The Alligator Army Weekly Open Thread, Vol. XC

I am safe, now that Hurricane Dorian has taken its glancing blow at the area of Florida that I’ve called home for most of my adult life.

What was once basically the most powerful Atlantic basin hurricane on record exhausted almost all of its full fury on the Bahamas over the extended Labor Day Weekend, devastating entire islands with ferocious winds and relentless storm surge. That there are still under 10 reported fatalities from the Bahamas this weekend is an astonishing statistic, given the catastrophe that was Dorian’s near stationary swirling over the nation; this storm will change the lives of nearly every Bahamian and Bahamas resident, even if it miraculously and blessedly only ended a handful.

And so me complaining right now in this post that I barely know what day it is and feel fatigued from spending my life on a six-hour cycle of reading National Hurricane Center forecast discussions is absolutely playing the world’s smallest violin by comparison. I know that. I know that having to evacuate from a home that I know is still standing to a house that never lost power is a minor inconvenience, especially by comparison.

But, well: I still feel all that, and I know how damn far behind I am when it comes to previewing Florida’s second game of the season and writing about the rest of Florida’s fall sports getting into swing and the 2021 recruit that committed the other day and this, that, and the other.

There will be a post on the new FanPulse Top 25 — Florida’s No. 11, which seems fair — later today, and maybe something about Florida volleyball taking on Stanford. If those Gators take down the Cardinal, you can bet on a quick recap either tonight or tomorrow.

But before making any sweeping promises about content, I need to get back to something resembling a routine over the next few days, and that requires me doing things like looking at a fridge instead of a laptop screen.

I hope you’ll understand and bear with me.