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08/22/17 07:57 PM #3098    

 

Bruce Fette

Dale,

A superb description. I got to watch with a few hundred DARPA folks on the front Lawn at DARPA. And many had invented clever ways to watch, binoculars, pin-hole boxes, projectors, even though only an 80% event here.

I didnt take any pictures though, so I am happy to see the pics from those who did.  :)

 


08/23/17 08:59 AM #3099    

 

Chuck Cole

My wife, Liz, and I, along with three of our four sons, two grandchildren and a few friends viewed the eclipse from Oregon.  One of my kids lives in Portland and another in Oakland, so heading to Oregon was an easy decision.  I've been anticipating this for so long that in the beginning of 2016, we rented a large house in Bend, Oregon.  Good friends rented another house nearby.  People arrived over the course of a couple of days and were all present by Sunday evening. We were struck by how light the traffic had been coming up from Portland.  However, still concerned about traffic heading into Madras, Oregon, on the centerline, on the mroning of the eclipse, and more concerned about the return trip when many (who had arrived over several days) were expected to leave the area, we studied the detailed maps in the DeLorme Oregon road atlas and found a route to within 8 miles of the centerline, ending in a dead end, and never requiring travel on numbered roads.  We weren't the only ones there even though it was a completely unofficial location, and by the time the eclipse began, the cars were parked closely together on one side of the road for more than 1/3 of a mile.  

This has been a very bad forest fire season in Oregon and on most days, skies were hazy due to smoke, sometimes so much that one could smell it.  Fine ash decorates everything outside.  Our drive north from Bend took us through some of the thickest smoke we'd seen since arriving in Oregon, but we pulled north of the smoke plume a few miles short of our planned viewing location.

I can't improve on Dale's terrific report of what totality was like.   But it was a joyous mixture of awe and tranquility--truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. How extraordinary, that the moon should be 1/400 the size of the sun and 1/400 as far away.  And with the moon gradually (very very gradually) pulling further from Earth, a day will come when the shadow of the moon will race across Earth for the last time--after that, only annular and partial eclipses.

For those who didn't make it to totality, do whatever it takes to get there next time.  People had said that there was more of a difference in the spectacle and experience between 99% and 100% than between 0 and 99%. They were right. For the next two total eclipses (July 2019 and Dec 2020), totality takes a path across different parts of Chile/Argentina.  Waiting until 2024 feels too long.  


08/23/17 11:55 AM #3100    

 

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

Small update on Dex (nee D. Roger Dixon)

He is awake but pretty groggy and listless. That has to partly the problem with the body trying climb its way back up from renal failure, and partly having not eaten any food (or had any coffee) for who knows how long.

I was going to call him this morning but decided that he has a lot more important stuff going on right now than hearing from me. here is a message I received from his friend who originally contacted me:

Hello, Stephen - I thought I'd let you know that Roger is awake now and doing better although he is definitely in a crisis. Our minister wrote, "His vision is poor, his speech is slow and labored, and thoughts aren't coming to him quickly, which is enormously frustrating to a brilliant man with a sharp mind, one who has been in the theater and academia for all of his adult life. He just is accustomed to not being able to communicate easily." Roger's friend was able to find the relative of his who has his power of attorney and is a lawyer, and coincidentally she and Roger had been planning to update it this week, so she knew what he wanted. Thank you for responding to me and for caring.


I let her know that a bunch of Roger's classmates were sending him good thoughts and vibes. It is good to know that the right people are now assembled to handle the business end of things for him. Now he can just get better on all those delicious IV's and antibiotics.


08/23/17 08:26 PM #3101    

 

Paul Simons

About the eclipse- partial - on the NJ beach, waves, windy, partly cloudy. As the sun became covered the sky, water, sand darkened. Eery. Dark, more windy. Like a fast-forming storm. Then, slowly, back to normal.


08/23/17 08:58 PM #3102    

 

Jerry Ochs

Attention!  Do you want a lifetime senior pass to the National Parks System?  The fee will rise from $10 to $80 very soon.


08/24/17 12:05 AM #3103    

 

Philip Spiess

Steve Dixon:  If you contact Dexter, let him know that, along with his other classmates, I too am concerned and rooting for him.  He was always a whimsical, maybe lyrical, kind of guy.

Paul:  You've commented favorably on recent posts about my writing.  Let me just say that your post on the eclipse, while brief, is magical in the way it captures the event as you saw it.

