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 San Jose was the host city for the Pacific Masters Long Course Championships swim meet.

I've never competed at long course before, but with such a big event coming right to my backyard, how could I resist? It's been a good 7 years since I last showed up at any kind of Masters swim meet (representing the Chicago Smelts in Illinois in 2008, and throwing down my best 31 seconds of freestyle for a team relay, Go Smelts!)

Technically, I'm not a rookie, since I do have some 30 or 40 short course swim meets under my belt, but most of those are in the distant past, and in high school I was a very different type of athlete. I often made a point of letting my coaches know that I was only good for about a 50 yard effort ... Maybe 100 if you're lucky.

This was my high school swim team sign-up sheet. If you do the math, you can see my estimates for the distance events (200 & 500 yard swim) were pretty unambitious ...

I remember one high school meet where both teams were short, and with only 4 girls signed up for the 500 yard Freestyle, all I had to do was complete it, and I was guaranteed to score points for my team. Didn't have to be fast or pretty, but it might help my team secure a win!

I flat out refused.

Too much effort.

How's that for teamwork?

Well times have changed, and these days I'm a bit more enterprising, so I decided to Go Big or Go Home, and I signed up for the longest event they have: the 1500 meter freestyle! I'm an endurance athlete now.

What could possibly go wrong?


Posted by Kimberly 08/01/2015

Bangkok is one of those cities that makes an impression the second you get there. However after you get over the smell and the traffic there actually is some wonderful wonders to be found. We were fortunate enough to be staying with a couchsurfer and he acted as our tour guide while we were in the city. Our first day we made our way by train, boat and taxi to Canchanaburi where there is a train bridge.

Jen got over the wonderful wonders quick.

Posted by nik 09/14/2008, revised 09/21/2008

The day has come when I finally have to do school work again. While I was not looking forward to this interruption in my life of leisure, I was starting to get a bit anxious to meet people and start joining some clubs and activities.

I played some pick-up ultimate frisbee yesterday - got a little exhaustion back in these retired soccer legs of mine! I guess you could say they're re-TIRED... heh. I crack myself up. I also joined the Dive Club and will be joining in some of their reef trips in the coming months, as much as my money will allow me :) Reef diving isn't cheap.

I'm also currently working on making my way down to Byron Bay (which is a little over 19 hours drive down the coast!) for Easter weekend for a huge Blues and Roots festival. 5 days, 5 stages, incredible music. Some of the artists I look forward to seeing there:
Xavier Rudd, G. Love, Maceo Parker, Keb Mo', KT Tunstall, OAR, Emdee, Ozomatli, Jason Mraz, Black Crowes, John Butler Trio... and about 50 other artists. Yeah, it's gonna be amazing. But I'm not sure how I'm going to get there. Buses or planes would cost me a good $300+ round trip. I wouldn't mind making an adventure out of the drive, but that requires finding someone with a car and the same twisted sense of adventure.

But the way I see it, I have to get to this festival. So if it means dropping some money for the experience of a lifetime, then so be it, eh?

That's all for now. I'll keep you posted on my ride search!
Posted by Whitney 03/06/2008