“Were it possible to erase all the mistakes of your past:

that would also destroy the wisdom of your present…Remember the lessons, not the disappointments”

.

BLM is rising in power and activism (and Media coverage!)….funny that, just in time for the election

The rise in protests about black men being shot by cops is rising too,

“Gotta stir up them darkies so they’ll vote Democrat“. I’m surprised they aren’t planning on handing out Fried Chikken and watermelon outside of the polling places. Jesus. The worst part is that this tactic with BLM actually works

And the media is helping by sensationalizing every single black dude who gets ventilated for doing something stupid while under arrest. I wonder how many good cops are gonna get crucified and lose their jobs, or even get jail time because of this pogrom?

I guess they feel they gotta do what they gotta do to get enough votes for Slow Joe, they can’t manufacture ALL of them at 4 AM.

So the old man goes the the doctor for a checkup. His wife had been nagging him about it for weeks, so he went.

The doctor noted that Medicare and his supplemental insurance would pay for a lot of tests, so he drew 15 vials of blood. He also gave the old man 4 jars.

“I need a stool sample, a urine sample, a sputum sample next time you cough, and, if you can at your age, a sperm sample”

With that, the old man left and went home, with instructions to bring the samples back the next day.

At 2 pm the next day the old man sowed up for his appointment with the doctor, jars in a bag.

The doctor opened the bag….stool sample, urine sample, and sputum sample all in their jars. The sperm sample jar was, however, empty.

Couldn’t produce one?, asked the doctor

“Christ, Doc, I’m an old man”, came the reply….”I got home and tried right away.”

“First I used my left hand, then my right hand, nothing. Then I tried both hands, still nothing. I mean, I did my best. I tried TWICE!”

“I called my wife, and she tried, first with one hand, then the other, then both. She tried her feet, and then even tried with her mouth….with her teeth in and with ’em out. No joy,”

“About that time, her sister stopped by, so we had her try. She used her left hand, then her right, then both hands. Then her and my wife tried working together….No luck.”

“About that time our widow neighbor lady came over, and even with all three doing their best it just wasn’t happening.”

He handed the jar to the doctor and said “you open it”

The weather was a crapshoot, and I didn’t wanna waste my one chance to see Totality.

I wimped out. I’ve missed several through my years, due to work and/or weather, and I damned well wanted to see Totality.

I chose the safe route.  Yeah, I’m a wimp. Fuckit. (I guess the best place forecasted to be was somewhere in Maine, as they had perfectly clear skies…but I didn’t want to fly that far without some serous planning that I didn’t do when I got up that morning…)

I could have gone to Mt Vernon Il, but they said 32% cloud cover.  Partly cloudy. Scattered/broken at 12K….. Bloomington, Indiana  was forecasted 43% same way.  Turns out both areas had pretty clear skies at the time of totality, but I didn’t wanna gamble. If I had gone the 32% would have been in front of the sun….. Murphy loves me, and not for my cooking, if you get my drift.

Ft Wayne, at the edge of the totality (99,8%) was forecasted scattered high clouds, 7% cloud cover. Farther east, it was supposed to be clear for a few miles, then increasing cloud cover. I chose the car so I could move around if Ma Nature chose to mess with me. The 340 is faster, but you can’t (generally) land except at airports. No flexibility (and I could not get a rental car on short notice at KFWA, I tried). I wanted more flexibility. I chose to drive. (Originally, the forecast was for Ft Wayne and east to be clouded up, but like most 3 day forecasts, that changed.)

I headed east. 3 hours of driving, down US 30, but I went past Ft Wayne into the “totality corridor” and started looking for a place to stop. I ended up at a church/school parking lot (the St. Louis Besancon Catholic Church)  and asked at the parish office if It was Ok. The lady said she had no objections, so I set up the car and the camera and began watching. Just whisps of clouds. Gave her a spare pair of those eclipse glasses and she was thrilled.

I was the first, but not the last. there were about 20 cars, some with many kids, others with only one or two people, started pulling into the parking lot. It was never crowded, but there was a lot more than I expected in a rural church parking lot 20 miles east of New Haven Indiana.

Soon enough, something took a small bite out of the sun. The it slid ever more over the disc of the sun, and eventually, Totality occurred. Funny how about 85 % coverage doesn’t seem very dark. I guess our eyes adjust. But then things changed: The color of the sky seemed…different. Almost monochromatic, like a carbon-arc light…It also got cool, as the solar insolation was cut off as the sun was obscured.

