Serendipitous Factoids 2

It's interesting how quickly these factoids can pile up now that I've started keeping track.  Anyway, here's my second installment!

• Last week, the Rome (as in the capital of Italy) city council showed a modicum of humanity and rescinded punishment previously doled out to one of its citizens.  Yes, they thought that one of their predecessor’s exiling of Publius Ovidius Naso was a bit harsh.  I haven’t read why they rescinded the ban, but that’s fitting because nobody knows why he was banned in the first place.  It’s all very curious.  Publius Ovidius Naso is better known to the English-speaking world as the poet Ovid, who along with Virgil and Horace, are considered the canonical poets of ancient Rome.  Yep, ancient Rome.  Ovid was exiled to what is now a Romanian port city on the Black Sea by the Emperor Augustus. In the year 8 (it’s 8 AD, but I think at this distance the 17-year spread between 8 BC and 8 AD is kind of inconsequential).  Nobody knows why and Ovid himself wouldn’t say anything beyond it was due to “a poem and a mistake” (except he said it in Latin, carmen et error, which doesn’t clarify anything).
• http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2017/12/14/rome-revokes-ovids-exile_d1bec182-804e-44c0-81c9-9c34bb602985.html 

• Here’s one that’s a colossal time-suck and a complete waste as none of the sites do anything (hence, the word ‘useless’ in the URL) but I can’t stop clicking the “Please” button!
• http://www.theuselessweb.com/ 

• For a time-suck that you might learn something from, try one of the Wikipedia Wiki-Link Games:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki-Link_Game 

• Here’s a site that was created in 1995 (for some perspective, HTML, the language used to create webpages, was created in 1993).  This site is all about Anabaptists.  It turns out that the Amish are a breakaway sect of the Mennonites.  I  don't know why but I always thought it was the other way around.
• http://www.anabaptists.org/ 

• I saw an EMS journal article titled, “EMS agency responds to call about frozen woman, finds statue.”  I thought it was unusual but wasn’t really surprising for the line of work – public safety service life is filled with WTF? moments – but unusual nonetheless…until I read the inset “Related Article” titled, “‘Homeless Jesus’ statue prompts 911 calls.”
• https://www.ems1.com/ems-humor/articles/370598048-EMS-agency-responds-to-call-about-frozen-woman-finds-statue/
• https://www.ems1.com/communications-dispatch/articles/105029048-Homeless-Jesus-statue-prompts-911-calls/ 

• Acute radiation exposure is measured in rads (radiation absorbed dose).  A chest x-ray will expose you to 0.01 rads. People with acute exposure of 350 rads (roughly 35,000 chest x-rays in very short order) or less may get sick but will recover without medical intervention.  100 rad exposures generally won’t even cause any illness.  Almost all people with exposures over 600 rads will die within a few weeks.  This is according to ‘Chapter 13 - Surviving Without Doctors’ in “Nuclear War Survival Skills: Lifesaving Nuclear Facts and Self-Help Instructions” by Cresson H. Kearny (ISBN 978-09-4248-7015 and free online at http://oism.org/nwss/nwss.pdf).  While this may sound like a 50s Red Scare / Cold War book, it was actually published in 1986, during the Reagan Administration, when FEMA was focused on minimizing civilian casualties when the nukes started flying. Or, as Major TJ “King” Kong said in Dr. Strangelove, “Nuclear combat, toe-to-toe with the Rooskis!”  It should be noted that the units of measure used in this book have since been replaced with an international scale (System Internationale) and rads have been replaced by units called gray (Gy). 

• Our brush with international peace.  In November 1995, the Ohio Chapter of the 8^th Air Force Historical Society, of which my Dad was the President and I was on the Board of Directors, was slated to hold its fall meeting at the Hope Hotel on the grounds of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.  Fate had other plans for us, however.  Another meeting was scheduled at the last minute at the Hope Hotel (named for Bob Hope, famous entertainer of deployed troops) that was considered by the Powers-That-Be to be a little more important than ours: a few bigwigs were going to get together to negotiate an end to the 3½ year war then going on in Bosnia.  For security reasons, we, along with everybody else, were booted.  The staff of the Hope were fantastic, finding us another meeting place that met our needs in the immediate Dayton area, ensuring that hotel reservations were transferred to the new meeting place with no change in cost, and even mailing out notices to our membership of the new venue and accommodations.  The only thing we had to do was produce a set of membership mailing labels for them to use for the notices.  I like to think that (despite the clear lack of say in the matter) our generosity in stepping aside without a fuss helped ease the way to the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton_Agreement 

