In Vain I have Struggled

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

But not very hard. I just don’t feel a post today. Nothing to do with the eclipse. We just have a ton of stuff to do and I have chapters to write.

109 thoughts on “In Vain I have Struggled”

        1. Haven’t you heard?

          OU left the Big 12 to “better align with OU’s strategic plan” because Harroz has the strategic judgement, loyalty, and personal integrity of Alcibiades.

          But, yeah, ‘nuking Oklahoma’, and the F-15 talk was gross incompetence on the part of the politicians. If those politicians were not so stupid, there would also be grounds to muse about them being very badly briefed by then serving military officers about the capabilities of those systems.

          US repair and support logistics just are not very robust when it comes to being able to blow up US infrastructure or populations.

          But, yeah, very stupid choice by the politicians.

          Surprise surprise, there is now less support for funding the military to have fresh stocks of munitions to blow up Americans with.

          The dipshits in congress are suggesting this is because Russia is somehow legitimate. No, that is what the security services coercing congress behind the scenes find to be a useful talking point.

          The correct metagame strategy once the security services started vetting politicians for possibly favoring foreign entities is to propose killing all of the foreigners. Of course, the deep state is not allowing any of their proxies to say such a thing.

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    2. The meme did not specify which government.

      I’d say that at present, the government most likely to build a Death Star to use against North Korea is that of China. I hear Comrade Xi is getting tired of keeping that yappy little good-for-nothing dog in his front yard.

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      1. Xi (thead) has his hands full keeping domestic matters from boiling over. I devoutly hope he and the rest of the CCP will be decorating lamp posts before the end of the year. Or at least that they get a Romanian Christmas.

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  3. Several NGO’s are planning to spray particles in the upper atmosphere to fight global warming. I wouldn’t put those winter clothes away just yet. What a wonderful way to bring back the Ice Age and Mega/Maga Fauna. Wouldn’t that be a kick in their liberal ass. Just as Trump is re-elected the temperature drops, See electing Trump saved everything…🤣

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    1. There’s also the moron with too much money talking about putting a giant shade up in part of the atmosphere.

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    3. Let me rephrase this for maximum irony. They are going to fight “anthropogenic climate change” by anthropogenically changing the climate.

      This from the same class of experts that brought us … oh, do I even need to begin the list?

      Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.

      (Because Bibi seems to need a reminder.)

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    4. There is a B movie called Neon City starring Michael Ironside and others (including a young Juliet Landau) with that exact premise; it’s a disaster movie, and let’s just say things did not end well for those who thought they could control climate.

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  4. Hubby is going “meh, whatever”. He “saw” the eclipse in 2017. They were on one of the golf club’s trips. Did not plan it that way. Had all the reservations, housing and golf, long before the hype. We had clouds (rain) in 2017 and have clouds today. Not in the totality path, but suppose to notice it’ll get “darker”. Really?

    Love all the memes. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

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    1. Barely perceptible dimming here in S AZ. Would have thought it just the high clouds if I hadn’t been through so many of these.

      At 64, I’ve seen one total, and must be half a dozen partials. I did make an effort for the last partial to do the pinhole, as the weather was completely clear that morning.

      Today, I had errands to run.

      Oh, and the memes are fun! Thank you, Sarah, we don’t get to use those all that often. (Thanks for yesterday, too – I was beginning to wonder what I’d have to read after the “Taken To the Stars” series I started Saturday.)

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    2. It did get darker. I went out to look at the lighting, and took off my photosensitive glasses. It was the same with or without.

      BUT the light was the same. There was just less of it. All the shadows just as sharp

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  5. Saw totality here about 10 minutes ago. The clouds broke up just enough to be able to see it. It was pretty cool.

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  7. 60% zone here. Looked up a few times with a welding shield, saw the sun gradually shrink to a thick crescent. Now there’s just a little nip out of the lower left edge.

    In other news, stopped at the 99¢ store closeout sale. Hard to believe even the Democrats could f*k up the economy bad enough to put the 99¢ store out of business, but they managed.

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        1. It is traditional to end any “I remember when telephones had actual dials” or “…when a nickel could actually buy something” or similar with “You Kids Get Off My Lawn.”

