Rabbit holes, conspiracies, and various terms

I just climbed out of a rabbit hole.

 

Reality check - Unlike Alice I've never been in a rabbit hole but we have rabbits living under our deck.

 

Can rabbit holes have tangential holes?

 

Much bigger than our rabbits

I would go in order of the title but life often doesn't have order.

 

My older wonderful sister recently shared her exchange with another candidate off her online generated list. I don't care for the term "online dating". Yes it's online but the dating part doesn't match my definition of dating. I suggest calling it "online exposure to weird and infrequently normal people".

 

After a few long phone calls and a dinner she discovered this guy believes a 9/11 conspiracy theory about the twin towers. She told me he has been disqualified but I'm not sure if it was because of his conspiracy belief. Whatever the reasons he was eliminated.

 

This started me thinking of the weird world of conspiracies. It has become dangerous. Jan. 6, 2021 shows that to be true.

 

Spreading conspiracy theories can destroy support for the government and investigating done by various organizations such as the FBI. Questioning statements is good but just believing out-of-nowhere ideas because of your previous mistrust is bad.

 

I first conspiracy theory I recall was the JFK assassination and the next one was the moon landing. Were we just lucky not to have online social media sites back then? I think those theories only spread through tabloids at the check out counter.

 

-~-~

 

I peeked into a rabbit hole when I read the term "anti-self-duality" in some article I was exploring the other day. I backed out of that rabbit hole when I read differential geometry and Riemannian oriented manifold. This is incomprehensible for me.

As a corollary we see that if the cross section of a tangent cone of a noncollapsed limit space of orientable Riemannian manifolds is smooth, then it is also orientable in the ordinary sense, which can be regarded as a new obstruction for a given manifold to be the cross section of a tangent cone.

I think a see a tangent cone in the rabbit hole below (lower right corner??):

the conversion doesn't work

Win a free trip to the land of milk and honey.

Now typically every grocery store has milk and honey, so do we already live in the land of milk and honey? Also, do any of you know of a popular meal that combines milk and honey? 

As you probably know the phrase comes from the Bible, so maybe the translation got messed up.

Tower Bridge towering over the others.

 

Moving on to the land of fish and chips, I'll share my wasted thinking about measurement standards.

I'm interested to get your opinion. What if The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 had really taken hold and Americans gave up miles for kilometers?

But I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

Those words about walking are the chorus lines from "I'm Gonna Be" by the Scottish rock duo, The Proclaimers. Substitute miles with kilometers and it just doesn't work.

But I would walk five hundred kilometers
And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man who walked a thousand kilometers
To fall down at your door

Those of you who think in metric terms know that 500 kilometers of length is shorter than 500 miles.

With that fact in mind, I conclude that if you walked a kilometer in my shoes you still wouldn't have walked a mile in my shoes. Of course, I'm not giving up my shoes but I have some old slippers that you can have for free. Walk a mile in my old slippers.

 

Vacuum energy

I typically lack energy to vacuum.

Hey it’s a new year, I should be recharged. Oh, but we are not simple rechargeable batteries. (Although I have learn some people are on Lithium)

Vacuum energy is an underlying background energy that exists in space throughout the entire Universe (reference link). Well that’s what physics tells the people that listen to physicists. I enjoy learning about the marvelous discoveries of physics. But if this vacuum energy is underlying, then might it be underlying my carpet? Why should there be a need to vacuum my bedroom?

The "Casimir Effect" demonstrates the effects of vacuum energy and it's named after Hendrik Casimir. Hendrik was a Dutch physicist but I don't know if he vacuumed his room much.

 

I would much rather read about vacuum energy than vacuum a room. I believe vacuum talk must include dust talk. Here’s a picture from space from June 2020. We might not be as dusty as Mars where I think every storm is a dust storm but take a look at the mess heading out to the Atlantic from North Africa.

Look at the mess Sahara is making

Oh I also read about cosmic dust. It’s a real thing and probably related to dust bunnies. Interplanetary dust causes the zodiacal light, so dust is not all that bad. Thousands of tons of cosmic dust are estimated to reach the Earth's surface every year. So we need to figure how to use the vacuum energy to clean it up.

Astronomers study dust. I can only imagine young graduate students explaining to their parents that they are studying dust. I suspect the parents would question why they didn’t start years ago in their own bedrooms.