• A good army trains the way it’s going to fight. For the US Army this includes teaching the troops that when invading another country they are going to have to deal with foreign languages and cultures and all the complicated dynamics that go along with them. To do this, the Army creates entire countries with their own languages, cultures, money and international relations.  These countries include the People’s Republic of Pineland, the Island of Aragon, Attica, the People’s Democratic Republic of Krasnovia, and Atropia. 
• http://mentalfloss.com/article/31437/5-fictional-countries-where-us-army-trained-fight
• And yes, there are war souvenirs: https://teespring.com/shop/atropia-veteran-shirt-6355  

• The inch was originally considered as approximately the width of a man's thumb until the 14th century when King Edward II ruled that 1 inch equaled the length of 3 grains of barley lined up, end to end. 
• https://www.convert-me.com/en/history_of_measurement_faq.html

That's it for now.  See you next time!

Serendipitous Factoids

Growing up I used to read a weekly column called, "Strictly Personal" by Sydney J. Harris.  I was especially fond of his recurring ''Things I Learned En Route to Looking Up Other Things.''  The tidbits he put into those columns filled my young head, or as my sister Diane called it, my "trivial brain."

I recalled Harris' work a couple of days ago when I found myself down the rabbit hole of the internet, finding interesting fact after interesting fact, forgetting why I was surfing to start with.  I realized that I should emulate Harris and start keeping track of these things.  So I did, and here we are.

With that, I present to you Serendipitous Factoids, Part I.

• Serendipity...may as well start with that word and its etymology.  Horace Walpole made up the word based on an erroneously recalled story called, "The Three Princes of Serendip" to describe finding valuable or interesting things unintentionally.
• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/serendipity
• My alma mater was taken over so it would appear I have, in addition to the alma mater, an alma step-patrem.
• http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-devry-university-new-ownership-20171205-story.html
• Space Fever is a real thing. Being in low gravity causes the human body to have thermoregulatory issues. These can be life-threatening, especially in the long term.
• https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/12/03/astronauts-core-body-temperature-increases-extended-space-missions-12223
• Which is better: PS4 or Xbox One?  PS4 is the better gaming system...if you're a roach.  The PS4 is warmer, roomier and more readily roach-accessible than Xbox One.
• https://kotaku.com/console-repairmen-explain-why-cockroaches-love-ps4s-1794393470
• Huge clouds of dust from the Sahara desert - to the tune of 28 million tons each year - blow from east to west across the Atlantic Ocean, dropping onto the jungles of the Amazon.  It's not the problem one would automatically think.  The dust is loaded with phosphorous, a fertilizer.  This means one of the planet's most desolate places feeds one of the most fertile.
• https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants
• This leads us into World Soil Day, celebrated by somebody, somewhere, every December 5th.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Year_of_Soil
• An interesting method of storing energy: converting potential energy into usable energy by sending a train loaded with rocks down a long hill when energy is needed, and back up the hill when energy is abundant.  The Economist called it "Sisyphus’s train set." Pretty clever (the idea and the title).
• https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21701466-novel-idea-storing-electricity-sisyphuss-train-set 
• Krampus is a thing.  Specifically, it's a Christmastime thing.  Krampus is a half-goat, half-demon acting as the anti-Santa, punishing bad children.  It's a product of Alpine peoples from the pre-Christian era.  Krampus never went away but the internet is allowing the idea to spread outside the Alps.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus
• Finally, in the 12 Days of Christmas, what are calling birds and turtle doves?  Well, calling birds are simply any songbirds, and there are of over 5,000 species of them.  Turtle doves are a bit more specific, but still can be any one of 19 types of collared doves.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptopelia

That's it for now.  I'll have more later.

George's Valedictory Letter

So this is a blog post about a blog post about an open letter to the American people.