          This has been an old fogey public service announcement.

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          1. Yup… old fogeys unite!

            Then there was the time I told the grandkids about my Grandma giving me a single dollar to go get gas at the station a block away so I could mow the lawn for her. Gas: .29 for a gallon, coke: a Nickle (drank it there so no deposit), full size candy bar a dime. Fifty-five cents I got to keep for doing the lawn. Ah yes, the good old days! 

            I’ve still got a picture of that corner gas station from back then where the local “gas wars” had it under twenty cents – and ‘full service’ too!

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              1. Silver coins saved my household one Christmas. (Actually it was God, the blessing just came in the form of change.)

                We were close to broke and the washing machine went down. Ended up having to go to a laundromat a few weeks while the part was on order, worried about the eventual repair costs.

                The change machine was finicky, so right before wash day I went to the credit union for quarters. Got $40 worth.

                They came in the old fashion hand-wrapped paper rolls, so while in the parking lot, I got curious and opened one. All silver. Same with the other three rolls.

                Called the wife. The wise one said, “Check how much money we have and then buy all the old paper rolled quarters, halves or wholes we can afford. Deposit back any non-silver.”

                Now this was back in the 2009-2010 era when silver was trending $30+ an ounce. Walked out with two small but heavy boxes of rolls after draining checking and savings down to the minimums.

                Obviously someone had taken granddads stash to the bank, not knowing the actual value of the metal. The credit union didn’t care as long as their books balanced.

                The wife went to a gold/silver/coin dealer and we had a great Christmas blessing. The washer got fixed, the bills were payed, most of the rest was put back into the credit union accounts.

                We also blessed a few others that needed some love that holiday season. The wife rescued the kittens that are now seniors in our house.

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                1. Similar story here, except it was Mom’s “stash.”

                  After she passed away, we were cleaning out the house, and hit a dozen three pound coffee cans full of coins. Now, the other three didn’t want to haul and sort through a quarter ton* of coins, so I had them dumped on me.

                  They sat in my home office for about four months – and then I was laid off. It took four of us three solid days to go through them, pulling out silver and checking for collector coins**. Two hours sitting at the local dealer for them to go through them, but it made the car payments for a bit more than two months.

                  * Estimating – coins are lot denser than ground coffee, honestly.

                  ** Didn’t really find any, except a few Mercury dimes, and some steel pennies. We kept those. Although I have no idea where the heck they are now!

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                  1. except a few Mercury dimes, and some steel pennies. We kept those. Although I have no idea where the heck they are now!

                    Surrrrreeeee. Pass these off to your offspring to deal with.

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                    2. Been there. Done that.

                      1987 Paternal grandmother died (grandpa died in 1959). Helped dad and mom, and dad’s siblings clear her house out for selling. Went home and clean our house out.

                      1989 Hubby’s dad dies and his mom proceeds to sell the house, cash, 30 day close (with a new infant, I stayed out of, well everything). Garage sell, and divvy what she is not taking to the assisted living. We did not pack home a lot of household items. Let’s not discuss the garage stuff. Cleaned out some stuff later but lets be real. We brought in a whole lot more with the new baby. Finally cleared out most the excess not large stuff we never had a use for by dumping it on, I mean, giving it to the HS shop class.

                      2006 My maternal grandparents die. Help mom and her siblings clean out their house for sale. Yep, went home and purged, again. Resisted taking anything (most went to younger cousins and their great-grands, that which was passable on). Did score great-grandmas charcoal and chalk acrylic originals. Those are antiques and special. While what each household collected was very different, each household was very much impacted by the depression and WW2 shortages, one way or another. (Have I mentioned that my inlaws were only slightly younger than my grandparents? All married in the ’30s, with children into WW2. None served in either theater, although the were due to go before civil authorities insisted none could be spared from their jobs.)

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                    3. Yep. Maternal grandparents were in Depression Kansas – they were mostly okay, Grandad was running the bar / snooker parlor in the “big city” of Beloit. But they went to just about every farm sale that they could reach.

