Chit-Chat: What's On Your Mind Today?

[PRgal]

21 minutes ago, oliviabenson said:

I didn’t get any solar glasses so I’m staying indoors 

I'm watching it on NASA's website.  It's getting darker here in TOronto.  

[ECM1231]

My husband made some contraption using welding lens and a cardboard box. We went out a few minutes ago to look. I saw a yellow crescent of the sun being obscured by the moon. It was pretty cool, I guess. IDK LOL I guess I'm just not as into it as the rest of the country is. 

[oliviabenson]

6 minutes ago, ECM1231 said:

My husband made some contraption using welding lens and a cardboard box. We went out a few minutes ago to look. I saw a yellow crescent of the sun being obscured by the moon. It was pretty cool, I guess. IDK LOL I guess I'm just not as into it as the rest of the country is. 

Me either lol

[GHScorpiosRule]

SUNNY HERE!!!! And it was AWESOME! Back in 2017, I didn’t have the phone filter! I’m no good at professional pics, but here is what it was like in MD:

 

[PRgal]

Two pics taken from my kitchen!  This was just before totality.

[Mindthinkr]

What I was able to see. 

[annzeepark914]

Wow! We just saw the almost total eclipse. The sun looked like the crescent moon on the old outhouse doors 😊. A lot of our neighbors were out (borrowing our one pair of special glasses that we got at the Air & Space Museum on 3/30). We met our newest neighbor, Victoria in her first outing (she's 6 weeks old). A fortuitous day in the 'hood 🩷...almost-total eclipse & a new resident!

I love these ^^^^ photos!!  Thank you for taking and sharing them ❤️

[emma675]

This is a pic a local photographer took at the lake down the street from my house. We got over 4 minutes of totality where I am in Texas. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

4 minutes ago, emma675 said:

This is a pic a local photographer took at the lake down the street from my house. We got over 4 minutes of totality where I am in Texas. 

STUNNING!

[Yeah No]

4 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Your response got me thinking…🤔💭🙇‍♀️💬
In addition to likely being a bit "classist," the person who used the term "scruffy" was 84-years-old.
He also said he avoided taking cabs, but didn't explain why.
You also thought he might be "prejudiced," which kind of comes with the territory at age 84 today, but perhaps at 84 he himself had experienced frightening prejudice as a possibly gay man?

Regardless, I had "fun" looking up the history of NYC cabs, but could not find much regarding dress-codes then and now. 

But TAXI: A History of the New York Taxi Cab does have a couple of great 19th century images and an amusing comment that is a bit of family lore, so might be embellished:

 

Sure, he could have experienced prejudice but experiencing it never prevents anyone from committing it themselves.  It's definitely a thing to judge cab drivers as "low class" and/or "uneducated" and not expect them to have any culture or intelligence.  Given how my husband has been on the receiving end of that attitude as a limo. driver it's something I am sensitive to and IMO with good reason.

I think some people in NYC avoid taking cabs because some of them can drive recklessly and not necessarily take the best routes to their destinations.  This is why very rich people like my husband's boss have their own driver.  Plus it's just more convenient.  This man may normally take Uber instead of cabs.  I don't know what that's like in NY but maybe he prefers them.  I read an article a couple of years ago on that subject.  The pandemic hit cabbies hard and it became incredibly expensive to buy a medallion.  Plus rideshare has taken over some of their market.  I haven't kept up with that subject to know whether their situation has improved since then.

I loved the photos of cabs in old NY, thanks for posting that!

[Yeah No]

Thanks to those who are posting eclipse photos, they are AWESOME!

I went out shopping locally and could not get over how empty the roads and stores were.  Costco was so empty I didn't even have to wait for gas if you can believe that.  Same thing in the store.  It was deserted and weird everywhere.  There was almost no traffic at a time of day when the roads are usually so congested I have to take the back roads to avoid them.

Fortunately it was a beautiful day with gorgeous blue skies, which lately has been the rare exception, so we really lucked out!   

