I think we experienced our first real typhoon last night

I woke up around 4 a.m to the house shaking like an earthquake from the thunder. The wind was blowing outside like nothing I've ever heard before -- not howling, just blowing so hard that it became a wall of sound that was battering the house. The lightning lit up the room, even through the thick curtains, and the rain sounded as if it were pounding the inside the room. I actually thought about getting up to protect the laptop because I thought the rain had breached the seal of the room.

I woke up this morning around 10 a.m to a big, beautiful, bright blue, fluffy-cloud-patched sky. What a world.