                      Did I mention that Mom was an only child? There was stuff that she hadn’t even gotten to to sort in the almost 25 years between their deaths and hers.

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              1. I was gonna say you don’t have to be an old fogey to remember when things were so…much…cheaper. A high-school senior can look back to the good ol’ days of 9th grade, when he could get a value meal at McDonald’s for half what it costs now.

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          2. Right now, after the extremely rainy March we had – I’m more likely to tie them to stakes out there and put them to pulling weeds.

            Both yards are an absolute mess right now – and I’m too busy doing other immediate projects.

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            1. I keep thinking “Yeah, a robot mower would be pretty great, just let it run” but then I look into how much work is involved in actually making any of those do the job and I go back to doing it myself.

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  9. 80%(ish) zone here. That was the most disappointing doomy end of the world I’ve ever seen. Otherwise known as “it looks just like the sun went behind a cirrus cloud.”

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  10. With some, it brought some hope, which is much better than in ancient cultures were it brought a much different emotion, such as apprehension when the high priest was cleaning the sacrificial altar.

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  11. Had totality for three minutes in Dayton. Longest three minutes of my life. I had a solar shield for my camera phone, and was updating my friend in Massachusetts. But Gawd, I understand why the ancient peoples feared eclipses. It was weird. It was awesome. I never realized you could see and hear the shadow coming. Some Somali dudes down the block were shooting off fireworks ‘to bring back the sun’.

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    1. It’s the odd hush that everything gets, and how cold it becomes even in the middle of the day, even when it’s only a partial.

      You kind of just feel like something should happen.

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      2. birds go nuts. I remember one in the UK years ago and the seagulls were crashing into buildings

        mostly a damp squib here in nj. Cloudy and it just got sorta darkish. 

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      3. Last time we got that result– this time I had a horde of kids running around, and a dog that goes “people? PEOPLE!!! PEOPLEPEOPLEPEOPLE!!!!” so if there was any hush, it got drowned out. 🤣🤣🤣

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    3. We had fun over at St. John Bosco chapel with a Total Eclipse of the Heart Eighties party, complete with loud singalong at the moment of totality. Wright State had a dance party outside the Student Union and T-shirts (and a night of eclipse science presentations last week, which I missed). Various private parties took place among the WSU parking lots, courtyards, and lookout towers at the athletic fields. A good time was had by all, as far as I could tell.

      It was very cool, including the “omni-directional sunset,” as one student described it.

      I did see a “diamond ring” effect very briefly also.

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  12. I will admit, the hardest one of the conspiracy theories to believe was the one where the gov was going to do something about North Korea. I honestly can’t believe the gov acting against a despot.

    We actually got to see totality. We mayhem we went to see the one a few years back in Nashville, the clouds rolled in just as it hit totality, so we didn’t get to even see it.

    This one, despite threatening rain, didn’t, so we actually got to see the coronal ring.

    It was really cool. I’m glad I got the chance to see it.

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    1. Greater Yellowstone & environs were inundated, in 2017, everything booked within minutes of being able to be booked. The area wasn’t even in the totality (more than 80%, but not 100%). Not even a guaranty of clear skies between clouds and wildfire smoke.

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      1. I was in the path of totality for that one — everybody stopped working and went outside to see it. Clear skies, great view. Not the most exciting thing in the world…you just kind of sit there while it slowly does its thing…but still a nifty experience. I’ve got a couple of fun photos where light filtering through all the shade trees is making little dappled crescent shapes on the ground.

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    2. “I honestly can’t believe the gov acting against a despot.”

      I could see it, but only to punish Kim for getting along well with Trump…

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    4. We got clouded out for last year’s annular eclipse, though I saw a little with the sun shades. Before that, maybe 70% ones over many years.

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      1. This is my fourth solar eclipse.

        • March 7, 1970, Portsmouth, VA. (Total)
        • May 10, 1994, Akron, OH (Annular, about 94% coverage)
        • August 21, 2017, Nashville, TN (Total)
        • April 8, 2024, Indianapolis, IN (Total)

        And the fourth is just as cool as the first. Better, since I’ve got better tools to watch it. They didn’t have eclipse glasses when I was a kid.