(apparently if I were a Brit this post would not work since I don’t believe there is any Hoover energy in physics.)

Nobody told me

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed
strange days indeed

enough already

Do you remember John Lennon’s song (recorded in 1980 but released posthumously by Yoko)?

These days since the election was called for President-Elect Joe Biden have been strange days indeed. It was not surprising that the reality TV president would not accept losing. But the firings within his administration and lack of other GOP leaders (lackeys) accepting the outcome is disturbing and becoming scary.

Picture Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty

 

Rudy Giulaini has been busy generating scary ideas and looks. He must dream about conspiracies because he comes up with weird ones. During this sweaty press conference he apparently got so heated up that his hair coloring started to run. Rudy gave a bizarre explanation of their case by comparing it to the movie “My Cousin Vinny”. Maybe Rudy is looking to break into the comedy movie scene.

I recommend stepping away from these disturbing administration scary clowns. I enjoy science so I go over to NASA.gov for a break. Have you heard of STEVE? Steve is a rare, mysterious, glowing purple arc in the night sky. I didn't know anything about STEVE before I stumbled on a NASA story. Here’s a link.

 

 

 

Watching

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
I like watchin' the puddles gather rain

This pandemic still has many still working at home. I’m not working at home but retired at home instead.

I did some watching. Watching the heavens (I’m not convinced about this religious heaven concept but calling the dark sky the heavens still sounds good to me) fuels my wonder.

Why bother to watch the heavens? Jupiter and Saturn are mostly huge balls of gas. Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids, in fact it's cold as hell.

I believe knowledge of the night sky objects creates more wonder as you watch these objects move through the heavens.

Back to the original thought for this post, this past month (sorry this is not a site for what’s in the sky tonight) the northern hemisphere had the opportunity to view a comet zipping by. It was given the name comet NEOWISE. The strange name was assigned for a reason. The NEO part stands for Near Earth Orbit and WISE stands for Wide-field Infrared Space Explorer. The NEOWISE project is the asteroid-hunting project that discovered this comet, hence the name.

I saw the comet with binoculars on two different evenings. Sadly the suburban area around Chicago is not the best for a good dark sky. I managed to see this fuzzy stretched out dirty ice ball but I’m sure it would have look better in a darker sky. I recall seeing the comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. That one was easier to see.

 
On nice afternoons I’ll find myself enjoying a beer and watching clouds pass overhead. Clouds have pros and cons. Clouds on the ground (fog) are bad unless you’re a psycho murderer stalking their next victim (how did I go off on that tangent?). Clouds blocking the sun are good on a hot day but bad at night when I’m trying to see a comet. Of the many things I really don’t know, clouds are probably low on the list.

 

Please enjoy a few thoughts that popped up in my brain long enough to be written down: 

 

• “Stand By Your Man” - While I’m not an expert, I don’t think it applies well to grizzly bear families.
• It occurred to me that receiving long sentences doesn’t help you write long sentences. However, it does give you time to work on it.
• I’ve noticed that Tik Tok is a popular app for the younger generation. If anyone is developing an app for the older generation they should call in Ticky Tacky.
• I heard this good advice the other day: “But I’m going to take a step back and make sure that we learn the facts before we start talking about it.” - Dr. Fauci 
  

 

Even if you don’t watch the weather it will change your day. Don’t most people enjoy a good storm if they are in a safe place? No matter, the weather will find you.

If you read my last post, you should be expecting these two musical videos.

sometimes I just don't know better

I'm going to blame it on the heat and sweat dripping into my eyes.

If the following pictures from the past suggest anything at all, please let me know.

Recently I ran across this science project with a catchy project title. The project is titled H0LiCOW. Yes English speaking people would say Holy Cow. I appreciate research team's levity in selecting this project name. I thought about doing the whole post on this project but while I think understand the basic concept behind their work, my limited knowledge would not be able to answer many questions. The research involves improving the accuracy of the H0 constant (Hubble constant) using gravitational lensing. (here's a link to a video about the project)

Ok, now on to some meaningless stuff.

I was listening to the "Mrs. Robinson" song by Simon & Garfunkel today. I'll put a clip of the song at the bottom of the post.

Here's my notes about the song as I listened to it.

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson

(not sure who to change Mrs. Robinson to, Mrs. Kushner?)

