Today is Earth Day... and when I climb up into that crow’s nest, hold up my spyglass, and look out at the horizon… it can look pretty bleak. It seems like the whole world is on fire in different ways. But amidst the chaos… what gives me hope is seeing people taking action. And they are! Today I offer you three articles to hopefully provoke some thoughts on this day: one by me and two by others.
Just a note for any parents who may be as culturally clueless as I apparently am… a global mega-superstar released her latest album this morning, and it is a BigDeal for some demographics. 😀
The degree to which SpaceX has fundamentally changed the space launch industry 🚀 is truly amazing. As Ars Technica notes "this was the sixth Falcon 9 launch in less than eight days, more flights than SpaceX's main US rival, United Launch Alliance, has launched in 17 months."
🎉FINALLY! 🎉 After almost 2 years (since July 2022) of using the same starter word, it finally was the word of the day! My first and only first-guess win.
(The side effect is that now I need a new starter word! 😃) #Wordle
We have high wind alerts and as I watch the trees blow outside my windows... I'm also thinking about how many old trees we have around... and about how all our power lines are above ground on poles.
So if I'm not online later... there's a reason... 🙂
@Schouten_B@timoj To be fair, in many newer developments in Vermont, they are burying all the utilities when they are building out the lots. However, I live in a development of around 70 homes built mostly in in the 1960s and 1970s.
Amusingly, if I walk to the end of one road in our neighborhood, I reach a point where 8 or so homes were added maybe 20 years ago. And... ta da.. the wires dive down from the poles and go underground for those few homes. 🙂
My only good shot from totality (after I remembered to take the filter off the lens! 🤦♂️🤣). Totality was amazing and so I was drinking it all in. Temps dropped a good 10 degrees F, mosquitoes came out, the birds stopped singing, everyone’s solar lights came on, and it was incredibly dark. Really amazing!
And then it was over and everything started returning to normal!
There was of course only one song that could be used as the musical background 🤣
Not that I was just pointing an iPad with an added optical lens up at the sky. I wasn’t aiming for high quality photos… just more to have some memories of an amazing experience.
I am amused by the suggestions from Vermont state agencies that people should bring a paper map in case GPS stops working. After 17 years with smartphones and Google/Apple Maps… ** do people even know how to read paper maps anymore? ** 🤣
Waking up to bright blue skies in Vermont for Eclipse Day! Hoping they will stay that way… although current forecasts call for high, translucent clouds to come in during the early afternoon. (Which still should be okay for eclipse viewing.) The fun begins around 2:20pm, with totality at 3:26, and then it all ending by 4:30-ish.