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Inconstant Blood Moon
Apr. 15th, 2014 08:28 pmInconstant Moon. Yesterday night was the first of four lunar eclipses scheduled for this year and next. I opted to bike up to the Gateway Emergency Preparedness Exhibit Center (dumbest name EVAR) to see it last night, right around midnight. As I biked up the hill, the last sliver of the moon disappeared bit by bit. There's a primordial bit of terror in seeing that — in looking up at the sector of the sky where the moon should be (and was!) and seeing nothing. So, that was cool (and it's a nice nighttime ride too, up Tunnel Road to the Center). I got to the Center just a few minutes before the total eclipse. I wasn't the only one there: a motorcyclist preceded me and a couple showed up in a car a short time later. So, I sat down to watch the very last fragment of the moon disappear and then ... nothing. No Blood Moon, nothing. Just an eerie, empty sky. Sadly, it was overcast enough that the dim red light didn't make it through the clouds and fog. Alas. But not totally unexpected.
Perhaps I'll try again on October 8th.
(And so good to see that religious crazies are once more predicting the end of the world, this time thanks to the four Blood Moons. There was a guy that I used to frequently see in Downtown Berkeley who was constantly underlining and outlining his Bible and counting down to the end of the world that some zealot had predicted for 2012. After the zealot's second due date went by, the local crazy stopped listing the days before the end, as he had for years. I don't see him around any more, so clearly he ascended.)
Annoying Glasses. Toward the end of February (about a week before Hawaii) I went to the optometrist to get some new glasses, since it'd been about two and a half years since the last ones. This Thursday I'll be visiting them for the eighth time as they still haven't got them right. Very frustrating. The first set of glasses had a right lens that was totally wrong. The second set of glasses had a left lens where things weren't clear straight ahead and a right lens where I had no contrast when reading. The worst part of it all is the obsessive need that I feel to verify and reverify that the glasses are wrong, since it's such a personal, visceral thing. So, I put away the new glasses (again) after I made the newest appointment to go back in and get the optometrist to straighten things out.
I talked to one of the optometrist assistants last week when I brought back the second pair of glasses (after trying them out for two full days, and discovering that I couldn't see a play clearly from the back row without really tilting my head down) and she says this sort of thing just happens sometimes because curved real glasses aren't the same as the straight filters they use to measure eyesight. Still, it's never happened to me before and it's annoying.
And this all has made me realize that my old glasses are definitely inadequate. They've probably been contributing to my headaches lately ...
Sad Store. Sadly, our local corner store seems to be gone (again). About two weeks ago, it mysteriously shut its doors, and the next day Mike B. saw mold/fire response trucks surrounding it. He thinks there was a fire, which seems quite possible.
With those initial response trucks, I'd hoped to see our store back soon, but so far, no far. Maybe the owners are waiting for insurance money ... or we might have once more lost our corner store.
Mind you, the effect on my personal life is probably low. It's the place that I sometimes pick up emergency drink or chocolate or chips, but not more than once a week if that — and less emergency drink, chocolate, or chips isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I'd generally prefer to have functional stores that are open late surrounding our neighborhood, as that helps to keep the criminals of nearby areas from creeping in, so I take our local store closing down (or a Starbucks being forced out of the new building they were trying to inhabit) as a personal affront to my property.
A Working Weekend. Ever since I got back from Hawaii, I've felt like I've been running behind on the personal writing projects that I do in my evenings and weekends. (Probably because I found it hard to get back into the swing of things after my return.) So, rather than having any big expeditions this last week, I focused more on writing ... and managed to knock quite a few things off my TODO list. Yay! Feeling a little better about it now, and trying to knock more stuff off it yesterday and today (like my next two articles for WotC, which are now well in progress).
On Saturday, I did go out, but it was an old-style trip up to Lake Temescal with some planned writing ready to go on my laptop. Sadly, my favorite picnic tables under the trees were never replaced (after they were torn out for no reason over the winter), and all the rest (not under trees) are subpar.
On Sunday, Kimberly and I did go out to have lunch on campus. We usually sit at a secluded picnic table back behind a little loop of Strawberry Creek. This time we were surprised that people kept (literally) running through! One guy entirely flailed through the bushes as he went, hitting all of them as far as we could see.
Turns out that the Bay Area Orienteering Club was having an event on campus. Hence all the flailing/running.
Perhaps I'll try again on October 8th.
(And so good to see that religious crazies are once more predicting the end of the world, this time thanks to the four Blood Moons. There was a guy that I used to frequently see in Downtown Berkeley who was constantly underlining and outlining his Bible and counting down to the end of the world that some zealot had predicted for 2012. After the zealot's second due date went by, the local crazy stopped listing the days before the end, as he had for years. I don't see him around any more, so clearly he ascended.)
Annoying Glasses. Toward the end of February (about a week before Hawaii) I went to the optometrist to get some new glasses, since it'd been about two and a half years since the last ones. This Thursday I'll be visiting them for the eighth time as they still haven't got them right. Very frustrating. The first set of glasses had a right lens that was totally wrong. The second set of glasses had a left lens where things weren't clear straight ahead and a right lens where I had no contrast when reading. The worst part of it all is the obsessive need that I feel to verify and reverify that the glasses are wrong, since it's such a personal, visceral thing. So, I put away the new glasses (again) after I made the newest appointment to go back in and get the optometrist to straighten things out.
I talked to one of the optometrist assistants last week when I brought back the second pair of glasses (after trying them out for two full days, and discovering that I couldn't see a play clearly from the back row without really tilting my head down) and she says this sort of thing just happens sometimes because curved real glasses aren't the same as the straight filters they use to measure eyesight. Still, it's never happened to me before and it's annoying.
And this all has made me realize that my old glasses are definitely inadequate. They've probably been contributing to my headaches lately ...
Sad Store. Sadly, our local corner store seems to be gone (again). About two weeks ago, it mysteriously shut its doors, and the next day Mike B. saw mold/fire response trucks surrounding it. He thinks there was a fire, which seems quite possible.
With those initial response trucks, I'd hoped to see our store back soon, but so far, no far. Maybe the owners are waiting for insurance money ... or we might have once more lost our corner store.
Mind you, the effect on my personal life is probably low. It's the place that I sometimes pick up emergency drink or chocolate or chips, but not more than once a week if that — and less emergency drink, chocolate, or chips isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I'd generally prefer to have functional stores that are open late surrounding our neighborhood, as that helps to keep the criminals of nearby areas from creeping in, so I take our local store closing down (or a Starbucks being forced out of the new building they were trying to inhabit) as a personal affront to my property.
A Working Weekend. Ever since I got back from Hawaii, I've felt like I've been running behind on the personal writing projects that I do in my evenings and weekends. (Probably because I found it hard to get back into the swing of things after my return.) So, rather than having any big expeditions this last week, I focused more on writing ... and managed to knock quite a few things off my TODO list. Yay! Feeling a little better about it now, and trying to knock more stuff off it yesterday and today (like my next two articles for WotC, which are now well in progress).
On Saturday, I did go out, but it was an old-style trip up to Lake Temescal with some planned writing ready to go on my laptop. Sadly, my favorite picnic tables under the trees were never replaced (after they were torn out for no reason over the winter), and all the rest (not under trees) are subpar.
On Sunday, Kimberly and I did go out to have lunch on campus. We usually sit at a secluded picnic table back behind a little loop of Strawberry Creek. This time we were surprised that people kept (literally) running through! One guy entirely flailed through the bushes as he went, hitting all of them as far as we could see.
Turns out that the Bay Area Orienteering Club was having an event on campus. Hence all the flailing/running.