Cold Water for Thirsty Souls

This Was E-DAY!!! April 8. 2024

Huge build-up in media for months! Disaster Declarations by Citys and Countys here in Central Texas! All Port-a-Potties booked, No Hotel Rooms, Grocery Stores Low on Food, Price of Gas raised 20 cents a gallon on Friday GridLock Guaranteed on Major Highways! As Hays County, where I reside was, to experience over two minutes of totality we got the full treatment! Our Preparation was simple- we planned to not leave the house all day! We didnt even buy eclipse glasses! Lo and Behold there was very heavy cloud cover and decent chances for rain and hail for Eclipse Day! I did go outside a few minutes before totality and look up ( with my wife screaming.... You Are Gonna Go Blind!) and took a few pictures! It got pretty dark for about a minute, but you could still see.

So no tripod, no filters, nothing spectacular about the pictures ( I did dial in multiple stops of underexposure in a half-hearted attempt to protect the camera sensor. Wife didn't seem very concerned about camera so I guess that means I worth more than it to her!

Too Bad for all the thousands that spent lots of money to come here for the viewing!

Breaking News!!! As I posted this I got a news feed that the Texas National Guard, called out to help control crowds, was relieved of duty at 3:00! Lets hope people dont get ugly now because the majority of the Texas civilian population is armed far heavier than the National Guard! Thankfully not too many of them have tanks though!

Approaching Totality -- Totality-- Leaving Totality

No deer, coyotes,fox, or californians laid on their backs in our yard and Howled at the Dark!

I Dont Like Cell Phones!

and I know the great majority of the worlds cell phone users (99.9999%) have no desire to read another long rant against them. I will admit to being among the first to have one of the Motorola Bricks, and attracted many interested persons when i would first use it, particularly in airports. I had it for one reason- Work, specifically when traveling ( which I did quite a bit of). Back then there were plenty of pay phones but ANY Time I tried to use one for a very important call, like closing a sale involving weeks of work ( non of my customers would ever do that when i WAS IN THE OFFICE)- a 1962 Oldsmobile, with no mufflers, full of screaming kids and the radio playing atTOP VOLUME would pull up! Even if I was inside the airport terminal! No TSA back then!

So nowadays, having been retired for some years, although I still have a call phone it mostly stays turned off, with the battery near death. I will admit to using it when traveling ( though i no longer have to fly* ) but only to search for places to eat!**

This is a picture of my android cell phone ,as you can see from the screen I take GREAT care of it!

* you see we have an RV, which of course being broken down in one manner or another almost all the time, saves us from doing much traveling!

** or looking towing services for the RV when it inconveniently breaks down, always at least 650 miles from any repair facility!

So It Seems I Missed THE OFFICIAL

first day of Spring! My only excuse, after spending over 8K at the dentist last December ( and catching covid to boot) I'm having teeth problems again! So my day was spent calling around to find another dentist, hopefully one who wont charge me 8K AND will fix me! My teeth I mean! So belatedly here are some Spring Wildflowers from Texas! ( And yes they were shot 14 years ago,,,, when my teeth and my knees worked!)

Missing is our daughter Hallie who had announced the spring before she WAS NO LONGER sitting in bluebonnets!