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  13. It got to 90% here according to NASA, though the tiny sliver looked like less. It was only slightly darker out. I figure seeing it made up for not noticing the earthquake.

    Both my kids, here in CT and in Philly felt it. My sister is miffed because she was in London. Apparently during her several years in SF, she was always out of town on business when one big enough to feel hit. She should hire herself out as earthquake insurance.

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    1. hire herself out as earthquake insurance.

      We used to be Drought-Enders-R-US. Hubby’d get a last minute lay off notice for the next two weeks, and we’d take off. Get to wherever, and we’d see rain and snow. Note he was getting the lay off because of “Act of God” due to local wildfire conditions that shutdown logging. Of coarse if we actually stayed home, no rain. Nope. We had to pack up the RV and go somewhere else, not local, for the rain clouds to show up. The first summer he scored actual summer vacation, and after he retired, where it didn’t matter anymore, the timing stopped. Now we are more likely to get pushed out of our destination because of wildfire smoke (never evacuated, yet). Our timing on wildfire evacuations are like this: “Let’s go to Jasper this summer!” Summer comes, something comes up, we cancel reservations. During our reservation time – Jasper is evacuated, due to wildfire (to the east).

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      1. We did that when we moved to Ireland. They had had a really dry summer (for them) and we could see the clouds moving in as the plane neared landing at Shannon.

        It rained a lot after that.

        The following June, Galway had a grand total of 30 hours without cloud cover. That included nighttime.

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    2. Every time I have felt an earthquake, I instinctively feel like my brothers are shaking the floor by jumping around, and it is their fault.

      I am a grown adult, who has not lived in the same house with my brothers for several decades, so I really have to stop having this reflex of blame….

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  14. 87% here, slight high overcast, and it was very cool. The birds went quiet, even the meadowlarks, and the temp dropped by about five-six degrees as we were all outside oogling the show. Didn’t see either of the planets. Apparently you had to have clear skies and totality for that.

    The students made enough noise to drive away whatever was eating the sun. ;)

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  15. Central tx,100%,I mumbled what’s the bright spot at edge of disc,guys says Baileys Beads,though they really should be Haileys Beads”.parking lot education

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      1. Of course, the Leftroids are going to screech. “See? Trump thinks he’s God!” Humor is such an alien concept to them.

        Besides, they all know their Fearless Leaders are God. Trump is committing blasphemy.

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        2. Oh I think President Trump thinks up ways to tweak the democrats and give the rest of us a good laugh. He succeeded.

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    1. I learned there’s an eclipse fi,ter for your phone camera that let’s you take shots of totality and actually get a decent image. I learned this from our neighbor….after the eclipse.

      ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

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              1. I know; I’ve read the book several times. In the book, the triffids did not come from outer space. They were bred right here on Earth and raised on large farms to be processed into high-quality vegetable oil. They were kept under control until the night the meteors made almost everybody blind. Then they became a scourge.

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  20. Your total eclipse of the cat image is exactly what our older cat Taiki used to do to our younger cat Macavity.

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    2. Speaking of total eclipses and cats…. because we have a mama kitty with 4 four-week old kittens in our house, we didn’t want to be gone overnight, so we drove down to the path of totality in southern Illinois and came back the same day.

      We stopped in Salem IL at their public library, which was having special activities for families, including a giant inflatable planetarium display explaining eclipses, a book giveaway, and free ice cream in flavors such as Moon Pie and Cookie Monster. Watched the eclipse from their parking lot and it was quite awesome. Pro tip: public libraries are actually neat places to watch eclipses from (we did it in 2017 as well).

      We were worried about traffic issues but other than having to detour around one backup on the way home using a gravel road, there weren’t any, and the weather was perfect. We were gone for exactly 12 hours (7 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and mama kitty and kittens were just fine when we got back.

