working out for Disney

[HouCuseChickie]

I saw this article and I thought about you and your treadmill.

My husband ordered eclipse glasses, but I worry about them being counterfeits. I am not sure what sort of percentage we're supposed to get, but it must be a significant amount. They are letting the kids in my town out early to view it.

You have until Sunday afternoon to decide, so why not wait until then? You'll have a better idea about the weather. 95% percent is still impressive. I don't blame you for not wanting to travel and then getting caught up in traffic. It's good to have options.

Some people say it increases focus, but I haven't seen that as of yet. I still like it and like that I'm up and moving around more.

Mine came with the cheap camera filter I bought from B&H. DayStar, which made the filter, also makes higher end solar gear. So, I trust them and the camera shop. They were including a couple of pairs of their glasses in with most eclipse related purchases. I know there are bad glasses out there, but you can do a mini test pre-eclipse to see if they're legit. It can't be too much difference from going outside and quickly catching the full sun as you move your head. You obviously don't want to stare directly into the sun until you know they're good, but if you go outside and stand in a safe spot during daylight hours, you should be able to do a quick scan of the sky and see if they work. It should look like everything is blacked out but the sun. Some people have also taped them over their phone camera to test. In the case of mine, it'll make the sun look golden orange. This was with the camera, but the glasses produced the same appearance in smaller form.



The current forecast for Houston is thick low level clouds. The odds seem to improve as we head north. I think I'm more worried about being stuck in severe weather than the gridlock alone. We'll see. I'm now up to four options. Some will need to be decided by tomorrow.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

As I was typing this, my house started shaking.

YUP, it was an earthquake. Not much shaking as my house is over-built and the "mountains between here and there. You probably got a bit more of a jolt due to it being flatter and sandier

Many of my NJ people on FB have been posting all morning about feeling it. One woman noted that it was a horizontal shaking vs. the normal vertical snow globe type you'd get from passing trucks. I know NJ gets them. Growing up, my dad would feel each and every single one of them and we never felt a thing!

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning-

Checking in with a kettlebell workout.

I forgot I had my 2nd shingrix dose today and I was lasagna matched with a family this week. I forgot to make myself unavailable. So, I am going to get my shot and make a lasagna as soon as I get home. I am worried about not feeling well tomorrow. The family told me they just want it assembled, so I can have a lasagna assembled in less than an hour. They want me to deliver it tomorrow. They are a family who are fostering a 6 month old, so they are a bit overwhelmed right now. He has been very polite and thanking me, which is nice change of pace from eye rolls. The last family wanted their lasagna to sit out for hours on their porch and the high was in the 50s. That is a good way to get food poisoning, especially with all of the dairy in a lasagna. I got eye rolls when I pointed that out.

I felt an aftershock last night. It was just before 6PM. I was the only one in the house who felt it. I think it was because I was upstairs and my husband and son were on the ground floor. I don't know, I am just speculating. My husband doubted me until he saw a Tweet from Phil Murphy confirming an aftershock.

 

[Songbird76]

Maybe they couldn't take credit for it, but I would think an educator would be pleased that two kids who didn't have the advantages many other students did excelled anyway. In fact, you don't need to be a teacher to appreciate that.

This counselor should not have been anywhere near kids--threatening to punch your brother's nose, manipulating grades, possible homicide in his past.

As I was typing this, my house started shaking.

Yeah, I saw there was an earthquake there! Are you OK? And @Figgy1 ?

 

[Figgy1]

Yeah, I saw there was an earthquake there! Are you OK? And @Figgy1 ?

THNX we're fine, just felt like a truck was going a little too fast down the road and didn't even feel the aftershock. The moms felt it and saw a bit of shaking but they and their homes are fine, bffs also said the same thing. They're all just outside of Newark/west of Jersey City area

 

[Songbird76]

Maybe they couldn't take credit for it, but I would think an educator would be pleased that two kids who didn't have the advantages many other students did excelled anyway. In fact, you don't need to be a teacher to appreciate that.

This counselor should not have been anywhere near kids--threatening to punch your brother's nose, manipulating grades, possible homicide in his past.

As I was typing this, my house started shaking.