Let's start at the chronological beginning of that sentence which is at the grammatical end.

The open letter in question was published some 221 years ago in what turned out to be America's first successful daily newspaper, Philadelphia's American Daily Advertiser.  It was quickly picked up by other newspapers across the nascent country and was also turned into a pamphlet for even wider distribution.

The primary author of the letter had help.  His first unsigned co-author was the "Father of the Constitution," James Madison.  The letter was set aside when circumstances changed and it was temporarily not applicable.  Then, four years later, Alexander Hamilton helped the primary author update and finish the letter.  The author was George Washington.  The first version was set aside when, at the end of his first term, Washington changed his previously made up mind and decided to run for a second term.  The updated version of the letter came about when Washington decided that twice was enough and he wanted nothing more than to retire to Mt. Vernon.  The letter was originally published with the title, "The Address of General Washington To The People of The United States on his declining of the Presidency of the United States."  It was later renamed and we still know it today by that name: Washington's Farewell Address.

James Madison, Father of the Constitution, Father of the Bill of Rights, but not of any actual children

Lin-Manuel Miranda, as portrayed by Alexander Hamilton

George Washington, 1st US President, Infamous slaughterer of cherry trees

Pretty much everyone's heard of the Address, and some have heard of one of the more famous passages, an admonition against permanent foreign alliances (if you heard it as entangling alliances, as I did, well, that's actually from Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address, five years after Washington's missive of departure).  But I'd wager that few have read it, and I'd be willing to wager a lot that even fairly fanatic history buffs such as myself have not read the whole thing.

Why am I so sure?  Because Washington's Farewell Address to the nation he helped create and get up and running is 6,144 words of what is to modern ears dense, highly-convoluted prose.  Unless you're experienced with 19th century writing and really determined to read it, it is at times nearly impenetrable.  There's a single sentence near the end - one that's not a run-on or compound sentence - that has 58 words, broken up with 11 commas.  That sentence is actually one of the easy ones to read.

I bring this up because of a blog post about Washington's Farewell Address that I just came across.  It was written 10 years ago by Randall Munroe, author of the nerdy/geeky webcomic, xkcd.com.  In this post, Munroe took the time (probably quite a bit of it) to translate the Address into common, current language. 

The results of Munroe's efforts are remarkable.  The Address becomes understandable to speakers of 21st century English. As an example, here are the first two paragraphs of the Address, as written by George (and Company):

The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed designating the person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.

Like I said, dense and convoluted writing style.  But the ideas being conveyed aren't so difficult. Here is Munroe's translation:

Elections are coming up, and it’s time to figure out who we wanna give the keys to.  I figure it might clear things up if I take a sec to explain why I’m not running.

Now, I care about the future, don’t get me wrong, and thanks for your trust so far.  I just think me quitting is a good idea on all counts.

I’ve been president twice now, and I didn’t want to do it either time.  I tried to quit the first time, but the country was in trouble and every single person around me begged me to stay on.

I’m glad to say we’re pretty much in the clear now and I can get out of here without getting screamed at or letting things fall apart completely.

-->

My favorite part, though, is the salutation.  Washington opened with, "Friends and fellow-citizens" which Munroe rendered as, "Sup."

What makes Munroe's translation a must-read, however, is not his entertaining treatment of the work, his breezy style, and the roughly 45% reduction in word count to 2,270.  No, what makes this a must-read is Washington's prescience and how applicable the Farewell Address still is, well over two centuries into the future.

About the only thing Washington didn't foresee was the nullification of his strong and rational reasoning behind the advice against permanent foreign alliances.  Washington (as well as many Presidents after him) were worried that those alliances with major powers like Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands would lead to perpetual servitude of the little, mostly powerless United States.  He couldn't foresee the US becoming the most militarily and economically powerful and culturally dominating country ever. 

There are many other ideas that George did get right and still apply.  I won't list them here because Munroe's translation is so good that I can't do it justice paraphrasing it.  So go to the xkcd blog and read it for yourself: https://blog.xkcd.com/2007/01/29/washingtons-farewell-address-translated-into-the-vernacular/

And if you want to see the original, it can be found at 
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washington%27s_Farewell_Address 

This is Why You Don't Have a Job

I was poring over a pile of applications for a data manager job we had open a few years ago and started sending random e-mails to my section about some of the amusing things I was seeing in them (de-identified, of course). Liz, a 20-something member of my team, appeared in my office doorway, laughing, and said, “You need to put these in a book and call it ‘This is Why You Don’t Have a Job.’”