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  21. we had intermittent clouds that actually helped highlight the partial we got up here. It was often just the right thickness to show the crescent as it went along. I was out in the yard cleaning up after repairing the fence blow over in the snow storm.
    My sis and her boys in Texas, Mom, and Sis etc in Memphis got nice looks at it. Sis and Brother-in-law in Atlanta metro had a good view too.
    I’m sore
    laundry about done
    food for work week lunch about cooked
    I just gotta get to bed a a viable time

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  22. Las t time I photographed an eclipse I nearly caused car wrecks and almost got thrown out of high school on my last day ever. And that was a partial…

    This time, clouds got out of the way, got two minutes of twilight/darkness and saw the diamonds coming and going. Also a few stars/planets, too lazy to figure out which ones.

    Birds shut up, but the damn aircraft traffic into DFW was extra annoying. ATC was vectoring the one of the NE approaches right over the house today. I wonder if any were “eclipse charters”.

    Music choices were the “Dark Side of the Moon” album and “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden.

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    1. Cool, makes sense. It’s a well-understood phenomena, but there are so few chances to properly study it.

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  25. Totality was awesome here. Got to see the crescent sun patterns cast onto my office floor before and afterward by the bush just outside the window. At totality, everything went dark except the light on the horizon in all directions — sunlight reflecting off Earth’s surface beyond the blot of totality — and the whole feeling was unearthly.

    I watched the NASA live feed, so I saw the images of the Sun taken by the various professional telescope operators — and comments about seeing bats coming out of their roosts and flying. However, other family members used eclipse glasses to watch the progress on either side of totality — and I gave them a phone with an alarm set to make sure they wouldn’t be captivated by totality and forget to put their eclipse glasses back on at the end.

    I’m very glad that there were no nasty surprises, not even an idiot trying to move out from under a cloudy spot and taking out a light pole. With some of those emergency declarations calling for preparations for long disruptions, I was really wondering if there’d be something hinky happening.

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    1. We watched from Shelbyville, and it was awesome. The traffic on the roads back to Ohio was not, and the alternator on my van went out on the way back – our second breakdown just short of the Indiana-Ohio line in 8 days. Grr. Got to see Mercury during totality, though, and had fun with friends and family and tons of strangers, instead of going into work. Totally worth it.

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  27. Was supposed to be in a meeting during the eclipse. Didn’t go.

    Was working instead. 

    Last time I saw an eclipse, I proposed. Best not to repeat such foolishness. At least, not without proper preparation.

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  28. We had an absolutely lovely clear sunny day – very welcome as I had been figuring our usual overcast would spoil the view. I also managed at the eleventh hour (literally, 11:20 a.m.) to find the three pairs of eclipse viewing glasses we had bought in 2017. My son drove home quickly from work and took two pair back with him to share with fellow employees.

    We had 95.4% coverage and while it didn’t get dark, it dimmed noticeably at maximum. I was able to stand on my front porch with one arm around the column for balance as I looked almost straight up and enjoyed the event. I came out just after it started, then about half-coverage, then near maximum which I watched for almost ten minutes, and again near the end.

    One strange phenomenon for me with the combination of my regular glasses and the ultra dark eclipse viewers was that my eyes kept splitting the image into two whenever I looked at the sun. Both images were clear and focused, but while I could move them apart and back close, once they split I couldn’t get a single image again. It was quite amusing, actually. ;-)

    My son at work did get a few minutes to view the eclipse at maximum, so it was a good day for both of us.

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  29. At work, they handed out little bags with eclipse glasses, Sun chips, Moon Pies, and Milky Way bars :D About 80% obscurance here.

    We were in totality for the 2017; it was great.

    I was in totality (such as it was) for the annular eclipse in 1984. That one was REALLY great; the university astronomy club had scopes out with filters and boxes for projection (doing this with a 12″ scope gives REALLY good shots of Bailey’s Beads). Being the budding EE that I was, I had my Radio Shack analog multimeter assembled from a kit, a solar cell, a fixture to maintain orientation, and a few parts, and took measurements the whole time. When plotted, I had the light curve of an eclipsing binary – imagine that :-) And, since it started mid-morning and ended in the afternoon, I had a measurement of the attenuation of the extra atmosphere due to the differences in elevation. I remember measuring radiance at 0.22% of max during totality. My sister said the cat came and knocked on the door to be let in for the night.

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