Jesus loves you more than you will know

(connection to current evangelicals?)

Wo wo wo


God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson

Heaven holds a place for those who pray

(She's Jewish so my song modifications don't work well)


Hey hey hey, hey hey hey

We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files

(Facebook, Google, Twitter are filling up their files)

We'd like to help you learn to help yourself

Look around you all you see are sympathetic eyes

Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home

(White House staff will be nice to you or they will be fired by Dad)

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson,

Jesus loves you more than you will know

Wo wo wo

God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson

Heaven holds a place for those who pray

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

Hide it in the hiding place where no one ever goes

(White House situation room in the basement?)

Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes

(add cupcakes to your product list - great for Dad's rallies)

It's a little secret just the Robinson's affair

(congressional investigations?)

Most of all you've got to hide it from the kids

Koo-koo-ka-choo, Mrs. Robinson,

(we don't say Koo-koo-ka-choo enough)

Jesus loves you more than you will know

Wo wo wo


God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson

Heaven holds a place for those who pray

Hey, hey, hey hey, hey, hey

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon

(checking your product sale charts)

Going to the candidates' debate

(prepping Dad, oh fix his tweets too please)

Laugh about it, shout about it

(more shouting than laughing from angry supporters)

When you've got to choose

Every way you look at this you lose

(congressional investigations)

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio

(replace with Joe Scarborough)

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you

Wu wu wu


What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson

Jolting Joe has left and gone away

(that's fake news)

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

Mind reading

I have discovered there’s a more technical name for an idea/concept that I’ve held doubts about. Being able to understand what another person is thinking or feeling is mostly guess work. Psychologists use the term ‘theory of mind’ to denote our apparent ability to attribute mental states to other people and to thereby interpret, explain, and predict their behavior.

I like to remind our adult children (anyone else who will listen too) that when you approach an intersection don’t fool yourself in believing you know what another driver is about to do. Nobody does. Perhaps even the other driver. It’s one reason I don’t want to be the second car waiting inside the intersection to make a left hand turn. I don’t want to depend on the driver ahead of me to leave the intersection quickly.

Enough about dangerous left hand turns. Go to a left side of the road driving country and your thinking will need to flip to dangerous right hand turns. Your turn signal helps more than mind flipping.

mind reading benefits poker players

Two people believing different ability levels of this theory of mind can bring about nasty arguments in relationships. “I know what you are thinking” typically is faulty way to start a discussion. We might get along better if we refrained from judging and/or predicting others based on their facial expression. Don’t give me that look.

Well ok, some level of doing this is beneficial to getting along in society. But we need to remember there are plenty of great fakers out there. Also, if this didn’t work at all then the movies, comedy skits and advertisements would less engaging. Good actors can move the plot along by just looking evil.

What started as a post by a friend on Facebook lead me to this article about theory of mind. Here’s the link to the article.

This quote from this “The Theory Of Mind Myth” article gave me plenty to think about:

“The fate of democracy depends on our ability to grasp and accept differing mindsets – yet the seemingly near-universal absence of reasonable public discourse suggests that this rarely occurs. We accuse those with conflicting opinions of having character defects, subliminal prejudices, faulty education, cultural brainwashing and a myriad of other ‘if only they knew better’ flaws of reasoning. But there’s a more basic and frightening possibility. What if we really aren’t capable of a sophisticated reading of other minds?”

So this could be very important knowledge. Where’s the Oprah show when we need it? Maybe a few Public Service Announcements or a Theory Of Mind week.

I had doubts about this interpretation of others technique/ability. My doubt of its accuracy has only increased after reading that article.

If you could read my mind love
What a post my thoughts could blog

 
(an update on a trusted saying) We learn from our mistakes. Old age presents the problem of not remembering those mistakes to learn from.

Over the moon

No one was mooned in the making of this post.

Retirement offers more time to read. My completion rate on books is not that high but improving. Recently I finished “The Book of the Moon” by self-named lunatic, Maggie Aderin-Pocock. I completed the whole book but compared to most books it's a smaller one. An easy read that still provides plenty of information about our moon. It’s not overly technical.

One thing I learned was that the moon is receding from us and that the Earth’s spin is slowed by the moon. Go back a billion year and you would experience about a 23 hour day. You also would starve since multicellular life was just beginning. The moon stabilizes Earth’s spin.

