The Great Solar Eclipse of 2017 crossed the continent, from Oregon to South Carolina, and gave millions of people the chance to witness one of the most awe-inspiring events in the natural world.

But you had to be within the "path of totality", a narrow band across the earth's surface several thousand miles long but only about 70 miles wide. Outside that band you would only see a partial eclipse, not a total eclipse.

And there is no such thing as a "partial total eclipse", despite the impression blogs and the news media might give. I honestly think that's why so many people misunderstand the utter beauty of the spectacle; they may have seen a partial eclipse in the past that was total somewhere else, and even though they weren't in the path the news kept gushing about it being a total eclipse, so they assume they must have seen a total eclipse and just didn't find it all that impressive.


Posted by Dan 08/29/2017, revised 09/06/2017

It was a pleasure having Kim visiting for the weekend, back from Chicago to Northern California for a few days. She was here to take part in the Olympic distance Wildflower Triathlon.

The site for the Wildflower was Lake San Antonio reservoir, between King City and San Luis Obispo. With limited accomodations nearby, many of the 3000 participants and spectators camped out at the state park along the reservoir, so we joined Kim and the bustling city of tents and RVs Saturday night.

Kim ran another successful race, finishing 4th out of 300 in her age group! See here for photos.


Posted by Dan 05/16/2008

It was immediately apparent that the $25 30 day visa in Indonesia was not long enough so we made an executive decision to stay for 31 days for a mere $20 extra. While in Sumatra we took a night boat to the remote Mentawai Islands south of Padang. There we stayed with a local Mentawai family and enjoyed jungle trekking and experienced traditional Mentawai medicine man rituals. It became apparent why all the medicine men are all so thin and wiry; the rituals go through the night and involve singing, chanting and dancing until you collapse from exhaustion. Then you repeat.

Mentawai medicine man dancing away evil spirits

Posted by nik 02/06/2009, revised 02/24/2009

Game day! I am not yet sure of my plans for watching the World Cup final - likely just find a bar. Copacabana is packed with chanting Argentinians, which is fun and spirited, but I do not imagine I will want to join the masses at the Fifa FanFest on the beach. Too much for me.

At the end of my Brazil visit. Kind of crazy. In some ways, I can't believe I'm already at the end of the trip, and in others, I feel like I've been here for a long time!

Things I will miss [and will be happy to return to when I come back]:

• acai on every corner
• queijo minas (a wonderful type of cheese)
• tapioca - not what we think is tapioca; its a crepe-type dish popular in the northeast, and it's delicious
• the portuguese language

Things I will not miss:

• the absurdly, inexplicably slow lines at supermarkets (in which I have written this entire post)
• people on their phones when you're sitting with them at a restaurant

Posted by Whitney 07/13/2014