Yeah, that's what I thought...and shouldn't the school be proud to have kids who win awards and bring trophies and honors in to make the school look good? Our sports teams weren't bringing in any trophies, and my brother and I brought in a bunch from speech and debate. We should have been celebrated by the school. And honestly MOST of our teachers did really like us. It was the principal and the counselor who were just morons. And I totally agree that the counselor shouldn't have been working with kids... I have no idea how he got that gig. And that the state also let him be a foster parent!! Although both Katrina and Mindy agreed it was much better at his house than at their previous foster family's place. And I really didn't know the counselor's wife at all. She was an elementary teacher, but I never had her, so I don't know what she was like.

 

[Sans Souci]

Yeah, I saw there was an earthquake there! Are you OK? And @Figgy1 ?

I’m fine. I was typing out a response to you when the shaking started. I was just confused. Is it a truck? An explosion? A low flying plane? My husband and my son had just left, so I texted my son because my husband was driving. I said the house is shaking. I think there is an earthquake.

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning

Happy eclipse day.

I am checking in with a leg workout. It wasn't super hard, but it's where I am today. I am still not 100% from my shingrix shot, but I feel so much better. There was no way I could do a workout involving my left arm today. It's still tender. I was in bed most of the day yesterday, but I was able to drag my carcass into the car to drop off the lasagna. Early last evening, I just got super chilled and I could not warm. I had layers of clothes and blankets on. So, I took a long shower and went to bed. I felt so much better when I woke up this morning, so I think that was the last of my bad side effects. I don't have to worry about those shots for 7-10 years from now and I am well-protected from developing shingles. Good deal.

We're supposed to get an 88% eclipse and we are ready with eclipse glasses. My 11 year old nephew in England texted me this AM and asked me to get some photos. I'll try, but I read you need to put the eclipse glasses in front of the phone lens, because it can get damaged from the sun, too.

 

[Sans Souci]

I got one shot with my phone just before the 88% eclipse. I was watching it when this massive cloud cover drifted over the sun. Boo. Hiss. But, the clouds made it possible to look at the sun quickly to grab this. I sent it to my nephew and he liked it, so I guess it's not too bad.

 

[Lilofan]

Good morning

Happy eclipse day.

I am checking in with a leg workout. It wasn't super hard, but it's where I am today. I am still not 100% from my shingrix shot, but I feel so much better. There was no way I could do a workout involving my left arm today. It's still tender. I was in bed most of the day yesterday, but I was able to drag my carcass into the car to drop off the lasagna. Early last evening, I just got super chilled and I could not warm. I had layers of clothes and blankets on. So, I took a long shower and went to bed. I felt so much better when I woke up this morning, so I think that was the last of my bad side effects. I don't have to worry about those shots for 7-10 years from now and I am well-protected from developing shingles. Good deal.

We're supposed to get an 88% eclipse and we are ready with eclipse glasses. My 11 year old nephew in England texted me this AM and asked me to get some photos. I'll try, but I read you need to put the eclipse glasses in front of the phone lens, because it can get damaged from the sun, too.

Shingrix side effects hit me hard too, fever and chills but I'm glad I got both shots. My good friend in CT got shingles and he had skin pain for 6 months. He got the vaccine after he recovered.

 

[Sans Souci]

Shingrix side effects hit me hard too, fever and chills but I'm glad I got both shots. My good friend in CT got shingles and he had skin pain for 6 months. He got the vaccine after he recovered.

My husband had it just as covid was taking hold in NJ. He thought he had appendicitis and I was concerned it was covid, so he went to the ER. While he was waiting to be seen, the rash broke out. When the ER doc saw that, she gave him a script for an antiviral. He said it was the worst pain he ever felt. He was the one urging me to get Shingrix as soon as I could. He got Shingrix, too. You can get so many life-altering complications from Shingles, so the discomfort following the shots is nothing.

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning.

Checking in with a YouTube video. It was a full body strength training workout with some cardio thrown in.