I found myself entering the parking lot of a local supermarket at about 3:25 p.m. as the sky continued to get darker.  It was a strange and eerie light, almost like a later time of day than it was.  And the shadows seemed longer than they should have been.  My automatic headlights came on and I had to take my sunglasses off.  I saw a group of supermarket employees gathered together near the door of the store wearing eclipse glasses looking at the sky.  As I walked by them I asked them if they could see anything with them and one of them handed me her pair.  Germaphobe that I am, I almost declined but decided to throw caution to the wind and put them on.  WOW, I was not expecting to see that sliver of sun so well!  I took them off and thanked her profusely.  Then I did my shopping.  By the time I came out the sky looked pretty normal again.

[Browncoat]

Awesome photos, y'all!  Thanks for sharing!  Our skies never quite cleared up, but the clouds thinned enough for about ten minutes so we could see a crescent sun through the haze of clouds.  

Some of the feed on nasa.gov was really remarkable.  You could even see solar flares.  

 

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, emma675 said:

This is a pic a local photographer took at the lake down the street from my house.

Now that I would have bothered to go outside for; here in L.A. it was boring (2017 was more interesting).  I have neighbors who went to Texas to see it properly, and this tides me over very nicely until I can look at their pictures.

Edited April 8 by Bastet

[Annber03]

I'm appreciating the eclipse photos, too - it was cloudy here today, and we weren't in the path of totality, we would've only seen part of it at best if it hadn't been cloudy. And I was at work as well. So I totally missed the entire thing. The photos and videos I'm seeing are very cool, though. 

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, emma675 said:

This is a pic a local photographer took…

Wow! Now I understand why folks on the streaming radio were talking about seeing "the diamond ring."
Too cloudy here to see anything even though we had 3 minutes and 38 seconds of totality. 
It did get pitch dark indoors and quite dark outside. 
The birds did their evening tweeting right before it got dark. 
It got colder, but it was already cold, so not much different. 
I only have an iPhone 7, so this is only approximately what the sky looked like at totality:

What was weird was that the sky looked lighter as the light got darker.

My sister messaged from Ontario on Lake Huron. They had full sun and 88% totality. 

Edited April 8 by shapeshifter

[GHScorpiosRule]

48 minutes ago, Browncoat said:

Awesome photos, y'all!  Thanks for sharing!  Our skies never quite cleared up, but the clouds thinned enough for about ten minutes so we could see a crescent sun through the haze of clouds.  

Some of the feed on nasa.gov was really remarkable.  You could even see solar flares.  

 

I was SO glad the rain had stopped and that the sun finally emerged over the weekend.

[Blergh]

1.  

My locale was somewhat of a washout. I mean, ALL it looked like was an extra dense overcast cloud cover. .  I had to drive to a doctor's appointment and on the way there  I saw at least one yard party with everyone sitting  on the grass in lawn chairs trying to see. ..overcast cloud cover, traffic coming to a standstill for. ..overcast cloud cover and crowds of  people cheering for . ..overcast cloud cover.

Yep, instead of the Emperor's New Clothes, it was the Emperor's New Overcast  Cloud Cover!

Oh, and natch within an hour of the Near Totality being being over THAT is when the clouds parted and bright sunlight shined down!

2017 was WAY better than this!  Oh well! Glad OTHERS actually got to see an unobstructed view of actual Totality (and thanks to EVERYONE who posted pics on this thread covering the event!)

Edited April 8 by Blergh

[StatisticalOutlier]

13 minutes ago, Browncoat said:

You could even see solar flares.  

I'm in the path of totality and it was cloudy but the clouds were breaking up and moving around because of the wind.  I watched pretty much the entire time, start to finish.  Sometimes you couldn't see the sun at all, and sometimes the sky was clear blue. A lot of the time there was enough cloud cover that I could look at the sun without the glasses.  I like it better in the natural colors.

The totality was through varying amounts of clouds except for about 10 seconds in a well-timed gap in the clouds, and we all saw a very distinct red dot on the perimeter, which it turns out was a solar flare.

At the very end there was just a little moon left, on the upper left side.  It looked like the sun was wearing a beret.

Here are a couple of photos, taken on a phone with no filter.  The first is no zoom, just point and shoot; the eclipsed sun is in the middle.  The second was taken with the camera zoomed but still no filter. 

 

 

[Gramto6]

Thanks for all the photos folks!! Here in MT the sun was only going to be obscured around 33% anyway, but the clouds obscured even that. So nothing to be seen here... I had already figured I'd be looking online for photos of totality elsewhere, so was pleased to see all the photos shared here!!

Thanks Again!!