I haven’t accumulated enough observations to write a book, but I can get a blog post out of them.

I want to start out with a few words about typographical errors. The very first time I looked at a batch of applications I was amazed at how glaring the typos were, even though I wasn’t looking for them. It was as if they leapt off the page and poked me in the eye. The lethality of typos for your job prospects cannot be overstated, especially when the job has any technical components.

My section manages several statewide data systems and performs analysis on the data received. If you cannot take the time to proofread your application to find and correct a typo, I cannot trust that you will double check your database query to make sure you didn’t put in > when you meant <, especially when there is time pressure and we have to get it right the first time. There are plenty of other qualified applicants out there so if there’s a typo in your application, I’m not giving you an interview.

Related to typos, THE USE OF CAPS LOCK IS HIGHLY DISCOURAGED BY THIS AUTHOR. Similarly, using no caps is also frowned upon, especially when typing your name and address, such as applicant john q. public who lived on scioto-darby road in hilliard, ohio.

That being said, here are some of my applicant observations:

• This is a copy-and-paste from an applicant’s description of their job duties: “Identification of billing inaccuaracies and correcting such problems.” Reread that one if you have to.
• Address of current employer: “30 eat Broad St.” (Yum!)
• Job Duties: “Preformed wound care according to doctor’s orders.”
• Position Title: “part of a team assisting”
• Objective: “To get a job with benefits.” That certainly is honest…
• Please don’t use words you don’t really understand. The phrase regarding desired pay is “commensurate with my degree” not “commiserate with my degree.”
• Pro tip: If your application contains the phrase “See resume” it’s best to attach a resume. It reflects an eye for detail.
• Objective: “To become an indispensable part of an organization that inspires their employees to challenge themselves and make a difference within the company and society.” You do realize that you’re applying for a bureaucrat job, right? The only time we use the word inspire is when we need a synonym for inhale.
• Objective: “Wish to pursue career in investigative field.” Well, since you’re applying for a data manager position, I’m just going to wish you the best of luck in your pursuit.
• Objective: “To use my knowledge in public relations, human resources, investigations, law enforcement, and out of this knowledge to use in the position I am hired for.” Boy, he had me hooked for a while there, but then he ended the sentence with a preposition.
• Objective: “To make the department/company/organization, etc… better for being there.” Good luck in your job/career/employment, etc… search.
• Work experience: “Employer - Big City Schools, 8/2004 to 8/2011; Duties - A; Reason for leaving - Uncertainty in position. Budget cuts resulted in reduction of hours. Need full time position.” The applicant was unemployed at the time, which is curious considering how many companies are scrambling to find people with experience in performing A.
• An applicant states she attended a university from 1976 through 2007. She did get a degree. She didn’t get an interview but did make my first cut, mainly because I was curious to learn more about a person who takes 124 quarters to get a BA.
• An applicant states he currently works at the Buddhist Center in a different city but that we may not contact that employer. That got me thinking, just how hard do you have to work to piss off Buddhists so much that they’ll say bad things about you?
• Applicant states she attended Ohio State from 2001 through 2003 majoring in Undecided, then went to University of Cincinnati from 2003 to 2004 to continue her studies in Undecided, and has attended Columbus State from 2001 to present (that's a 2 year overlap of learning in both Columbus and Cincinnati), going for her AD in business management and graphic design. Current employer? Department of Education.  If that’s her idea of work-life balance, for her own sake, I don’t think she should work at Public Safety.
• Summary of qualifications: “I am keeper of office supplies.” Is this an admission of kleptomania, or do I need a +2 sword to slay her and get the sacred Cartridge of Toner?
• “I have the strong ability to complete routine forms.” Well, alright, I think we have our new data manager!

After hiring the new data manager, we had other, more technically specialized positions open, namely epidemiologists and statisticians. Here are some more from those rounds of applicants...