It's going to be 78 here today, so I am going for a walk, do a little yard work and maybe sit outside with a book. Unfortunately, the ants have begun their annual pilgrimage into my home. I wanted to put ant trap on the kitchen counter where I saw them and my son put black pepper all over the counter because it was safer. Yeah, it was safer for the ants, they were all over my counters this morning, walking among the black pepper my son assured me they hated.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Good morning! Happy day-after eclipse day! (lots of words before pics)

My parents were supposed to fly in on Sunday so we could go eclipse chasing on Monday, but my dad didn't like the forecast and canceled. I decided that we live too close to totality for this one to not go a bit out of my way to try. At home, we were getting about 94.7%, which seems like a lot, but this was "totality or bust!" I have been fascinated with this astronomical phenomenon since I was young and saw the phases gloriously documented in a National Geographic edition. I know we had an annular pass not too far from here back in October, but from all of the pictures I'd seen over the years, the effect of totality seemed really worth the effort.

I had reserved a parking spot in a little town called Hillsboro that was expecting 4 minutes and 24 seconds of totality. They made several international lists of "best places," and it was only a 3-hour drive. As the forecast models started to sure up, my plans started to look iffy. In fact, most of Texas was starting to look iffy. North/Northeast seemed to be the way to go and a lot of people pivoted midweek and made a shift towards Texarkana or Arkansas...some shifting as far as NY, VT, and ME. I felt bad for all of the little TX towns that were dreaming of this extra business from the tourists. In the end, I think it hurt the small towns much more than the cities that served as better access points and hill country vacation homes with less flexible cancelation policies. I didn't have as much flexibility, but had looked at shifting to about 20 different spots and had hotel reservations in about 6 of them at one point (something I only thought to do after I learned about crowds). I initially settled back on Hillsboro and drove up Sunday morning. They had done a lot to welcome visitors and their festivals drew a decent level of people Sunday night. Still, it wasn't mobbed like the reports I was hearing out of the Austin area.

After staying in the nastiest motel of my life, I woke up yesterday to dense cloud cover. I knew it could burn off, but the forecasts were still saying to head northeast. I also wasn't thrilled about watching from the parking lot of an old outlet mall...even with 96 porta potties available for my convenience. Around 7:20 a.m. yesterday, I packed up and drove to Ennis, TX. The eclipse chasing group I joined on Facebook earlier in the week was a tremendous help (also cool to be working with so many people all over the US and coming in from overseas). There's a Buc-ee's in Ennis, so I figured I'd at least stop to top off the tank for the possible gridlock I'd face afterwards. I had a tip on a parking lot nearby, but Buc-ee's seemed like a great spot. If they let me park and stay...that would be a real win! The little towns I drove through to get there were shuttered up like some apocalypse movie, but things livened up when I got into Ennis. Not only was Buc-ee's allowing people to park and stay (and I still had lots of spot options), they were also disabling the parking lot and pump lights during the eclipse. So yay for better viewing conditions...as well as super clean bathrooms, great food options, and a wide array of other provisions that hadn't been subject to price gouging.

The clouds were dense when I got there. Just a few glimpses of sun here and there. As the first phase approached, we started seeing patches of blue sky. This was a trend for the first 50%. The clouds would shift here and there, affording us views of each of the early stages. The farther we got into it, the bigger the gaps and the more the clouds grew thin. Between 75-90%, the clouds started to just disappear...an awesome meteorological effect I was happy to experience. This was that phase where the sky color started to change, temps became noticeably cooler, and animal behavior was altered. I was in a parking lot off of a major highway, so most of the sounds weren't obvious (chose to just listen to Holst's The Planets- on my running headset so I could still hear around me). I saw hawks and falcons start patrolling the sky for their ritualistic "dusk" hunting. The noisy grackles in the trees dotting the lot went silent. Around 95%, we had crystal clear skies and it became evident that we were about to get the full show. Ennis was expecting 4 minutes and 23 seconds of totality, so I felt like I'd won the cloud lottery. I've been in partial eclipses and witnessed it grow really dim, but it was almost a light switch effect going in and out of totality. The abrupt shift took me by surprise. That surprise led to a decision that I may or may not regret. I decided it wasn't worth trying to fiddle with camera settings. I used my big lens like a telescope and saw details I never would have seen with the naked eye. I took pics while in auto mode knowing that they'd be a bit overexposed, but it felt like the smartest thing to do in the moment. The luxury of a lengthy totality also gave me some time to take a quick video of the planets visible in the sky. It also gave me enough time to just soak it in and be in the moment. I'm not afraid to share that there were some tears early on. I'll spare you all of the random pics and cloud pics tracking the disappearance, but this is a small sample of what I took. I may go back and edit some to see if I can clean up the corona, highlight the colors of the prominences, and look for flares. You can see a sunspot before it gets covered up. I regret not taking video on the big camera, but it is what it is. Here's a sample...

