Eclipse

We had clear skies over Seattle yesterday morning, so I was able to join most of the rest of the office on the roof of our building and watch the eclipse yesterday (along with what seemed like most of the country).  And driving into work and looking around the vicinity of our building, there were hundreds of other people doing the same thing – so it was a nice moment of unity, especially in light of recent events and a distinctly polarizing president (and, naturally, that dumbass was photographed looking at the sun without glasses on).  You really needed the solar eclipse glasses, because you couldn’t really see the eclipse without them (pinhole cameras suck).  I didn’t get a pair of glasses, but fortunately there were enough people on the roof to share glasses around.  Was it spectacular?  Not really – we didn’t have a total eclipse in Seattle, I think it was around 93%, but it was enough to notice a change in lighting and temperature.  I didn’t check any shadows, but apparently they got weird as well.  The total eclipse, where it goes really dark for a few minutes, would have been something  - a few people at work went to see it, but I’m not sure the time, effort and cost to get into the zone of totality (some of the hotel prices on Sunday/Monday were beyond ridiculous) was worth it for just those 2 minutes.  It was kind of cool – but for some reason I had a sense of déjà vu that this wasn’t my first solar eclipse, but for the life of me I can’t remember if that is really true or whether I’ve just seen too many apocalyptic films.  No photos – you needed something better than my iPhone to get a good picture, but loads of good photos and videos can be found on the web.  Not quite a once-in-a-lifetime moment – there is another total eclipse in the US in 2024.  But sadly, if you’re stuck in the UK then you’ll have to wait until 2090 for your next one (and it’s probably more likely to be overcast!).