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

This year got off to a fantastic start with my 40th birthday, which I celebrated by organizing a 40x 25 meter butterfly relay with the youth swim team. Two years ago, I was recruited to the project of helping to build this ragtag collection of swimmers into a legitimate age group team. In 18 months' time, with a dynamic and talented coaching staff, we were beginning to gain some real traction with the team's progress. It was incredibly rewarding to see the kids energized by challenge, including this unique format of collaborating to complete 1000 meters of fly.

I worked all week to organize the details of the event, complete with hot cocoa for swimming outside in January! I made posters, silk-screened t-shirts, and butterfly shaped cookies as prizes.

That Friday, the sight of 34 kids swimming butterfly in a massive team effort was the best birthday gift I could imagine. They had a blast and I was peppered with questions after, "When can we do that again?!"

I was on cloud nine.



It was only two weeks later when everything came crashing down.

My employer had recently hired a new manager, one who was fixated on quick profit. He wanted his staff to share his vision and enthusiasm for extracting as much money as possible from the pockets of our affluent members. I had been honest with him about my discomfort with using aggressive sales pitches.


Posted by Kimberly 03/11/2020

After packing some camping gear on his bicycle and hitching a ride to British Columbia, Nik spent part of this summer riding his bicycle from Canada to California.

Nik still lives in Santa Cruz, where he spends time playing beach volleyball and going to school at Cabrillo College.
Posted by Dan 08/15/2007

Wow. My last blog was from Koh Phagnan... that seems like ages ago! I guess it seems like ages ago to Mom and Dad, too, 'cause they haven't been diggin' the long silence from their (awesome) daughter.

There's good reason for my silence, though. I was lost. I was lost in an amazing Neverland of happiness and fun. I was living the life on Koh Tao, and for me to sit in front of this computer screen with the task of "write about your month on Koh Tao," well, that's quite possibly the most immensely intimidating, overwhelming task I've faced in lifetimes. But you know what? There's no possible way I could ever ever portray to you the amazingness that was my month on Koh Tao. So with that fact having been recognized, I can now approach this in a "just write something and it's better than nothing" manner. Much easier to get my mind around!

The reason I haven't written a blog in so long

Koh Tao is a little island off the east side of Thailand, in the Gulf of Thailand. It is warm and tropical and happy - essentially everything you want your standard tropical paradise to be. There's so much to be said about the island itself, and there's so much to be said about my personal experience on the island. But I can't say it all in any reasonable number of days, so I'll break it down like this...

The 5 aspects of Koh Tao that make it what it is, ...or 5 reasons "1 week" turned into a month

A picture's worth a thousand words... this one should suffice as a substitute for a blog

Posted by Whitney 10/24/2008