While not explicitly covered in this book, I credit the moon with advancing human knowledge. It gives us a noticeable object to track, measure time, and wonder about. Solar and lunar eclipses are nature’s experiments for us to observe and study. The night sky would be duller without those waxing and waning phases.

Without the moon we would have never heard the song “Moon River”. I found a few Moon River covers on youtube. I’ll start with a favorite since I’m fan of Eric Clapton. (Oh I also learned that Georgia’s politicians honored Johnny Mercer by renaming the Back River, the Moon River.)







I was a bit surprised to find a parody called "Joan Rivers".  (the parody starts about half minute into the clip)

Boy wonder

I was never the boy wonder, but boy, I have always wondered.

I assumed for the longest time that everyone was thinking and wondering. My life has presented evidence that thinking mode is not universally engaged. In some cases it appears to have been completely disabled.


You certainly have heard about dumb criminals before. A recent one was a Tulsa man arrested on a burglary charge after firefighters pulled him out of a chimney at an east Tulsa business. I would have tempted to tell him the rescue will wait until his confession is heard. No reason to waste court time with that one.

Over time I’ve found the site Quora a great place to discover new knowledge on many subjects. Their accuracy in matching my interest is good. However, I’m puzzled about the background of a question or two on Quora. The following questions start my wondering. Not about the question but about the person or their state of mind at the time.

Found on Quora

• What would happen if an icecube equal to the size of the sun would hit the sun?
• If you plug in a power strip and then plug more power strips into each socket of that power strip, and then do the same for each new power strip, etc would you have infinite ports? Or does the energy get less and less with each power strip?
• The bulb for fluorescent ceiling light has bust -- how do I get my landlord to replace it?
• In detail, What would you do if you found out aliens unsuccessfully attacked Earth in past and now the few surviving aliens meet at AA meetings to talk about the good ole days and try and think about ways to conquer the world?
• How do I control the output voltage on my DIY welder? I used 2 microwave transformers to step down 120v AC to 30v AC and upped the amps. The problem is, the amperage fluctuates from 15 (striking) to nearly 275 (stuck).
• How do you smoke from a light bulb? (Ok I don't remember the timing of these last two questions but this guy should hook-up with the DIY welder)

Well I don't really care if people don't like to wonder. I just appreciate them thinking a little if their path crosses mine.

I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered

(uh, you still there? 
Blog posts can be similar to newspapers or magazines in that their topics can lose popularity after just a short time. Yesterday’s news. There are stories that stay relevant over time. Here’s a post of mine from 2015 that still has relevance today. It was one of my few with a bit of Latin in the title, “non-sequitur thoughts”. )

Moving into the universe

We all are moving. I'm certain we are already in the universe already. We must be moving in the universe by definition. Yeah ok, I'll promise to stop being pedantic for the rest of the post.

original hoodie

Since I’m still above the grass I’ve been thinking because I can. If somehow, someway, thinking still occurs after you breathe no more, it must be a very different type of thinking. How could your memories possibly remain with your spirit? If my neuron based memories are left behind how do I know who I am? Maybe memories are not neuron based? I'm no neuroscientist but I've read that is the current thinking based on functional MRIs.

There's much I don't know but I don’t imagine my spirit will be able to read my blog in the future.

Is the sentient source of your conscious your spirit?

Do you have the spirit to keep reading this post?

my conscious is more fractal than circular

Now I just looked up the word epistemology (BTW it’s the study of the nature of knowledge) but I do recall reading this word before so I must have been reading something related to it.

So this branch of philosophy deals with truth and belief. Afterlife spirits and belief are inseparable in my opinion. Actually, I consider opinion a big part of philosophy.

This post doesn’t suggest any answers. You should consult a Ouija board for these types of answers.

Browsing this subject around in wikipedia landed me on the philosophy of mind page. I don’t recall reading about so many “isms” on one web page before. One intriguing ism was Mysterianism which happens to named after the rock band, Question Mark and the Mysterians.

The main tenet for Mysterianism is that humans do not have the intellectual ability to comprehend consciousness. Meh, whatever, why bother?

Now I'm left wondering if I could score some grant money for my idea of blogism.