https://www.youtube.com/@HouCuseChickie95/videos

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Good morning! Happy day-after eclipse day! (lots of words before pics)

My parents were supposed to fly in on Sunday so we could go eclipse chasing on Monday, but my dad didn't like the forecast and canceled. I decided that we live too close to totality for this one to not go a bit out of my way to try. At home, we were getting about 94.7%, which seems like a lot, but this was "totality or bust!" I have been fascinated with this astronomical phenomenon since I was young and saw the phases gloriously documented in a National Geographic edition. I know we had an annular pass not too far from here back in October, but from all of the pictures I'd seen over the years, the effect of totality seemed really worth the effort.

I had reserved a parking spot in a little town called Hillsboro that was expecting 4 minutes and 24 seconds of totality. They made several international lists of "best places," and it was only a 3-hour drive. As the forecast models started to sure up, my plans started to look iffy. In fact, most of Texas was starting to look iffy. North/Northeast seemed to be the way to go and a lot of people pivoted midweek and made a shift towards Texarkana or Arkansas...some shifting as far as NY, VT, and ME. I felt bad for all of the little TX towns that were dreaming of this extra business from the tourists. In the end, I think it hurt the small towns much more than the cities that served as better access points and hill country vacation homes with less flexible cancelation policies. I didn't have as much flexibility, but had looked at shifting to about 20 different spots and had hotel reservations in about 6 of them at one point (something I only thought to do after I learned about crowds). I initially settled back on Hillsboro and drove up Sunday morning. They had done a lot to welcome visitors and their festivals drew a decent level of people Sunday night. Still, it wasn't mobbed like the reports I was hearing out of the Austin area.

After staying in the nastiest motel of my life, I woke up yesterday to dense cloud cover. I knew it could burn off, but the forecasts were still saying to head northeast. I also wasn't thrilled about watching from the parking lot of an old outlet mall...even with 96 porta potties available for my convenience. Around 7:20 a.m. yesterday, I packed up and drove to Ennis, TX. The eclipse chasing group I joined on Facebook earlier in the week was a tremendous help (also cool to be working with so many people all over the US and coming in from overseas). There's a Buc-ee's in Ennis, so I figured I'd at least stop to top off the tank for the possible gridlock I'd face afterwards. I had a tip on a parking lot nearby, but Buc-ee's seemed like a great spot. If they let me park and stay...that would be a real win! The little towns I drove through to get there were shuttered up like some apocalypse movie, but things livened up when I got into Ennis. Not only was Buc-ee's allowing people to park and stay (and I still had lots of spot options), they were also disabling the parking lot and pump lights during the eclipse. So yay for better viewing conditions...as well as super clean bathrooms, great food options, and a wide array of other provisions that hadn't been subject to price gouging.

The clouds were dense when I got there. Just a few glimpses of sun here and there. As the first phase approached, we started seeing patches of blue sky. This was a trend for the first 50%. The clouds would shift here and there, affording us views of each of the early stages. The farther we got into it, the bigger the gaps and the more the clouds grew thin. Between 75-90%, the clouds started to just disappear...an awesome meteorological effect I was happy to experience. This was that phase where the sky color started to change, temps became noticeably cooler, and animal behavior was altered. I was in a parking lot off of a major highway, so most of the sounds weren't obvious (chose to just listen to Holst's The Planets- on my running headset so I could still hear around me). I saw hawks and falcons start patrolling the sky for their ritualistic "dusk" hunting. The noisy grackles in the trees dotting the lot went silent. Around 95%, we had crystal clear skies and it became evident that we were about to get the full show. Ennis was expecting 4 minutes and 23 seconds of totality, so I felt like I'd won the cloud lottery. I've been in partial eclipses and witnessed it grow really dim, but it was almost a light switch effect going in and out of totality. The abrupt shift took me by surprise. That surprise led to a decision that I may or may not regret. I decided it wasn't worth trying to fiddle with camera settings. I used my big lens like a telescope and saw details I never would have seen with the naked eye. I took pics while in auto mode knowing that they'd be a bit overexposed, but it felt like the smartest thing to do in the moment. The luxury of a lengthy totality also gave me some time to take a quick video of the planets visible in the sky. It also gave me enough time to just soak it in and be in the moment. I'm not afraid to share that there were some tears early on. I'll spare you all of the random pics and cloud pics tracking the disappearance, but this is a small sample of what I took. I may go back and edit some to see if I can clean up the corona, highlight the colors of the prominences, and look for flares. You can see a sunspot before it gets covered up. I regret not taking video on the big camera, but it is what it is. Here's a sample...