Jerry:  I quite concur:  guys, get the Senior Pass while you can, if you don't already have one.  It is well worth the money, even if you don't use it immediately.  We use ours all the time (it covers others accompanying you as well).  (Notice that Senior Passes purchased before August 28, 2017, are actual Lifetime Senior Passes.)

[P.S.:  Was I the only one who remembers seeing a solar eclipse -- I'm sure -- during our days at Walnut Hills?  Perhaps one of you astronomical types (Dale?) could look up the date.]


08/24/17 10:49 AM #3104    

 

Chuck Cole

It's probably worth ordering an extra national parks card since if you lose it, you have to buy another. When I first bought mine, I was sure that with the wave of baby boomers, the $10 lifetime cost was sure to rise.  


08/24/17 03:52 PM #3105    

David R. Schneider

Steve D.--thank you for your updates on Roger. Hopefully, with the antibiotics, he will improve. Roger was a good friend, Andy we all hope for a speedy recovery. 


08/24/17 06:30 PM #3106    

 

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

D. Roger is doing better. Still in  ICU but fully awake and even chowing down on some nutritious applesauce. YUM!

His voice is said to be raspy, no doubt the result of dry-throat from days of an oxygen tube and no soothing sips of Vitamin Water. Or whatever.

Lots of stuff to understand and work on in the days ahead. No longer in the deep woods, though.


08/24/17 07:52 PM #3107    

 

Nelson Abanto

 

May I digress a bit and address Opera lovers (you know who you are) on the timelessness of certain operatic themes.

I have just watched a great Don Carlo.  Two moments struck me as eternal.  1st, the opening aria of the fourth act when King Phillip V sings his great lament:Ella  giammai m'amo, or in English, she never loved me.  This is an older powerful man who is shocked by the realization that the young woman he married never really loved him. This calls to mind those deeply affectionate moments between The Donald and Melanya.

Secondly, when Rodrigo chastises King Phillip saying "You are ruler of half the world and the only person you can't control is yourself".  (And King Phillip couldn't even tweet!)

I say these are profound, timeless themes that Verdi captured and immortalized in a beautifully artistic way

 

 


08/25/17 12:05 AM #3108    

 

Philip Spiess

Nelson:  When I commented to you as you joined our e-mail gang to remember operas that were politically antagonistic or satirical of regimes, I forgot Don Carlo!  (King Phillip couldn't tweet because he wasn't a soprano; only coloratura sopranos "tweet.")  (Yeah, yeah, and French horns and bassoons are blowhards.)


08/25/17 08:06 AM #3109    

 

Nelson Abanto

Not so fast, Phil!  What about Counter tenors? Witness, David Daniels in Giulio Cesare.  


08/25/17 10:35 PM #3110    

 

Philip Spiess

Great Caesar's Ghost!  Nelson, your "counter" argument holds; I like the tenor of your thought.


08/26/17 02:10 PM #3111    

 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

My dog Chief and I took a road trip to Sweetwater, TN to take in the totality.  SPECTACULAR!

The trip was worth the hassle of a 9 hour drive home to Glendale, OH.  Next time, I'll be spending a long weekend with my family in Huber Heights, OH for another view of the totality!

https://youtu.be/W1fFjsoEysQ

https://youtu.be/R09K-NF5EfI


08/26/17 02:13 PM #3112    

 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

My attempt at totality.

 

 

 


08/27/17 10:25 PM #3113    

 

Philip Spiess

To Paul Simons:  I'm sorry, I missed your inquiry about Cincinnati brewery tours at Post #3067; I was off on a tour myself of the New England coast, imbibing oysters, lobsters, clams, and other mollusks and crustacea (how shellfish of me!). Although I remember no such brewery tours for high school students, I think it highly unlikely that any were offered, given the strict Ohio state liquor laws and state-run liquor stores (although beer could be bought in any number of outlets, such as pony-kegs, a nearly unique Cincinnati term).  We did go on tours of the Coca-Cola bottling plant on Dana Ave. across Victory Parkway from Xavier University.