And she was drifting through the backyard
And she was taking off her dress
And she was moving very slowly
Rising up above the earth
Moving into the universe

totopoca

Hey I have a new word for you. Actually it's an ancient word from the Aztecs. It's their word for the sound of many kernels popping at once — totopoca.

Paleobotanists (if I post enough stuff about ancient things can I call myself a paleoblogger? I'm fairly pale this summer.) say that popcorn played an significant role in the Aztec empire. From the little I've read about this it appears they were popping corn before they were making a corn flour. (oh wait, if I want to be paleoblogger I should use "maize" instead of corn)

amazing maize

I wonder how Aztecs were popping their corn many thousands of years ago. I'm old enough to recall popping it on the stove. I guess the difficult problem of popping all the kernels vs. burning the popped corn has existed for many millennia. Now, I pop it in the magical microwave. But if those advanced aliens visited the Aztecs then maybe they had microwaves too. Those paleobotanists have discovered "old maid" kernels dated from about 4000 years ago.

timed for 1:44 works best for me

I didn't notice any mention of caramel,  cheese or butter in the articles I read about Aztec popcorn. Probably a good thing that they didn't have those addictive extras for their popcorn. Movies were not invented yet so if they spent too much time munching what would they watch? (the original Aliens series)

I know they didn't need to worry about the FDA labeling rules (or have the protection of labeling rules). There is a new food fight over wording starting up. Remember the recent one about milk vs. almond milk labeling? The raisins vs. craisins was an exciting marketing showdown of dried fruit.

Labels tell us the difference between sh-- and shinola

Since we seldom know (or even care about?) the production chain involved in our packaged foods, the labeling is important.

The latest label war brewing involves the "meat" label. A company called Memphis Meats is growing meat in their lab. Cultured meat might be a good term for it. Others might just say, disgusting. They would like to call it "clean meat". I disagree about calling it clean. Here's a statement I found on their website:

At Memphis Meats, our mission is to bring delicious and healthy meat to your table by harvesting it from cells instead of animals. You can enjoy the meat you love today and feel good about how it’s made because we strive to make it better for you…and for the world.

Back to the popcorn - here's a informative clip about popcorn history:

my sad disclaimer - unfortunately, food items such as popcorn, soft drinks were NOT provided free for this post. Oh, don't want any cultured meat.

Gluten free bananas and other breakfast thoughts

My bowl started gluten free, just bananas, then I added shredded wheat. Wheat is a prime source of gluten so I guess the bananas had limited benefit.

gluten free romance

That thought had me check out the history of gluten. It goes way way back to 8800 BCE (those dates look so precise as if someone had a FB live event back then, it was probably 8802) when humans started harvesting the grains in wild grasses in the fertile crescent. Oh no, another problem coming from the middle east. (Fake news headline - Terrorist push gluten on westerners)

Really this gluten free thing is a problem for a few people that has been hyped up by marketing. On a whim, (a gluten induced whim) I searched for “gluten free water”. I discovered a company advertising “gluten free water”. I didn’t check the price. Why bother, I’m never buying into this trendy scam.

The company BLK says this about their water:

blk. has zero calories, zero carbs, zero sugars, zero caffeine, and contains no dyes, flavorings or additives. We’re gluten-free, non-GMO, certified kosher, and organic.

Kosher and organic too! BLK is apparently short for black. Why black? The company adds, excuse me, enhances their water with with humic and fulvic acid. The water reacts with the result of a black color and higher price. No thanks, I like my water clear. Now I do enjoy dark beer.

Don’t know if this BLK water will sell much in Boston. Remember they have the river Charles. But I love that dirty water.





I’m a genius!
Well ok, but at least I am very stable.
Geniuses don’t think outside of the box. They make their own boxes.

Thinking of boxes? How about cylindrical talking gadgets for the home - you know those rounded boxes offered by Amazon called Alexa. This headline caught my eye after that gluten high subsided.

Amazon's Alexa randomly laughs at users and nobody knows why

A quote from the article

"[So] my mom & I are just sitting in the living room, neither of us said a word & our Alexa lit up and laughed for no reason. she didn't even say anything, just laughed. we unplugged her."

Wow, I didn’t know that one aunt of mine was Alexa. They sound different but she is known to randomly laugh. I don’t have an Alexa to unplug and I rarely see this one aunt, so I’m ok.