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https://www.youtube.com/@HouCuseChickie95/videos

Nice pictures, thanks for sharing.

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning! Happy day-after eclipse day! (lots of words before pics)

My parents were supposed to fly in on Sunday so we could go eclipse chasing on Monday, but my dad didn't like the forecast and canceled. I decided that we live too close to totality for this one to not go a bit out of my way to try. At home, we were getting about 94.7%, which seems like a lot, but this was "totality or bust!" I have been fascinated with this astronomical phenomenon since I was young and saw the phases gloriously documented in a National Geographic edition. I know we had an annular pass not too far from here back in October, but from all of the pictures I'd seen over the years, the effect of totality seemed really worth the effort.

I had reserved a parking spot in a little town called Hillsboro that was expecting 4 minutes and 24 seconds of totality. They made several international lists of "best places," and it was only a 3-hour drive. As the forecast models started to sure up, my plans started to look iffy. In fact, most of Texas was starting to look iffy. North/Northeast seemed to be the way to go and a lot of people pivoted midweek and made a shift towards Texarkana or Arkansas...some shifting as far as NY, VT, and ME. I felt bad for all of the little TX towns that were dreaming of this extra business from the tourists. In the end, I think it hurt the small towns much more than the cities that served as better access points and hill country vacation homes with less flexible cancelation policies. I didn't have as much flexibility, but had looked at shifting to about 20 different spots and had hotel reservations in about 6 of them at one point (something I only thought to do after I learned about crowds). I initially settled back on Hillsboro and drove up Sunday morning. They had done a lot to welcome visitors and their festivals drew a decent level of people Sunday night. Still, it wasn't mobbed like the reports I was hearing out of the Austin area.

After staying in the nastiest motel of my life, I woke up yesterday to dense cloud cover. I knew it could burn off, but the forecasts were still saying to head northeast. I also wasn't thrilled about watching from the parking lot of an old outlet mall...even with 96 porta potties available for my convenience. Around 7:20 a.m. yesterday, I packed up and drove to Ennis, TX. The eclipse chasing group I joined on Facebook earlier in the week was a tremendous help (also cool to be working with so many people all over the US and coming in from overseas). There's a Buc-ee's in Ennis, so I figured I'd at least stop to top off the tank for the possible gridlock I'd face afterwards. I had a tip on a parking lot nearby, but Buc-ee's seemed like a great spot. If they let me park and stay...that would be a real win! The little towns I drove through to get there were shuttered up like some apocalypse movie, but things livened up when I got into Ennis. Not only was Buc-ee's allowing people to park and stay (and I still had lots of spot options), they were also disabling the parking lot and pump lights during the eclipse. So yay for better viewing conditions...as well as super clean bathrooms, great food options, and a wide array of other provisions that hadn't been subject to price gouging.