However, as to the heyday of Cincinnati breweries at the time of our youth (I won't bother with pre-Prohibition breweries, most long gone, except to mention the revival in the 1990s of Christian Moerlein Golden Lager Beer, supposedly made by the original 1870s formula -- don't know if you can still find it, but it was good).  When we entered Walnut Hills in the Fall of 1958, these establishments, I believe, were still functioning:  (1) Burger Brewing Co., which, though founded before Prohibition, was revived after it ended, buying Windisch-Muhlhauser's old Lion Brewery on Central Parkway at Liberty St. (by Plum St.), and sponsoring the radio broadcasts of the Cincinnati Redlegs' games till 1967 (the great stone lions, formerly on the peak of the brewery, were removed to the entrance of a farm on North Bend Road near Diehl Road, at Mack, Ohio); (2) John C. Bruckmann Brewing Co., again, founded before Prohibition but revived after it, closing in 1949, although its buildings in Clifton near Cumminsville remained prominently visible (particularly its tall smokestack) on Streng St. below the junction of the north end of Central Parkway with Ludlow Ave., by Trechter Stadium of Central High School; (3) George Wiedemann Brewing Co., Columbia St., Newport, Kentucky, a pre-Prohibition brewery which reopened in 1937, but which was absorbed in 1967 by the G. Heileman Brewing Co. of Wisconsin (which at that time owned almost all of the breweries in the United States, except for Anheuser-Busch and Coors), but which allowed it to continue to operate under its own name (in my college days, college friends, Jeff Rosen, etc., and I would congregate in the summers in the beer garden on the brewery's roof, taking in beer, cheese, wurst, the sights of downtown Cincinnati across the river at night -- and the dulcet strains of the Delta Queen's calliope in concert); (4) Bavarian Brewing Co., West 4th St., Covington, Kentucky, another pre-Prohibition brewery, reopened in 1934 (my grandfather used to trek across the river to buy Bavarian beer and cart it back into Ohio, which I understood, as a youth, to be illegal), but bought out and the premises vacated in 1966; (5) Hudepohl Brewing Co., 6th St., a pre-Prohibition brewery which acted as a distributor during Prohibition and reopened in the 1930s, becoming popular in the 1980s advertising "Hudy" beer; (6) Schoenling Brewing Co., Central Parkway, founded in 1933 by an ice manufacturer, it produced "Little Kings."  Hudepohl and Schoenling joined forces as one company in 1986 and today the company is owned by the Christian Moerlein Brewing Co.


08/28/17 07:50 AM #3114    

 

Paul Simons

I have to say a few things here. First Happy Birthday Jim Hilb! I never knew anyone's birthday but the database people have stepped in and put an end to that lack of information. Anyway Jim you are and were one of the lucky few who get to go through life without the self-absorbtion which is one of the curses of our generation in my opinion. I know I suffer from it. Second Ann Shepard Rueve you and your Chief appear to be traveling in a space vehicle/time machine/planetary rover, safe travels to you both. Third Phil Speiss thanks for your comment on my perception of the eclipse and for the exhaustive research on Cincinnati breweries. But dammit I KNOW I was in the taproom. Of a Cincinnati brewery. Am I losing my mind? Am I having some kind of delusion, maybe like some failed real estate salesman living on borrowed money who thinks he deserves to be Napoleon Bonaparte or President or something? I swear the taproom is real, and not just Mecklenburg's reconstructed in a dream I had in an opium den in Calcutta. I've never been to Calcutta, never been to India at all. This is very mysterious. In closing I'll just repeat what the FEMA dude said - if your town gets totally flooded overnight and you wake up and the water is pouring into your house and you can't even open a door to get out that way, climb out a window and get on the roof. Don't get trapped in the attic. If you go there, take an axe so you can break through the roof, get out, and not drown. Then you'll be able to inform your elected representatives that climate science is not a hoax. (Written August 28, 2017 as Houston, Texas is underwater, it's still raining there, and that state and several nearby states and the current head of the EPA still claim that it is. A hoax. Good grief. "Sursum Ad Summum" - literally - the creek is risin'!!)


