Things have been going about the same as ever here. I'm taking only one class this semester, because taking two as I did last semester while working full time was difficult to handle. But I'm finding this class, on Computational Fluid Dynamics, quite interesting. Here is the report I created for the first assignment: CFD Report 1 (362 KB PDF). Not everything quite worked as planned, but it was fun.
It was unfortunately raining here in the Inland Empire (LA's AshtrayTM), so I had to drive out of the valley (the mountains trap the clouds here) to see the eclipse. So I drove out into the desert aways, where it was very dark, and I could see more stars than I've ever seen before. And without any lights for comparison, I at first thought the umbra was the penumbra, and the penumbra was the full sunlight. Until the moon started emerging further. I picked up a tripod for my camera an hour or so before heading up because I knew I would need long exposures and therefore a steady camera, but unfortunately it was pretty windy, so most of my pictures came out a bit blurry. But here are a few of the better ones. I figured out how to stabilize the tripod a bit more after awhile, so these pictures are all as the moon began to emerge.
