ArtieShaw

Fluffy: “Quite mad, indeed!!!” <cackles in dog>

If you watch enough old scifi and adventure movies, you’ll learn to welcome the “so that’s where Lucas took that idea from” feeling as an old friend. He lifted a lot.

Ex-astronomer nerd here. I would, unless light pollution is also a problem in the countryside. I saw the aurora twice when I was a teen. It was a long time ago, but definitely memorable.

Here in Ohio it’s hard to find any place with dark skies. Even farmers have high output lights attached to every barn and outbuilding. It comes off as a bit paranoid on their part, but maybe there are roving gangs of werewolves that I’m not aware of.

If you do find a dark place, give your eyes 20 minutes to dark-adapt. Don’t look at any terrestrial light directly and you’ll find that the available light will be enough to get around. If you do need a flashlight (sorry - torch) you can cover it with a red film to avoid ruining your night vision. It does make a difference when star gazing.

I think any organization that gets kids outdoors, teaches them social skills, builds self-esteem, and promotes community involvement is one worth praising.

I was in Girl Scouts for years. And although as an adult I can criticize plenty of GS policies, the things you list were always the priority of the scouting experience.

My much younger brother was in Boy Scouts and comparatively, they were weird. It had this whole religious and quasi-military aspect that was off-putting. There were uniform inspections and drills at the monthly family events. And there were mandatory church/temple activities that were required to advance to the next stage. Although technically you could attend a church or event of your choosing - in practice we were the only Protestant family in our community so they just chucked him in with the Catholics. That was mixture of confusing and educational.

My experience gave me community service, camaraderie, and a deep dive on cookie selling strategies. I can still tie a mean bowline. My brother got some weird indoctrination and one fun memory of winning the pinewood derby. They didn’t even do that much camping.

In the US they were definitely out of fashion in the '80s and '90s. They were fashion statement that said “I’m a gross hippie” or worse, a BeeGee.

I was a teen at the time and the consensus among teen girls was that a beard was the ultimate dealbreaker of a physical attribute. Makes sense, really, because most guys our age couldn’t grow a nice one if they wanted to. (And also - hippies are gross). I always respectfully disagreed, and would point to our classmate, Murad. He had pretty well grown facial hair by junior year and he looked fiiiinne.

The exception that proved the rule? Luckily (for Murad) my classmates generally agreed, but refused to back down from their opinion in general.

That attitude persisted, with the occasional appearance of a goatee or soul patch in the late '90s, both of which proved to be a gateway drug that led to the appearance of proper beards. I think a lot of guys would have liked to have beards, but realized that they were driving away potential partners. But they were pretty normal by 2010.

I’ll drop this line from wikipedia, which should illustrate just how boringly mainstream beards have become in the US.

Since 2015 a growing number of male political figures have worn beards in office, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton.

Damn hippies.

This should fill in any cultural/temporal gaps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Ed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cI-LXMyyDo

tl/dr: Mr Ed was a talking horse that had a sitcom in the '60s. It was still playing in syndication by the '80s, so it would be known to most people in the US at the time.

I don’t mean to be old-splaining here, but familiarity with Mr. Ed helps. It was in syndication during the '80s, so I remember it as a hokey show with a pretty catchy theme song. The question of “how did they get that horse to move his lips” in time to the voiceovers was a valid question. (Answer: mostly peanut butter).

In the Larsenverse, however, the horse requires no voiceover. He just needs to be properly motivated.

Celestron is a name I know and would trust. My dad had one of their telescopes and it was pretty nice. That was in the '80s though.

If you can get to an area where it will be in totality, you can see it without eye protection during that brief 2-3 minute window. The danger to your eyes is when it’s at anything less than full total eclipse.

Workaround: You can see the eclipse with a low tech solution of a pinhole camera. Google it for a better explanation, but

-poke a pin through a sheet of paper. -during the eclipse, just hold it over something like another sheet of paper and you can see an accurate projection of the sun as the eclipse progresses

It’s actually pretty neat.

But if your weather is good, consider going to a place where the eclipse will be total. I’m in the path, but I’m seriously considering driving several hours to a place with a better weather forecast. I’ve seen good quality photo and video of total eclipses since I was a child. And the people who showed it to me (astronomy nerds from a club) told me “it’s not the same.”

The comment is a week old, but I feel this because I only recently figured it out. When I was a little pre-K kid I loved watching robins hunt worms in the yard, and my mom told me that they were listening for worms. It made sense when you’re four.

40+ years later I realized that robins have eyes on the sides of their heads and maybe… maybe… there’s another explanation that makes more sense. And I only really thought it through because all these years later I was watching robins hunting something that wasn’t worms in my own backyard. “huh, I wonder what they’re eating back there that’s as loud as worms? Oh shit.”

I think it’s analogous to the bed of nails, but I think it’s meant to be an air mattress. It would explain the look of concentration and the look of concern from the onlookers. Definitely a hazardous stunt for a porcupine.

7:07am. Milan.

I’m woken by two texts from my coworker. “Thought we were meeting in the lobby at 7:00. Heading to the train station.”

The train leaves at 7:20. “Well I can’t…” or can I?

Clothes on. Glasses on. All toiletries swept into purse. I run like hell.

There’s a pedestrian underpass, but I Frogger across the road and through the square. I’m in the station with a minute to spare and I’m still somehow running. My shoes are shabby Converse and the floor is polished marble. And I’m 45.

Things are going as ok as any of that can be until I have that out of body moment when I know my foot to forward motion ratio is incompatible with staying upright.

I lunged into the fall, made an extremely satisfying “splat” sound, and skidded several horizontal meters on the marble floor. Two or more nicely dressed Italians look at me in horror, but I’m not physically hurt. Big smile. I thought about Mary Catherine Gallagher-ing it with a victory pose, but just got up and kept running.

Made the train as it was pulling out, brushed hair/teeth once i caught my breath. Moved to the correct train car at the next stop, and met up with my colleague.

We had a nice day trip and the waiter was horrified at how much wine we drank at lunch.

Is “going back to school” a thing in Germany? From what I know about that education system I’m guessing not, but in the US that’s a standard answer.

“I want to move to be closer to my aging parents.” - might work. If you haven’t shared much about your life, it’s an easy lie. And it’s dull and depressing, so the odds of followup questions are slim. I hear it a lot when interviewing job candidates in our area.