[Mondrianyone]

Houlton is about two hours and change from us. Got crazy crowded there, plus it's mud season, so we opted to stay home. This is my favorite photo among the many posted by the NYT, from Arkansas, since I love chicken, too.

[EtheltoTillie]

Thanks for all the photos. We got to see the crescent shape with our glasses  and it got darkish outside and cold.  I thought it was pretty amazing, since in 2017 we saw nothing. Too much cloud cover.  We didn’t have cloud cover this time.   @shapeshifter sorry you had cloud cover. But you got to experience total darkness so that’s cool.  

[oliviabenson]

56 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Thanks for all the photos. We got to see the crescent shape with our glasses  and it got darkish outside and cold.  I thought it was pretty amazing, since in 2017 we saw nothing. Too much cloud cover.  We didn’t have cloud cover this time.   @shapeshifter sorry you had cloud cover. But you got to experience total darkness so that’s cool.  

I had no glasses so I didn’t go outside. From inside it didn’t get dark as I expected. Idk lol. I expected more I guess.

[roseha]

Wonderful photos, thanks everyone!

I wish I had known that NYC was going to get a partial eclipse, somehow all the talk I had heard was only about the path of totality.  Last night I figured I would use some kind of a makeshift pinhole (I used a "pinhole lens cap" I had bought from an ebay seller for one of my cameras) and hold it over a white plastic sheet to see if I could see anything since I had no glasses for the eclipse.  It kind of worked except that the little crescent image I saw was barely visible.  Well, I tried :)

It was interesting to see all the people gathered around staring up at it though.

[Trini]

It was overcast where I was (Finger Lakes region of NY), but still in the path of totality. So no sun visible, but it was still pretty cool to experience going from day to night and back to day within a few minutes! I was at a location with a good unobstructed view of the sky in all directions, and I think the clouds actually helped us better see the shadow/darkness moving from one horizon to the other.

I know many people traveled upstate for totality; but I heard NYC got better views even if it was 'only' partial.

Oh well, I did get to see the sun in crescent in 2017.

 

[shapeshifter]

3 hours ago, Trini said:

Oh well, I did get to see the sun in crescent in 2017.

I did too, but just for a moment because I was at work.

[Yeah No]

11 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

What was weird was that the sky looked lighter as the light got darker.

I was trying to find a way to put this into words.  This is exactly what I experienced.  Our sky was partly cloudy and was a particularly beautiful shade of blue, too.  There was a ridge of clouds coming from the West at the time threatening to cover the sun, but it  got here after the eclipse, thankfully!

[Caoimhe]

My husband had absolutely NO interest in the eclipse until his brother sent a WhatsApp message Sunday asking what percent of it we’d get over here. Of course the day before the eclipse, on a Sunday morning as well, there were no eclipse glasses to be found. A very kind person at an event we went to Sunday afternoon gave us two pairs so we sat out in the back garden and enjoyed our 95% of the eclipse! 

[kristen111]

Happy Tuesday!  Today is a great day.  Husband and I are picking up my Cousin in  Queens and driving into New York City to have lunch in the Village.  Then on to the Museum up town, my favorite place.   😀

Edited April 10 by kristen111

[AgathaC]

I live in the path of totality and we just had a few wispy clouds — perfect viewing weather. I didn’t get a filter for my phone, so no eclipse pix (I was too focused on taking it all in). But I did get some cool shots of the odd shadows/light crescents on the ground as we neared totality. My area has been going nuts about this for quite a while — partly because we’re usually not a destination for out-of-staters, so the prospect of all those visitors was exciting.

Apparently, we’re in the path of totality for another one in 2045. That’s unusual to have two so close together.

[ginger90]

20 minutes ago, kristen111 said:

.  The best part is we get in free in all the museums as husband is retired from the Electric Company.  We do give donations tho, of course.  I’m excited, as it’s been a dreary long winter. 😀

Either I forgot, or never knew this about Con Ed employees. The mind doesn’t retain everything these days!

[kristen111]

Oh yes.  It’s true.  I’ve worked there in the main office years ago.  That is where husband and I met.  Many, many years ago.❤️. Great benefits.