Oh regarding this gluten stuff - Good article at CNN - Basically, everybody with celiac disease needs to be on a gluten-free diet, others maybe not.
But my advice - stay away from that dirty water.

Born under a bad sign

Oh that’s ridiculous. Very unscientific nonsense.

great dogs and plenty of fries

However there are signs/things you don’t want to be born under. Such as:

Born under a _____

no parking sign
beer sign
no trespassing sign
Joe’s Hot Dog sign
Closed by Health Dept. sign
flashing blue lights
bridge
snow drift

Any additional suggestions please leave them in the comment section for reward points.

I’m hoping for a break from this winter cold and snow. We have good walking paths around us that are now buried under snow. I especially enjoy an afternoon walk on a clear day. It’s extra special if I catch the moon and the sun both out at the same time. One setting in the west. The other rising in the east. Certainly makes me feel like I'm in the middle of something big.

Excuse my sharing of the following part of the lyrics. As I was listening to the song, this part just kicked off political complaints in my head. It reminds me of our tweeter-in-chief.

I don't like to read,
I can hardly write,
My whole life has been
One big fight.

Day after day

I’ve been known to show a foolish grin occasionally.

“But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning round”

I noticed a few things while watching our world spinning round. Coming down from the hill, I’ll share my feelings on a few topics here before they spin out of my head.

day after day

The Land of Lincoln needs help

The poorly run state of mine, Illinois, was recently mentioned as debt example on a business channel during a discussion of Puerto Rico’s debt problem. (my state of mind does always run well either)

world spinning round 

While checking out a foolish end-of-the-world forecasts (I forecast the world spinning around for many centuries to come). I came across an interesting fact about our earth’s magnetic field. You might recall that earth’s magnetic field is cause by the spinning of the liquid outer core. What was news to me is the fact the magnetic north pole moves and has moved quite a distance since scientists determined its location back in the 1800’s.

A NASA’s article says the magnetic pole is moving faster now. Scientists estimate the pole is migrating northward about 40 miles per year, as opposed to about 10 miles per year in the early 20th century. It won't be long before its pace will outpace my pace.

fool on the hill 

Did you notice the recent fool on the hill? A devious fool testified on the hill (the hill in DC) this week. The eyes in my head noticed the creative way an activist protested at the Equifax hearing. Amanda Werner, arbitration campaign manager for Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform, dressed up as the Monopoly Man. She managed a seat near the Equifax fool so she would be in camera shots.(more about her protest follow this link).

ooooh 
Hills can be strenuous so maybe I should hang out at the mall instead. However, I avoid the mall for fear I might be summoned to food court for a bagel violation.

the other side

Many times on this blog I've written about time. How many times do I need to write about it? Don't time me. I didn't take your time. I took my time.

checking the time on the other side

Given what I think is the general age group reading A Few Clowns Short, I suspect many of you have thought about the other side. You know the side of your timeline after the line stopped. What do you do while your body is taking that long dirt nap?

Now I’m going to write about this without bringing religion into it. Actually an interesting discussion would be to compare the many religious views on this. But not this post. (let it be known, the Lisleman’s Institute for Better Postings would accept any grant money offered for the development of that idea - yeah I didn’t think so)

Go back to that timeline picture for a moment. You’ll notice that the flow of time constantly nonstop heads toward the future.

What if, over on the other side time went in the opposite direction?

Would it even matter or be noticed? Could the other side have no concept of time. I believe our concept of time has changed over time. It was probably much more relaxing just watching days past and maybe paying a little attention to a moon phases. No clocks ticking or scheduling. No sell-by dates. Que Sera, Sera. Just watch out for those occasional tiger/lion/volcano/tornado/rock-to-head/whatever-oh-shit things that could take you to the other side.

Having fun yet?

Here’s something you might never heard of - the famous nobel awarded physicist, Richard Feynman provided an interpretation of a positron (anti-matter particle) as an electron moving backwards in time. This idea has the interesting name of retrocausality which to me sounds like something to use in defense of your next parking ticket. From what I can understand this interpretation aids the solution of some equations but probably has nothing to do with reality.

However is the other side a different reality?

No solid answers for you but please leave your thoughts/ideas in the comment section.



If Cher could turn back time would she wear less provocative outfits?




Thanks for taking time to read this.