Then things happened fast. About the time that streetlights came on, and we heard a rooster start crowing. Then the shadow (very quickly) slipped over the sun and it got kinda dark

Totality IS different than 98%. Quite different. For just over 4 minutes, I had a view of the corona around the edges…the “beads” are kinda cool, too. The crowd, oddly went totally silent after one “OOH!”

All too soon, it was over (where have we heard that before?) but in this case, it suddenly became light again. then at about say, 8-10% of of the sun exposed, it was like any normal day again.  Soon enough, I was packing up and heading home.

Here are some photos, Note: I’m not a photographer, I don’t have a really good camera, I was trying different filters and I really don’t know what I am doing. They were, mostly, taken with a camera on a tripod.

Crappy pictures, But I was there and I took ’em.

You can find better pictures, by professionals with better equipment, all over the web. Yea, most of ’em seem to be what I saw, more or less.

Did I make the right call by not flying south? I dunno. I did get to see a really beautiful phenomenon that I will likely never get a chance to see again. Had I gone south, It might have been different. I believe they had good viewing weather, but my luck fortune doesn’t run that way, generally, so I hedged.

Either way, I’m happy with the choice I made (best call with the data available at the time) and I got to see what I wanted to see.

If you wanted to see it, I hope you did. If not, I hope you have a chance to see it someday. Totality IS different that “almost” totality.

And yes, the difference is HUGE.

Glad I went,  more later tomorrow.

’twas a decent trip.

IF anyone else will allow them in, that is.

Muslim protestors chant ‘death to America, death to Israel’ at rally in Michigan’s Dearborn after city was branded ‘Jihad capital’ of the U.S

But chances are being Syrians  (ok, people even the Syrians don’t want) they won’t have the honor to leave the US that they hate so much because they have such great opportunities and freedoms here that they wouldn’t have elsewhere (like any Muslim country)

We should treat them like the turds they show themselves to be.

So on the one hand, the eclipse in my area will be like 96%. Not totality, but close. But the weather is spozed to be clear and sunny for the time of the eclipse

On the other hand, I could fly to Bloomington In or to MT. Vernon, IL (I have reservations for both) both of which are in the “Zone of totality….but where weather will be cloudy, partly cloudy, Scattered or broken clouds.

I am told by people that the difference between “almost totality” and Totality is HUGE. But some totality in a clear sky may be better than obscured totality.

Do I give up on what is, essentially, my last chance in my lifetime to see a Total Solar Eclipse, or do I take the sure thing at 96%???

At this time I am unsure of which way to go. Any comments or opinions are welcome. If you have experienced Totality, and it is worth pursuing, then please let me know that. Is there really a big difference between 96% and 100%?

“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” —

Aldous Huxley

Sp what did Shaun Combs (“Diddy”) do to piss off the Liberals in power?

First they went after him in court, then the raid on his homes,

Now there is an allegation and a suit against his kid,

Not saying there is no merit to the suit, but one has to wonder about the timing. Innit funny that there is all this shit happening all at the same time? Are we supposed to believe that this is all just coincidence?

Kinda like DJT had all that shit come down all at once when he started running for President. Or how all those allegations surfaced just after Bill Cosby spoke out against the Black Lifestyle and Culture….

So what did Diddy do? Did he say something? Piss off the wrong Liberal?

Enquiring minds and all that shit.

To liberals…..

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, of the Supreme Court of the United States, apparently is somewhat ill. She is pushing 70, and liberals fear that she will have to retire during the (apparently now fully presumptive) Trump Presidency..,Leaving an opening that Trup could use to appoint a judge that is not liberal enough for the Democrats…much like what happened last time with Justice Amy Cony Barrett.

Forget that at that level, there should be no “Conservative” nor “Liberal”….there should be only Law. (ideally no judge should ever see anything but Law).  So far we have had a fairly decent court. with the Justices generally taking the Law, the Constitution and plain common sense into their decisions…Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg was, while appointed as a “liberal” ,pretty good at not “Legislating from the Bench”, but rather following that pesky Constitution and Rule of Law.

But now, just to be sure that Joe Biden can nominate a Liberal justice, one that will further the Liberal Agenda that he has pushed so far into our lives, they want Justice Sotomayor to retire. 

I wonder if they will insist that the justice not only be a woman and Liberal, but either openly Gay or Trans as well? ‘Cause we all know that that sort of stuff matters more that the Constitution and the Law, right?