[GHScorpiosRule]

I'm such a maroon! A couple of pictures I took I thought my camera was trying to focus and zoom (and it was in live mode), so I thought it was just that and the picture was captured. I didn't realize until later, that it was actually a solar flare! I mentioned elsewhere that it looked like Krypton getting brighter and brighter before it exploded! But those that watched Smallville, the picture was like the image in the "Perry White" episode, with images of solar flares, and Clark's powers out of whack!

As for museums, I love that all of the ones here in DC are free to the public. I remember, when I was wee, how I loved to sit on the Triceratops that was just outside of the Natural History museum. But due to...reasons? Safety? (I can't recall), it was removed, which I thought and still do, was a shame. It was a beautiful sculpture.

[oliviabenson]

1 hour ago, kristen111 said:

Happy Tuesday!  Today is a great day.  Husband and I are picking up my Cousin in  Queens and driving into New York City to have lunch in the Village.  Then on to the Museum up town, my favorite place.  No worries, as the relatives are packing legally, lol.  We feel safe.  The best part is we get in free in all the museums as husband is retired from the Electric Company.  We do give donations tho, of course.  I’m excited, as it’s been a dreary long winter. 😀

Enjoy your day of fun!

28 minutes ago, kristen111 said:

Oh yes.  It’s true.  I’ve worked there in the main office years ago.  That is where husband and I met.  Many, many years ago.❤️. Great benefits.

Wink wink at great benefits lol

[ginger90]

47 minutes ago, kristen111 said:

Oh yes.  It’s true.  I’ve worked there in the main office years ago.  That is where husband and I met.  Many, many years ago.❤️. Great benefits.

My father, his 2 brothers and their father all worked for Con Ed. I still remember my father reminding us to turn off lights and saying, I work for them, I don’t own the company! 🤣

Edited April 9 by ginger90

[annzeepark914]

10 minutes ago, ginger90 said:

My father, his 2 brothers and their father all worked for Con Ed. I still remember my father reminding us to turn off lights and saying, I work for them, I don’t own the company! 🤣

Whenever my sister and I left lights on, my dad would yell, "Turn off the lights. I don't have stock in Central Hudson!" Many years later, my sister & BIL bought one stock in CH and gave it to him for his 65th birthday. That was so funny for us and we loved his sweet smile when he opened this nutty gift ❤️. 

[ECM1231]

Enjoy your trip to the city, @kristen111! 🍎

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, AgathaC said:

I live in the path of totality and we just had a few wispy clouds — perfect viewing weather. I didn’t get a filter for my phone, so no eclipse pix (I was too focused on taking it all in). But I did get some cool shots of the odd shadows/light crescents on the ground as we neared totality. My area has been going nuts about this for quite a while — partly because we’re usually not a destination for out-of-staters, so the prospect of all those visitors was exciting.

Apparently, we’re in the path of totality for another one in 2045. That’s unusual to have two so close together.

I'm glad you got to experience it, @AgathaC!

Rochester NY is not a destination location either. I wonder if some of the out-of-staters drove for several hours yesterday to get out from under the clouds.

I doubt I'll still be alive in 2045, and I'm not physically up for traveling much even now, but for those inspired by yesterday's celestial event, there will be a total solar eclipse in Mallorca Spain on August 12, 2026.

It was sunny the day before and is sunny today, so kind of a let-down.
But while I was just finishing up a double portrait watercolor for my daughter's in-laws, I listened to a local program, “Connections With Evan Dawson,” that was kind of an eclipse debriefing with astrophysicists and local folks chiming in. 
The podcast isn't up yet, but should be tomorrow, here: 
wxxinews.org/podcast/connections
It provided an emotional release for me.
I recommend it for anyone who had a lot of cloud cover yesterday and felt disappointed.

_____

ETA:
The podcast from the day after the eclipse is up now:
wxxinews.org/show/connections/2024-04-09/reactions-to-the-total-solar-eclipse

Edited April 9 by shapeshifter

[Mondrianyone]

4 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

there will be a total solar eclipse in Mallorca Spain on August 12, 2026.

Even though they rhyme, Mallorca, Spain, in August sounds a lot more appealing than Houlton, Maine, in mud season. I may book a flight right now!

[StatisticalOutlier]

8 hours ago, kristen111 said:

No worries, as the relatives are packing legally, lol.

You mean guns?

[kristen111]

6 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

You mean guns?

No, lunch.

