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crimsonlonghorn

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  1. I have never heard anyone who saw a total eclipse for the first time say, "That was lame. What a letdown." Most people - as evidenced by this thread - say, "HOLY SHIT! THAT WAS AWESOME AND EXCEEDED MY EXPECTATIONS!" But there are lots of people who have never seen one who will still say, "What's the big deal?" They are also usually the same people who say, "Well, it's going to be __% here at my house. That's close enough." After we went to Missouri in 2017 and saw that one, I knew it was going to be worth driving and sitting in traffic to see it again this time.
  2. The moon's orbit is elliptical and not constant so the distance from the moon to the earth is what determines whether it is a total eclipse or just an annular eclipse. If the moon is too far away the apparent size of the disc is too small to entirely cover up the sun even if it passes directly in front of it, which makes an annular eclipse. The moon needs to be closer to the earth and appear bigger for it to be a total eclipse. The earth's orbit around the sub is also elliptical and the distance from the earth to the sun and the apparent size of the sun also varies a little bit and also factors into this determination, but the distance to the moon is the main determinant. Fun fact that I read recently: the moon is slowly moving away from the earth which means that the occurrences when it is big enough to completely cover the sun are gradually getting fewer. Several million years ago in the past there were many more total eclipses and fewer annular eclipses than today. Eventually - like 600 million years from now - the moon will be far enough away that total eclipses will no longer be possible and we will then only have annular eclipses.
  3. The worst part about our experience in the Walmart parking lot in Gatesville was that someone started blasting "Bad Boys" from Cops during totality. I still don't quite understand the logic but they must have had some. Also the traffic getting back to Houston was pretty bad. South of Temple there were lines of cars everywhere on every little highway and farm to market road. We cut over to Highway 6 which was slightly better but still not great getting through Hearne and College Station. At Hempstead we came home to Sugar Land through Bellville and Sealy. Apparently I-10 and 290 were even worse once the northern traffic from Waco met up with the western traffic from Austin. Houston news this morning said traffic was backed up on those roads until after midnight. But it was still worth it.
  4. Both of my kids were like, “That was awesome! Totally worth missing school!” I am a proud dad right now.
  5. These turned out better than I expected. No need to obscure my kids faces lol
  6. Change of plans. We canceled the trip to Austin because of weather and are now in the Walmart parking lot in Gatesville. A few clouds but quite tolerable. Glad we decided to pull the kids out of school and drive three hours to get here.
  7. Having been to the one in Missouri back in 2017, let me jump in here and say two things in this thread: 1) If you are inclined to go see it, GO! The one in 2017 was absolutely one of the most unique and transcendent experiences I’ve ever had. DO NOT just shrug and say, “Well, it’s __% here, so that’s close enough.” Trust me, it’s not at all close enough. The difference between 99% and 100% might as well be the difference between 99% and 1000000000%. There is no comparison at all seeing the sky get dimmer and dimmer and then dark and seeing the corona and the red beads and hearing the birds suddenly be quiet for 4-5 minutes in the middle of the day. It’s so cool, I’m absolutely going to go to Austin that weekend and fight traffic and put up with the hassle, just because it’s totally worth it. You might get annoyed getting there, but you absolutely will not regret it when it’s over. 2) An interesting thing about eclipses is that there is no need to go anywhere special. As long as you are within the path of totality, you get to see it. Think about it this way: assuming the weather is clear you can see the sun anywhere you go, right? Well, then you can see the eclipse too. There is no need to go to a state park or a special property or any of that shit. Just pull over into a parking lot or go out in your backyard and you will see the exact same thing people are seeing in Fredericksburg or Enchanted Rock or whatever. Again, yes it’s going to be a pain in the ass, but it’s something that is exceedingly rare and absolutely 100% worth experiencing.
  8. Tonight we went to an event at my son's high school. There were a lot of kids in the program with African sounding names. Mrs CL: Wow. Where did all of those African kids come from? Me: I have a pretty good guess.... Mrs CL: Seriously, where?
  9. Whenever I drive my wife's car, I use my own key. I will usually get out of the car first and then stand there and wait for her. Because she's still in the car with her key in her purse, the car will do the three quick honks to remind the driver that his key was left in the car. Mrs CL will then get out of the car and complain at me for honking at her to make her hurry up. Every time.
  10. To Mrs CL's credit, that's the cash price and the furniture store charges an extra 3% for credit cards. At least she was trying to think through it a little bit.
  11. Not 100% sure that is the case, but I will say that they haven't told her "no" enough. Mrs CL has some unique aesthetic preferences and all they've really done is enable her and tell her how to do it more expensively. "You want blue tile in every bathroom? Awesome. Here's some really expensive tile that's blue. We hope you like it!" They are working to make sure it all looks good together, but they also haven't told her she's nuts, which she really needs to hear some times.
  12. When we started building this house, she hired an interior decorating firm and said one of the reasons she chose them was because they worked on an hourly basis and didn't get commissions on all the stuff they picked out for her. Then, 12 months later, now that the house is almost done, I find out that they recommended $120k worth of furniture, which Mrs CL has supposedly whittled down to "only" $50k, including the $10k breakfast table. I asked why she couldn't just ask them to go a notch below and go a little more consumer level and she replied, "I don't think that's their business model. They want you to buy really nice stuff." No shit? Really? So they don't work just for an hourly rate? As usual, there was an issue with my tone.
  13. Oh no no no. Now the table will cost $10,029. ☠️
  14. With interest rates where they are, I've started keeping a very low balance in the checking account and trying to park as much money as I can in our various money market and savings accounts. Since I pay the bills, I know when a large withdrawal is coming and I make sure there is sufficient money in the account. I'm not sure if the "Stupid Wife" story here is the fact that Mrs CL didn't tell me she wrote a check for $10,000 or if she thinks we need a new $10,000 breakfast table for our new house. Maybe this is a stupid husband story for telling her she could buy whatever furniture she wanted for the new house. My bad.
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