Out of this world

How do I describe a rare beautiful sight so it becomes a better memory? I also want share my experience with others? Posting my thoughts about the event here on my blog will help. So here is that post.

We made it to totality and watched the best shadow I’ve ever seen.

On Monday, Aug. 21, 2017 the shadow of the moon zipped across the continental United States (coast to coast) in about 1 and ½ hours. I heard the shadow’s speed was over 1400 miles per hour.

On the ground experiencing it the speed is not really noticeable. Only when I think about the size of the shadow and the distances do I realize this shadow is moving fast.

But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself so let’s back up a few months. I had heard of this solar eclipse coming seven years ago. Back then I thought maybe Missouri would be a great location since my brother has a place down there. At the start of this year I looked over the predicted path of totality (see an earlier post) and noticed my brother’s area was not that close. My wife has a relative in Oregon so that location was considered for awhile.

The site I used for eclipse info also offered approved viewing glasses. I ordered 15 for the family early in the year.

After we decided against the more extensive Oregon trip, I started study the path of totality (love that phrase) in southern Illinois. Early on I knew to avoid Carbondale. The crowd would be large there since the Chicago paper and TV stations mentioned Carbondale in all their eclipse stories. Amtrak even setup a special round-trip train from Chicago to Carbondale for a day trip. It sold out in 22 hours (400+ riders).

I settled on Vienna IL. There is a trail station for the Tunnel Hill State Trail on the edge of town. Another thought was to go further down to Paducah KY. As I checked the few hotel choices in that area it was apparent their prices had been raised. I found a normally priced room in a small town close but outside of the totality zone. The hotel was the Cobblestone Inn & Suites in Altamont IL (sold out, very nice and recently built).

We drove down to Altamont on Sunday with time for a tour of their National Register of Historic Places Wright House. We had stopped in Urbana for a nice lunch at a local diner. Having rode down I-57 back in February I could tell the traffic was not typical. On the motorist alert sign over the highway flashed "Solar Eclipse 8/21 .. Expect delays". I had not worried much about the traffic until then.

Eclipse day - after a quick minimal free hotel breakfast it started to become apparent most travelers around us were eclipse focused. The TV in the breakfast lounge was set to the weather channel. Cloudy weather is always an potential eclipse killer. Now I added traffic to the problem list.

I tried to capture the corona with my smartphone

After a nice start down straight country roads we merged into the traffic of I-57 again. Since I was not taking the route to Carbondale, I guessed/hoped about 50% would leave my route. I was wrong in a good way. I think about 90% left.

Pulling into the Vienna trail station we were pleasantly surprised that it was also a community park. When we stopped to ask the man directing the traffic how much it was to park, he replied with the best answer - free.

We found a nice spot under a tree to wait for the eclipse start. We were settled in about 2 hours ahead of the big event. We shared the park with about 500 (800 ??) people. The family sitting behind us were from Israel. I enjoyed talking to them. I also met two ladies from Oklahoma. I wondered why they just didn’t stop in Missouri. Their answer was better weather and more totality time.

It was hot and humid and a bit cloudy. The visitor center was air conditioned and had a “real” indoor toilet. The location is also on the Trail of Tears and some Union soldiers camped there during the Civil War.

a head turning experience

You could feel the crowd waiting for the big totality event. The moment at both the start and end was filled with cheers and gasps. Even though I knew it would darken I was surprised by how dark it became. I would say about the darkness of an hour or so after sunset.

The corona and diamond ring - phenomenal, rare, stunning, magnificent, astounding, stupendous, awesome, marvelous, ok you get the idea.

My smartphone pictures didn’t capture the corona but that’s alright with me because the experience of seeing the corona with my eyes was a treasure. I was awestruck staring at the corona and almost forgot I had brought binoculars. With the binoculars I could see the star Regulus. With just my eyes I could see what I think was Venus (might have been Sirius).

Just before totality I spotted two high flying jets. They may have been the NASA jets. Being involved in an eclipse experiment would be rewarding. However, unless the equipment was running on full automatic I probably would have messed-up.

I was surprised by a shadow spectacle.

visited Cave In Rock park afterwards

Two interesting NASA clips about the eclipse:

Oh one last thought about the experience - they had live musical entertainment. While it provided an enjoyable background while we waited, my preference would have been more pop/jazz type music. This one by Diana Krall would have fit the occasion well (better than Stormy Monday).