Tuesday, August 22, 2017

First Day, Part Deux

First day
SWS starts the school year off with a conference day, which meant that Nora started third grade the day after Owen started sixth. She's at the same school with the same group of friends though for the first time will have Owen's former teachers (they've been duly warned).

First day

Monday, August 21, 2017

Total Solar Eclipse

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"This is the most amazing experience of my entire life! I have never seen anything as amazing as the solar eclipse!" - Nora
The last total solar eclipse in the U.S. during my lifetime passed through the Pacific Northwest in 1979, and I remember when I was studying astronomy in High School learning that the next total solar eclipse in the U.S. wouldn't come around until the far off year of 2017.  In 1993 I saw a partial solar eclipse, with all the cool pinhole projections of the solar crescent from the dappled light coming through the trees. But then, I put it out of my mind for a long time. Then a couple years ago I came across the Great American Eclipse website, and decided to mark August 21, 2017 on my calendar.  I thought about moving our beach trip to Charleston, SC to see the eclipse, but we needed to wait for the school calendar to come out, and sure enough the eclipse fell on the first day of school. For such a great educational experience, I wouldn't mind taking the kids out of school, but for Owen it was going to be his first day of Middle School, and it would be really hard to miss out on the first day. For Nora though, the 21st was a conference day, so she wouldn't actually have to miss anything.  After a little hemming and hawing, and talking with Elaine, we decided that this was too great a chance to pass up, and Nora and I would drive down to South Carolina on Owen's birthday, and drive home the next day after the eclipse. We booked an AirB&B right by campus in Columbia, ordered some NASA approved eclipse glasses, and even convinced Aunt Katherine to join us on the adventure.

On Saturday morning we watched Owen open birthday presents, then hit the road for South Carolina. The drive down went smoothly, with only a little bit of traffic. In fact we got there before our condo was ready, but fortunately we were able to hang out at the pool while we waited (though we did need an extra stop at Target to pick up swim suits). We had a lovely dinner, put Nora to bed, and Katherine and I watched Game of Thrones before heading to bed ourselves.

After a nice lazy morning, we packed up and went to the University of South Carolina intramural fields across the street from our condo to pick out our viewing spot. The morning was a little cloudy, and the sun was actually behind the clouds at first contact (C1), but the clouds over us quickly cleared off for the initial partial stages of the eclipse.  We could see plenty of big clouds on the horizon, but we were cautiously optimistic that they would hold off. Things started to get really interesting about 15 minutes before totality, the quality of the light started to change, slightly dimmer with sharper shadows, almost like there was a strange filter applied to the whole world around us. The temperature began to drop too, and the wind picked up.  It was in the mid 90's before the eclipse, and by the time we reached totality it felt like the temperature was down to the 70's. The last few seconds before totality you could really feel the excitement, crickets chirping, street lights coming on, Bailey's beads and then the diamond ring came into view, people started screaming, and then all of the sudden the sky went dark, the stars came out, our eclipse glasses came off, and the corona appeared before us.

I don't think I can put the beauty of totality into words, and all the pictures I've seen fail to do it justice. It looks far bigger in the sky than I expected, and seeing the type of thing you come to expect from beautiful Hubble images with your naked eyes sends tingles of excitement down your spine. It's easy to be jaded, and expect a big event to be overhyped and underwhelming, but after being in the path of totality myself, I have to agree with Nora. I've never seen anything as amazing as the solar eclipse!

(click here for all the pictures)


Middle Schooler

Middle school!
On Owen's first day of kindergarten, there was an earthquake. Today he starts middle school and there's a solar eclipse. You might want to start planning now for high school in 2020...

Have a great year, Panthers!

Sunday, August 20, 2017

He Goes to Eleven

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Owen really came of age this year, which was a really strange year for that to happen. Just a few months after Owen's birthday, Donald Trump was elected, which drastically changed the trajectory of his father's career, and meant a demonstrable increase in the number of protests we participated in as a family. Being a fifth grader meant that Owen's curriculum this year covered, among other things, the Civil War, Reconstruction, World War II and the Civil Rights Movement, which added an interesting context to current events. We had talks about race and religion, discrimination, terrorism, hate, and all manner of uncomfortable subjects. And while at times it was really hard to have those talks, it was really interesting to hear Owen's perspective on things. It also made us really proud of the kind of man he's becoming.

Not that there weren't lighter moments this year. Owen went camping with his class in the fall, his family for Father's Day, and went to sleep-away camp with his friend Gabriel in the summer. He was the MC at a juggling show and gave the "I have a Dream" speech (well, part of it) with his class at the Lincoln Memorial. He climbed a 5.10b and learned the butterfly stroke.  He graduated from fifth grade and was promoted to DCYOP's intermediate orchestra. Owen built a computer and got a Switch. He body boarded by himself. He ate shrimp!

But despite all these changes, he's still the same Owen who's up for any adventure, always has your back, and still enjoys a good cuddle. Happy birthday, little man, we love you so much!

  1. Beware of Shadow Demons
  2. There are giants in the sky!
  3. Never approach the Yiga clan without your Mighty Bananas.
  4. Science Before Profit!
  5. Separation of church and state is fine an all, but Egyptian mythology and school mascots should get a pass.
  6. Just keep running.
  7. "Some of my best quotes I just say to myself."
  8. People don't know much about the Battle of Bladensburg and the War of 1812 -- particularly the impact of local pawn dealers on the outcome.
  9. "What I missed most was Nora."
  10. "The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

Sunday, August 13, 2017

OBX 2017

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For our beach trip this year we returned to Pelican's Perch, the wonderful house we found in Duck last year. The weather this year was a bit unsettled, with lots of thunderstorms, but the temperatures never left the 70's, the water was consistently warm, and the scattered storms generally moved through quickly leaving us plenty of time to enjoy the beach.

We can't have a trip to the Pelican's Perch without having a tournament for the Pelican Cup, and of course Katherine brought plenty of games. The scattered storms meant there was lots of time for games in the house, but also meant that we were maximizing our ocean time when the weather was nice, so we didn't play as much corn hole this year. Nora jumped out to an early lead with a big Yahtzee win the first day, then Elaine came on strong with wins in Crappy Birthday and Tenzi's, and Owen charged ahead with an assortment of wins from Marbles to Memory, but my steady stream of wins capped off with a big Bocci game meant that I got to take home the Pelican Cup this year :-)

The big news for this trip was the completion of the Duck beach nourishment project. Beach nourishment pumps in sand from offshore to extend and protect the beach, and for the Pelican's Perch, it meant that the beach was considerably wider, and when we walked down to to the condos at Barrier Island, we could really see how much of a difference it made, as the beach there had eroded enough that all the umbrellas were packed into a very narrow strip of beach. Interestingly, beach nourishment is one of the climate change adaptation measures for sea level rise that we model in the costal properties model for the CIRA project, though the North Carolina Legislature banned the state from using sea level rise predictions for costal policies. I'm sure there's more to this story...maybe we'll find out when we come back to the Pelican's Perch next summer :-)

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(click here for all the pictures)