[kristen111]

7 hours ago, ginger90 said:

My father, his 2 brothers and their father all worked for Con Ed. I still remember my father reminding us to turn off lights and saying, I work for them, I don’t own the company! 🤣

Lol .. I know.  It was one big happy family.  My husband, his Father and Brother, uncles .. the whole family worked there.  My husband also goes around shutting lights.  It’s in the Blood. 😀

[shapeshifter]

41 minutes ago, kristen111 said:

48 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

You mean guns?

No, lunch.

Phew!

[SoMuchTV]

Site-related chat:  Maybe it’s just me, but I like to “follow” pretty much any show I’ve ever watched or am remotely interested in, but I’m annoyed that my home page runs to hundreds of entries. Since the site updates a couple months ago, I figured out a workaround. I unfollow the main topic, and follow the “General Discussion” subtopic with notifications turned on. So my home page is cleaner, but I still get notified if something happens with regards to my show. (Like my favorite actor from a 60s sitcom has passed on.)

Of course this only works for shows that have a single thread (General Discussion), but I think that covers 99% of older shows. 

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, kristen111 said:

No, lunch.

Not American Tourister? It would pack  a LOT more than a sandwich!

[Bastet]

1 minute ago, SoMuchTV said:

Maybe it’s just me, but I like to “follow” pretty much any show I’ve ever watched or am remotely interested in, but I’m annoyed that my home page runs to hundreds of entries.

I, too, put the forum for pretty much everything I've ever watched and liked (or, on rare occasions, watched and disliked; I have NYPD Blue on there, which I loathe, but watched several seasons of because I was living with people who watched it) and upcoming shows I plan to watch on my customized home page.  That gives me about 150, now that individual TV movies and other one-offs now all have their own forums, as adding those caused a significant increase; that took me some getting used to, so I can only imagine hundreds.

15 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

I unfollow the main topic, and follow the “General Discussion” subtopic with notifications turned on. So my home page is cleaner, but I still get notified if something happens with regards to my show.

I have notifications disabled (in terms of content being posted; I get notifications of mentions, replies, and PMs), but if I ever decide I want to make my home page smaller, I'm going to keep that idea in mind.

 

[kristen111]

2 hours ago, kristen111 said:

No, lunch.

 

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

Phew!

Kidding.  Of course no guns.

[kristen111]

2 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

You mean guns?

Of course not.

[shapeshifter]

49 minutes ago, kristen111 said:

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Phew!

Kidding.  Of course no guns.

Double Phew!!

It seems about once a year I am surprised/traumatized to learn someone has a gun, and it's been about a year.

[Yeah No]

12 hours ago, kristen111 said:

Happy Tuesday!  Today is a great day.  Husband and I are picking up my Cousin in  Queens and driving into New York City to have lunch in the Village.  Then on to the Museum up town, my favorite place.   😀

Oh wow, I hope you had a great time.  Where did you eat?  We were down to NY today too to celebrate my best friend's birthday.  We told her to pick the restaurant so of course she wanted to go to Carlo's in Yonkers, our long time favorite little red sauce palace on Central Avenue.  No argument there, we love the food.  It was packed at lunch time.  That place is a gold mine!

On the way to pick her up we passed another long time favorite, the Tibbett Diner in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx right near where my father used to live.  We couldn't even drive down the block.  There were dozens of film crew trucks and tents lined up and down the street.  It is a classic old fashioned diner so TV shows love to film there.  None of us have been in that diner since the pandemic.  I have wanted to go back but it is hard because that was one of my father's special places.  Everyone there loved him.  I know if I go in I will get teary eyed.  I miss the place and the owners.  I know that family for 40 years.  Nick, who runs it now that his father and grandfather are semi-retired (they still work there!) loved my parents and once told me he remembered them his whole life and thought of them like they were his family.  I was very touched.  They took such good care of my dad in his old age, delivering to him for free on days he wasn't up to going there.  I hope to be able to go back there sometime this year.  I keep saying that but it somehow never happens.  I have to make a point of it. 

It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time.  I didn't even complain about the horrible traffic back up to CT.

[StatisticalOutlier]

2 hours ago, kristen111 said:

Kidding.  Of course no guns.

I don't get it.  You originally said (it's been since edited out, but someone else quoted it), "No worries, as the relatives are packing legally, lol.  We feel safe."  Why would a relative packing a lunch make you feel safe?