I am struck, today, by how far in the past my tenure with Gannett/MediaNews/L.A. News Group/San Bernardino Sun seems.

It has been only nine months since those entities were huge in my life, but it seems like years. Probably because I’ve been through what seems to be a couple of major changes. Moving to Long Beach and doing some stringing in SoCal, covering the Beijing Olympics on my own, and now four months in Hong Kong.

The two/three major changes seem to overpower the still-not-distant proximity, in terms of real time. Making it seem like a gap of years, not months.

Hence, I find myself not only disconnected from what’s left of my former paper and group, but increasingly disinterested — which isn’t what I planned, but there you are.

I notice it most in the Seasons in The Sun series — which I was pretty good about moving along for 5-6 months, filing 20 or so entries on this blog. And now I realize I haven’t advanced the series — at all — since before I left for Hong Kong. Which is telling. And I’m also noticing that I’m having trouble remembering details of my previous existence. As if being detached from the mother ship makes it harder for me to remember anything that has to do with it, however recent.

It will be more difficult to write one of those mini-bios. Even if they deal with events that occurred in the last decade, as opposed to the two before.

I also notice it when I see athletes that would have been “mine” for the previous 30-some years. And now are just other people.

Specifically, Eric Weddle of the San Diego Chargers, who I am watching via cable Sunday morning in Hong Kong — Saturday night in California.

Eric Weddle went to Alta Loma High School in Rancho Cucamonga. Just west of the 15 freeway. I never saw him play as a prep, which probably says something about how quickly the journalism picture changed, because Alta Loma wasn’t quite a San Bernardino Sun school — and The Sun as an indepedent entity still existed, during Weddle’s prep career, which would have been the 2000, 2001 and 2002 seasons, I’m pretty sure.

But I remember his name from our San Bernardino County statistical leaders file, which was compiled by my son for one or two of those seasons. Weddle didn’t leave any stat, but I remember him being near the top in several categories. Receiving, scoring, at the least. He probably made one or two all-county football teams that we published.

He then went to Utah for college,  which isn’t usually a route that leads directly to the NFL.  So he dropped off the radar a little, even though he was starting by his sophomore season.

He had a nice college career, and was drafted by the Chargers in the second round of the 2007 draft.  My paper(s)  did stories on him before and after the draft, but I didn’t do them myself, even if I by then really did care about Alta Loma/Rancho Cucamonga — with the merger of The Sun and the (Ontario) Bulletin sports departments.

I saw the Chargers play three or four times in 2007, and on each occasion I hoped to find Weddle and introduce myself, but it turns out he was one of those rookies who escaped the locker room before the Chargers opened it — which often was not until,  like, 30 minutes after the game.

Anyway, now, I have noticed that Weddle has morphed into one of the half-dozen most prominent players on the Chargers franchise.

Not only does he start at safety, and play well, and make big plays … he also has become a go-to guy for reporters seeking quotes. He seems to appear in nearly every game story, whether it is written by a guy from San Diego or New York.

Anyway, a year ago … a couple of lifetimes ago … I would have been extremely interested in Eric Weddle and his emergence as an NFL star.

Now, it’s more of old-and-fading habit kicking in, and noticing it, and if not quite mentally shrugging, realizing — and accepting — that guys from Rancho Cucamonga aren’t my concern anymore.