The clouds were dense when I got there. Just a few glimpses of sun here and there. As the first phase approached, we started seeing patches of blue sky. This was a trend for the first 50%. The clouds would shift here and there, affording us views of each of the early stages. The farther we got into it, the bigger the gaps and the more the clouds grew thin. Between 75-90%, the clouds started to just disappear...an awesome meteorological effect I was happy to experience. This was that phase where the sky color started to change, temps became noticeably cooler, and animal behavior was altered. I was in a parking lot off of a major highway, so most of the sounds weren't obvious (chose to just listen to Holst's The Planets- on my running headset so I could still hear around me). I saw hawks and falcons start patrolling the sky for their ritualistic "dusk" hunting. The noisy grackles in the trees dotting the lot went silent. Around 95%, we had crystal clear skies and it became evident that we were about to get the full show. Ennis was expecting 4 minutes and 23 seconds of totality, so I felt like I'd won the cloud lottery. I've been in partial eclipses and witnessed it grow really dim, but it was almost a light switch effect going in and out of totality. The abrupt shift took me by surprise. That surprise led to a decision that I may or may not regret. I decided it wasn't worth trying to fiddle with camera settings. I used my big lens like a telescope and saw details I never would have seen with the naked eye. I took pics while in auto mode knowing that they'd be a bit overexposed, but it felt like the smartest thing to do in the moment. The luxury of a lengthy totality also gave me some time to take a quick video of the planets visible in the sky. It also gave me enough time to just soak it in and be in the moment. I'm not afraid to share that there were some tears early on. I'll spare you all of the random pics and cloud pics tracking the disappearance, but this is a small sample of what I took. I may go back and edit some to see if I can clean up the corona, highlight the colors of the prominences, and look for flares. You can see a sunspot before it gets covered up. I regret not taking video on the big camera, but it is what it is. Here's a sample...

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https://www.youtube.com/@HouCuseChickie95/videos

Wow. Gorgeous! I am glad you decided to go. It seems like it was definitely worth sleeping in a nasty motel room for the night. I would have stayed at Buc-ees for the clean toilets alone! What an experience.

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning.

Checking in with a full body workout. It was brutal and sweaty, but most importantly, DONE. It truly was awful.

I'm hoping to get out for a stroll, too. It's going to be mild again, not as nice as yesterday, but still warm. I enjoyed spending time outdoors yesterday and I am looking forward to more days when I am not wearing layers of clothes to stay warm on walks.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Wow. Gorgeous! I am glad you decided to go. It seems like it was definitely worth sleeping in a nasty motel room for the night. I would have stayed at Buc-ees for the clean toilets alone! What an experience.

Thank you!!! It was definitely an adventure and thankfully it paid off in getting to see what I wanted to see. I was playing around with pictures last night and realized that I captured a dramatic flare after all! Not the one I was hoping to capture, but it's a flare. I was also able to isolate a frame of the video to see both planets clearly in view. Now back to normal life

 

[Songbird76]

Good morning! Happy day-after eclipse day! (lots of words before pics)

My parents were supposed to fly in on Sunday so we could go eclipse chasing on Monday, but my dad didn't like the forecast and canceled. I decided that we live too close to totality for this one to not go a bit out of my way to try. At home, we were getting about 94.7%, which seems like a lot, but this was "totality or bust!" I have been fascinated with this astronomical phenomenon since I was young and saw the phases gloriously documented in a National Geographic edition. I know we had an annular pass not too far from here back in October, but from all of the pictures I'd seen over the years, the effect of totality seemed really worth the effort.

I had reserved a parking spot in a little town called Hillsboro that was expecting 4 minutes and 24 seconds of totality. They made several international lists of "best places," and it was only a 3-hour drive. As the forecast models started to sure up, my plans started to look iffy. In fact, most of Texas was starting to look iffy. North/Northeast seemed to be the way to go and a lot of people pivoted midweek and made a shift towards Texarkana or Arkansas...some shifting as far as NY, VT, and ME. I felt bad for all of the little TX towns that were dreaming of this extra business from the tourists. In the end, I think it hurt the small towns much more than the cities that served as better access points and hill country vacation homes with less flexible cancelation policies. I didn't have as much flexibility, but had looked at shifting to about 20 different spots and had hotel reservations in about 6 of them at one point (something I only thought to do after I learned about crowds). I initially settled back on Hillsboro and drove up Sunday morning. They had done a lot to welcome visitors and their festivals drew a decent level of people Sunday night. Still, it wasn't mobbed like the reports I was hearing out of the Austin area.