• If you have three typos in the name of two of your schools, you might want a refund.
• If you’ve got so much jargon in your application and resume that I have to run it through Google Translate to figure out what you’re going on about, you’re not getting an interview.
• Objective: “My career objective is to find a long term career with a dynamic company…” No, no, no! This is bureaucracy. It’s the opposite of dynamic.
• One applicant left the US Postal Service as a letter carrier “looking for a more challenging and mutually rewarding professional career.” Current job? Supervising bartender.
• “My objective is to obtain employment in Business Administration, Labor Relations and Human Resources, which is my major field of education.” Glad he made that clear. I was about to sidetrack his career aspirations with a job as a biostatistician.
• It’s reassuring to see so many people applying who are “self-starters.” I’m getting tired of having to hand-crank my employees every morning. Seriously, though, stop using that term; it doesn’t work the way you think it will.
• Employee of Head Start has the objective, ”To secure a position to aid children and families in identifying and connecting services that assist in the betterment of the community, families and the individual.” No, dear, that’s where you work now. Why are you applying here?
• Objective: “Secure a rewarding position to help me the organizational goals.” Applicant also had two typos in name of one educational institution.
• Applicant submitted his college transcript. He earned 2/3 credit for “Beginning Tennis.”
• Another applicant submitted the college transcript for his law degree. He failed Employment Discrimination, got a D in Constitutional Law but earned an A in Money Laundering.
• Objective: “To utilize my skill set, experiences, and education to impact the lives of young adults and those who facilitate with the habilitation and rehabilitation.” I’m not sure what to say, I just thought this was an interesting sentence.
• “I have obtain a college degree in the area of communication, and while in college I also took classes that is related to the opening position.” That am good and I are impressed. (I swear I did not make this one up.)
• We lucked out and found THE. Perfect. Candidate. She did a cut-n-paste into the application of our position description’s minimum qualifications in its entirety. This includes the “–OR– “ where it says the candidate "Must have X –OR– Must have Y –OR– Must have Z.
• A phrase I never expected to read anywhere, least of all in an application: Drosophila husbandry.
• Objective: “to get into a Master’s or Ph.D. program of psychology or criminology, by which a state job or internship could help me achieve.” Call me old-fashioned and stodgy, but I prefer the traditional route of using education to get a job, not vice versa. And given the grammar of that sentence, that education may be doubly helpful.
• Brevity is admirable, except in job applications, where you're supposed to talk yourself up. Entire summary of qualifications: “College graduate.”

The morals of this story include:

• Proofread.
• Have somebody else critically review your application.
• Proofread.
• Make sure your objective is at least somewhat related to the job for which you are applying.
• Proofread, proofread, PROOFREAD!

I will end with my personal favorite:

• Objective: “I have no objective and will give this job 100%.”

Eclipse Addendum

Two things about the eclipse of 2017 that I failed to mention in my previous post (http://timerskinephotography.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-hole-in-fabric-of-sky.html).

First, I didn't publish any pictures of the eclipse after totality because none of them turned out. When I did the second shot of totality, a wide angle one, I must have bumped the focus ring on my lens when I went back to full zoom. The Bailey Beads are just little fuzzy spots and the Diamond Ring is more like a fur collar. It was a stupid, frustrating rookie mistake. 😆

Second, after most everyone had departed the viewing area I noticed something both strange and wonderful: no trash. I looked the length of the viewing area. No bags or bottles or papers. There was one napkin in the grass, which from the looks of it and where it was, was probably there before we were. Everybody took out what they brought in. A Facebook post from the National Park Service rangers at Grand Teton National Park reported much the same thing happened there, too. They were gearing up for a huge mess and there was barely anything at all for them to pick up. Given the number of people they had there, this gives one a bit of faith in humanity, despite the current media-amplified voices of protest, counter-protest, and counter-counter-protest.

A Hole in the Fabric of the Sky

The total solar eclipse of 2017 crossed the US from Oregon to South Carolina, a distance of about 2,600 linear miles.  The path of totality, where the moon would completely cover the sun, was 70 miles wide, making the entire area of totality 182,000 square miles, an area about 10% larger than California. Some 12 million people live in that swath of land and millions more would travel to be there when the moon shadow passed. The Missus and I were two of those itinerant seekers of totality.

