

The President of the United States made a State of the Union speech in which he discussed his plan to reform Social Security. That died too.

In the US Congress, a brand new senator from Illinois became the only senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

And three former PayPal employees created a new video-sharing website on which users could upload, view and share videos. It was called YouTube.

Interesting. I wonder what that young black senator is doing now and what happened to that crazy idea for a video-sharing website?



As for me, in the intervening eight years, I have had four grandchildren, moved house to Rhode Island, won the occasional Laser race, not won many many more Laser races, finished in the top half of my fleet at the Laser Masters Worlds once, sailed my Laser 94 times one year, broken and bent various Laser parts, sprained and chopped and pulled (but not actually broken) various Tillerman parts, made a lot of new friends, travelled to sail in a lot of great places, and written 2535 blog posts.


Thanks to everyone who has read the blog over the years and especially to those of you who have made the extra effort to leave comments here and to participate in our assorted insane ramblings.

You don't have to be crazy to read this blog, but it helps.