After staying in the nastiest motel of my life, I woke up yesterday to dense cloud cover. I knew it could burn off, but the forecasts were still saying to head northeast. I also wasn't thrilled about watching from the parking lot of an old outlet mall...even with 96 porta potties available for my convenience. Around 7:20 a.m. yesterday, I packed up and drove to Ennis, TX. The eclipse chasing group I joined on Facebook earlier in the week was a tremendous help (also cool to be working with so many people all over the US and coming in from overseas). There's a Buc-ee's in Ennis, so I figured I'd at least stop to top off the tank for the possible gridlock I'd face afterwards. I had a tip on a parking lot nearby, but Buc-ee's seemed like a great spot. If they let me park and stay...that would be a real win! The little towns I drove through to get there were shuttered up like some apocalypse movie, but things livened up when I got into Ennis. Not only was Buc-ee's allowing people to park and stay (and I still had lots of spot options), they were also disabling the parking lot and pump lights during the eclipse. So yay for better viewing conditions...as well as super clean bathrooms, great food options, and a wide array of other provisions that hadn't been subject to price gouging.

The clouds were dense when I got there. Just a few glimpses of sun here and there. As the first phase approached, we started seeing patches of blue sky. This was a trend for the first 50%. The clouds would shift here and there, affording us views of each of the early stages. The farther we got into it, the bigger the gaps and the more the clouds grew thin. Between 75-90%, the clouds started to just disappear...an awesome meteorological effect I was happy to experience. This was that phase where the sky color started to change, temps became noticeably cooler, and animal behavior was altered. I was in a parking lot off of a major highway, so most of the sounds weren't obvious (chose to just listen to Holst's The Planets- on my running headset so I could still hear around me). I saw hawks and falcons start patrolling the sky for their ritualistic "dusk" hunting. The noisy grackles in the trees dotting the lot went silent. Around 95%, we had crystal clear skies and it became evident that we were about to get the full show. Ennis was expecting 4 minutes and 23 seconds of totality, so I felt like I'd won the cloud lottery. I've been in partial eclipses and witnessed it grow really dim, but it was almost a light switch effect going in and out of totality. The abrupt shift took me by surprise. That surprise led to a decision that I may or may not regret. I decided it wasn't worth trying to fiddle with camera settings. I used my big lens like a telescope and saw details I never would have seen with the naked eye. I took pics while in auto mode knowing that they'd be a bit overexposed, but it felt like the smartest thing to do in the moment. The luxury of a lengthy totality also gave me some time to take a quick video of the planets visible in the sky. It also gave me enough time to just soak it in and be in the moment. I'm not afraid to share that there were some tears early on. I'll spare you all of the random pics and cloud pics tracking the disappearance, but this is a small sample of what I took. I may go back and edit some to see if I can clean up the corona, highlight the colors of the prominences, and look for flares. You can see a sunspot before it gets covered up. I regret not taking video on the big camera, but it is what it is. Here's a sample...

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https://www.youtube.com/@HouCuseChickie95/videos

Wow! Great pictures! Thank you for sharing them with us!!

 

[Sans Souci]

Thank you!!! It was definitely an adventure and thankfully it paid off in getting to see what I wanted to see. I was playing around with pictures last night and realized that I captured a dramatic flare after all! Not the one I was hoping to capture, but it's a flare. I was also able to isolate a frame of the video to see both planets clearly in view. Now back to normal life

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It's really an amazing phenomenon. No wonder people thought a solar eclipse was the end of world a long time ago. Maybe you'd be out foraging, going about your day and all of the sudden the sky turns to night and birds stop chirping. I could see how that would scare folks in the day when there was no such thing as astronomy.

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning

Today's workout was a jump rope/upper body strength training workout.

I saw the most ridiculous thing yesterday. I saw a video on FB saying you should be tipping your landlord 10%. I'm sorry, WHAT? I first saw this notion floating around the internetz last year, but I thought it was satire about tipping culture getting out of control. But this video said that it's rude not to tip and it could lead to eviction if you don't tip. It absolutely can not. The rationale was they fix things for you. No, they fix their investment, ergo, that's on the landlord. You're essentially having people subsidizing your mortgaged property (or it might even be theirs outright) and you want a tip, too. For what? Maintaining your investment? The absolute cheek of it is truly disgusting. I think some landlords saw that condos have maintenance fees and thought they could try it on. Well, the fees come from the owners who have a vested interest in keeping their building clean, safe and attractive. They are not renting--that's the difference.