Path of Totality

We heard about the eclipse nearly three years before when I stumbled across a poster online saying “See the Total Eclipse of 2017 in the Grand Tetons.” I looked up the eclipse and we agreed that there wasn’t going to be anywhere on its path nearly as beautiful to see the eclipse. The Smokies would be pretty but a distant second. We’ve been to the Tetons several times as guests of our friends Dick and Mary Lou. We KNEW it would be THE place. But then we realized that we never go to see Dick and Mary Lou in August in a normal year because of the crowds and bumper-to-bumper traffic in town and in the park. So we agreed there wasn’t any way we were going to venture into the usual sea of humanity heavily augmented by eclipse watchers.

A small college town in southern Illinois (home of the Southern Illinois University Salukis) was the city closest to the point of the longest duration of totality. At a point a few miles southeast of there, totality would last 2 minutes and 40 seconds. Carbondale, population 25,902, was the place we wanted to be.

The eclipse was to happen on Monday, August 21. There were some requests by the celestially obtuse to have the date moved. My friend Andy from Wyoming reported a conversation with a dispatcher for the Wyoming Highway Patrol. The dispatcher received a call from a woman who asked how Wyoming got picked to host the eclipse and whether it wouldn’t be better to have it on the weekend. Andy then quoted Winston Churchill: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

"I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."

But I digress. The eclipse was to happen on Monday, August 21. We were planning on driving from Columbus to Carbondale but life altered our plans when we moved to Virginia. The drive from Cbus to Carbondale would take 7 ½ hours. Completely manageable for us as we did that distance in early 2017, driving to LeClaire, Iowa to see bald eagles. But relocating to Richmond, Virginia (transplanted from Cbus to RVA) made the drive time an untenable 15+ hours. So we booked passage on Delta Airlines from Richmond to St. Louis and rented a car (hired a car, for those readers who are subjects of the Crown) for the 2-hour drive southeast to our target area. Well before any of this happened though, I knew I had to reserve a room early. Like a year out, generally the maximum in advance individuals can make reservations. Because I had not put this on my calendar I started looking for a room 48 hours late, but still, a full 363 days ahead of the eclipse. My tardiness was nearly lethal for our plans: there were no rooms available in Carbondale.

A quick consultation with Google Maps showed another town nearby.  Marion, Illinois (population 17,193) is about 10 miles east of Carbondale with a state highway connecting the two. After trying three hotels in Marion, we managed to get a room at the Hampton Inn, one of only four left for the event. It turns out that staying in Marion was more than a little lucky (more on this later).

We arrived in Marion on Saturday, about 48 hours before the eclipse. We wanted to use the time to explore the area and, more importantly, scout viewing locations. This was a really crucial point on our agenda as the news reports of how many people were going to descend on Carbondale itself (hundreds of thousands) made being in the town itself undesirable for crowd-haters like us.

I should note here that the staff at Hampton Inn – Marion was really ready for this. The lobby was filled with all manner of literature and brochures about the area and eclipse-related activities, well above and beyond what you would normally find, including state highway maps from Illinois Department of Transportation. All guests received a gift bag that had eclipse glasses (legitimate ones, not cheap rip offs), a local eclipse guide, created by the staff, detailing local activities, places to eat, etc. It also had snacks – moon pies, sunflower seeds and Eclipse gum. Well done, Hampton Inn – Marion. Well done.

There was a lot going on in Carbondale to attract multitudes besides 2:40 of totality. A three-day eclipse science show at Southern Illinois University was being put on by an uber-geek's Dream Team of NASA, Chicago’s Adler Planetarium and the Planetary Society. The Weather Channel had reporters scattered across the path of totality, but it dropped two into Carbondale. One of them was Jim Cantore, their resident master of disaster. NOTE: If Cantore ever shows up in your town in foul weather gear, leave. Now. Seriously, don’t ask any questions, just GTFO and don’t look back.

Jim Cantore, Meteorologist

Jim Cantore, Very Bad Sign

Further reading on the eclipse showed that Carbondale was the self-proclaimed town closest to the longest totality but that the actual point of greatest totality was 10 miles southeast of town, in Giant City State Park (GCSP). This spot was pretty much equidistant from Marion as the crow flies, but Carbondale got the jump on the closest town claim.