08/28/17 11:57 AM #3115    

 

Dale Gieringer

 Another brewery was active in Cincinnati in our youth, though it may have closed before we entered WHHS.  Does anyone remember Red Top beer?   They used to have fencepost signs around the countryside like Burma Shave, shaped like a red top with the legend, "All I hear is Red Top Beer."    After that, they were bought out and became Wunderbrau, with the slogan,  "Das trocken lager, Ach du lieber wot Bier!"   They were located  next door to my father's factory, the Cincinnati Time Recorder Company at 1733 Central Ave.  For a few years they boasted an eye-catching  billboard with an animated electric light display showing a bottle pouring beer into a glass.  You couldn't miss it driving along Central Parkway, across the way from an old wooden fence that used to advertise upcoming wrestling matches.  Before long, Wunderbrau folded and my father bought their building to expand his factory.   I later learned that it had originally been the Hauck Brewery, which was famous in its day.   One day, a car that had been parked by one of dad's employees in the old Hauck parking lot was swallowed up when an old underground wooden beer vat collapsed beneath it.  I never tasted Red Top or Wunderbrau or Hauck, but all the Cincinnati beers that were popular when we came of age were piss-poor except for Wiedemann's.  For a brief while well after we graduated their "Golden Amber" was ranked #1 beer in the nation by Playboy magazine.  Now Wiedemann too has gone the way of Red Top et al.


08/28/17 02:54 PM #3116    

 

Dale Gieringer

     Yesterday we watched helicopters buzzing downtown Berkeley as demonstrators clashed at a rally called by out-of-town right wingers.   The headlines of today’s SF Chronicle describe the scene:  “Masked anarchists rout right-wingers;  Berkeley ‘No to Marxism’ demonstrators swamped by counterprotestors, some black-clad and violent.”   Thirteen of the latter were arrested;  some of them literally beat the badly outnumbered right-wingers out of the park.   This is the same gang of leftist anarchists who routinely block traffic, break windows, deface signs and buildings, and disrupt events around here in protest of what they denounce as racism and fascism.   However, I noticed no fascist, Nazi, Confederate, KKK, or racist slogans among our right-wing visitors.  Rather, their chief spokesman had called  a “Patriot Prayer” meeting the day before in San Francisco,  claiming to advocate peace, brotherhood and free speech.  In the end,  he failed to attract many comrades and wisely cancelled his demo, seeing that he was badly outnumbered by counter-demonstrators, who staged a peaceful rally for tolerance and equality at San Francisco’s Crissy Field on Saturday. 

     But Sunday’s rally in Berkeley wasn’t peaceful, and that wasn’t the right-wingers’ fault. That’s not to say that most of the counterprotestors were violent.  On the contrary, one peaceful contingent staged a silent meditation for peace on the lawn.   Especially amusing were the ones who wore Groucho glasses and carried “Berkeley for Marxism” signs.  Yet the fact is that the biggest threat to peace and free speech around the Bay Area isn’t from the right, but the left.   Just another sad symptom of the political polarization that is tearing our country apart - much like the sixties, but without the Viet Nam war stirring the pot.


08/28/17 04:12 PM #3117    

Henry Cohen

Ann, what a great dog!!! Love the outfit.


08/28/17 06:52 PM #3118    

JoAnn Dyson (Dawson)

Ann--I hope Chief enjoyed the solar eclipse as much as you seemed to.  He certainly looked the part.  What a party set you created!  You look ready for the eclipse date in 7 years.


08/29/17 06:49 AM #3119    

 

Chuck Cole

While Wiedemann's may have been passable in its day, and even a so-called #1 beer in America, do you think you'd still think it a good beer today?  My memory is that it was much like Miller Light or Coors Light and wouldn't even be in the same league as today's microbrews.  Since most of what I consumed was 3.2, perhaps the high test was much better.  


08/29/17 09:13 PM #3120    

 

Paul Simons

I haven't tasted Weidemann beer since about 1962 so I can't say anything about it. For a long time I preferred Heineken for a light beer and Guiness for darker more full-bodied stuff. Then it seems to me that they changed both of them. At this point I don't mind Yuengling Lager from here in Pennsylvania although I differ with the politics of the owners. On a visit to Cincinnati maybe 6-8 years ago I tried Burger and hated it. I hardly drink at all anymore. I do remember ads for Red Top and Wunderbrau. And of course Burma Shave, Mail Pouch Tobacco, Brylcream, Red Barn hamburgers, and the Toddle House. I have to say that their hamburgers were pretty good. The Burger Beer Baseball Network!! That was then and this is now.


08/29/17 10:25 PM #3121    

 

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

I have just posted a submission by Judy Frakenberger's widower on Judy's In Memory page.


08/31/17 10:48 PM #3122    

 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Years ago at my office, we had a security guard who looked exactly like Barney Fife, thin, stooped shoulders and wearing his hat on the back of his head. His name was Mr. Wiedemann, but everyone called him "Hudy". Only the people who grew up in Cincinnati appreciated the humor of his nickname!smiley


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