We found on our scouting expeditions that GCSP was preparing several designated viewing areas and girding their loins for an unprecedented deluge of visitors. Armed with good maps and great senses of direction, we set out to find an alternate route into the park to avoid the obvious route in from Carbondale. We found two routes in that would normally take a lot longer, but would likely bypass most of the vehicular congestion and wind up being quicker.

And then we saw it. Both of our alternate routes into GCSP took us through a portion of Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, and just a couple of miles past the Refuge’s visitor center was a wildlife viewing area. It was perfect. It was on a minor state road, had wide open spaces for viewing, a small but paved parking lot, large grassy areas for setting up our spot (and my camera rig), and most importantly, a Porta-Potty™. If we were going to be there for several hours, this was a must. This viewing area, honoring a long-time volunteer, became Plan A. The designated viewing areas in GCSP became Plans B, C, D, and E. If all these failed, the hotel parking lot was Plan F.

Our Spot was Plan A, Plans B-E were west-northwest of the Point of Longest Totality, Plan F was next to the Walmart.

On the day of the eclipse we awoke at 5 a.m. The start of the eclipse was at 11:52 a.m. Central Daylight Time…it was E-minus 6 hours, 52 minutes. We had some fruit for breakfast, packed our locally-purchased Styrofoam cooler with our locally-purchased sandwich fixings and water and headed out. Then we stopped, headed back into the hotel, and got some liquid methylxanthine CNS stimulants (coffee). Armed with that, we actually hit the road. It was 6 a.m. and the sky was just starting to lighten. We got to the Crab Orchard NWR viewing area 15 minutes later. We were the second car there and backed into the spot we wanted on the far side of the parking lot. E-minus 5 hours, 37 minutes.

Other eclipse watchers trickled in. The next people to show up parked next to us. John and Cathy (or Jon and Kathy, or some such) were from Cambridge, Ohio, about 70 miles east of Columbus. Later, a gentleman in a bright, shiny red Chevy Silverado parked in the grass on the other side of us. Bob was a really nice guy from Rock Island, Illinois. We chatted with our neighbors all morning. By the time the eclipse started, there were nearly 100 people in the viewing area that had fewer than 10 parking spaces. Everybody else was parked on the grass.

The eclipse watchers in the viewing area were from all walks of life, all ages, creeds and colors. Everyone was happy, friendly, excited and anxious for what was about to happen.

I set the alarm on my cell phone to go off at E-minus 1 minute and again at the minute of totality. When reveille (or as it is labeled by my phone, army_wake-up_bugle) sounded loudly, people nearby looked at me. “One minute!” I shouted. I could hear the message get passed down the line in both directions. People began donning their solar glasses and getting into their viewing positions. The half-dozen photographers there, myself included, had already dialed in their focus and exposures but we all now cozied up to our camera eyepieces, made final positioning adjustments to our tripods and waited for the first glimpse of the moon.

It has begun.

Just as I thought I saw the sun’s curvature start to flatten at the 1 o’clock position, the guy three cars away with an outrageously good solar telescope shouted, “There it is!” Thus began the Solar Eclipse of 2017.

Everybody watched in amazement as the moon began to cover more and more of the sun’s surface. Even knowing the mechanics of what was happening – you know, the moon is moving between the earth and the sun – it was still a thing of wonder.

About an hour into the moon’s transit things around us began to change. It had happened gradually but the light was now noticeably different. To me, it was as if I was wearing polarized sunglasses. Everything was still brightly lit, but there was a blue-gray tinge to the light. With sunlight still streaming down onto them, there was no longer any glare coming off of the parked cars. Even Bob’s shiny Silverado failed to shine. The other thing that happened was that crickets started to chirp. They kept that up for about 20 minutes before they decided they were too confused for mating rituals and shut up.

It was at this point, where 70% to 80% of the sun was obscured, that ancient civilizations in the path of an eclipse had to be utterly freaking out. They couldn’t see a cloud in the sky and it yet was getting dark and the temperature was dropping. There weren’t any ophthalmologists to warn them against looking at the sun, so they would have looked up to see the sun disappearing. How frightening that must have been for them. Cultures across the globe and across the millennia have developed different responses to eclipses, including making as much noise as possible to warn the sun of its impending doom.

In 585 BC, it was the sixth year of a bloody, brutal war between the Kingdoms of Medes and Lydia in what is now Anatolia in Turkey. Right in the middle of a battle in May of that year a solar eclipse occurred. Everybody agreed it was an omen. They dropped their weapons, exited the field of combat and immediately declared a truce. A solar eclipse is more powerful than one’s bitter hatred of a mortal enemy.

At E-plus 1 hour, 27 minutes, approximately one minute before totality, light began fading rapidly. It was as if somebody had put the sun on a dimmer switch and was twisting it fast. That was something I hadn’t read about and was startled by it.

At E-plus 1 hour, 28 minutes the last glint of the sun’s surface was enveloped by the moon. Totality had come to Crab Orchard. With so many things to look at that we had never seen before, the next 2 minutes and 40 seconds went by much too fast.

First and most obviously, there was the sun’s corona. Even the clearest, most vivid pictures of it don’t convey how truly awe-inspiring it is to see the thing hanging in the sky. And the center is so dark, so completely black, that it appears that a hole has been cut in the fabric of the sky and surrounded by a silvery mist.

Totality

Next, there was the dark. There was some light but it was like what you see about 45 minutes to an hour after sunset in the summertime. With this dark came stars and the planet Venus, as well as noticeable cold. According to the Weather Channel’s reporters in Carbondale, there was an 8 degree drop at totality – about 5 degrees centigrade.

The other thing to see and marvel at was the 360^o sunset. The horizon was lit with colors of sunset…frosty pink, pastel orange and midnight blue. Seeing this all the way around instead of just to the west where you normally see it was beautiful.

Then there was the sound of the people. Gasps, oohs and aahs, laughter, happy chatter, cheering and shouts of joy, and that was just me! Reactions were quite varied. Some people found it to be magical, some mystical. Some people prayed, others simply wept at the astonishing beauty of the event. Regardless of their reaction, everybody was just overwhelmed by what they were experiencing and trying their best to express it to each other.

160 seconds later it was over. The end of totality was announced by the appearance of Bailey’s Beads, where beads of sunlight began to peek from between mountains on the moon’s surface. This was followed rapidly by the diamond ring where most of the coronal ring is still visible but a large burst of sunlight emerges on one side, creating the look of a diamond ring.

The process of darkening towards totality reversed itself, with the dimmer switch being twisted in the other direction for about a minute, returning Crab Orchard to polarized light and then gently increasing. By E-plus 3 hours, 5 minutes, Luna had completed her transit of Sol.

It was at this point that having lodging in Marion was shown to be one of the luckier things to happen. A half million people were estimated to have gone to Carbondale and they were all trying to go home, with most of them apparently trying to get to the nearest interstate on-ramp, at I-57 in Marion. Had we been staying in Carbondale it would have taken hours to go the 10 miles or so. As it was, we were able to take back and side roads to avoid the crowds. Getting to Crab Orchard NWR took 15 minutes; returning to Hampton Inn took 20. From the comfort of our hotel room we were able to watch the traffic from Carbondale not moving towards I-57, which was at a standstill. In 20 minutes, the same amount of time it took us to get back, a semi tractor-trailer moved the length of one semi tractor-trailer.

I wish that I could better convey the feelings of exhilaration of experiencing totality (and really, you don’t just see it, it is experienced). Since the discovery of what causes eclipses countless poets, writers, philosophers and musicians have experienced totality and none of them have been able to adequately communicate the experience through their tools. So I don’t feel too bad about my incapacity in this case, just a little disappointed. 

I think perhaps the best way to convey the experience is to tell you to seek out the next one. On April 8, 2024, just a little more than 6 ½ years after I write this, a total solar eclipse will once again traverse the US. It will travel from Texas up to Maine. Cities like Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester and Montreal will be in the path of totality. Interestingly, it will once again cross southern Illinois. And that’s where we will be…in “our spot” at Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge.

My pictures of the eclipse can be found in my Flickr account: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm71PdM6