Sands and Stars

It's true: I'm getting excited because my head is in the stars. Well . . . in this case, it's focused on just one star: our Sun. Because I know of the advantages of early preparation, I've been busy organizing things for two upcoming eclipses of the Sun. Make no mistake: my stellar wife Amy has been doing more than her share. End of the total solar eclipse in 2017, Nashville. Photo by Mike Manolas. Solar eclipses are fabulous, fleeting events! They're fairly rare, but I suspect what many people might like most is they don't have to stay up late at night to see them. First up, we have an annular eclipse of the Sun on Oct.14 this year (BTW, annular does NOT mean once a year). Here along the Gulf Coast of Florida, about 60 percent of the Sun will be covered when the Moon moves in front of our local star. Of course, we will have proper eye protection, because as everyone knows -- well, perhaps with the exception of a former, uh, president -- people NEVER should look

  Who said work can't be fun? At times during my four-decade career at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I had an outright ball – especially when I got to write on top of my various other duties. That's me, Panther Prowl co-editor, Riverside High School, 1970. My real start? Maybe. For sure, there were plenty of times for me that fun and happiness seemed distant, unreachable. A couple of sports editors, for example, come to mind – they seemed to live to derive fun from unloading unreasonable expectations. But the days to a much-anticipated big event are drawing closer. I'm looking forward to a gathering this month of fellow souls at the next Post-Gazette Sports Alumni every-other-month dinner. I've seen a list of those who plan to attend, and to be honest, I'm anxious to see every one of them. Good people. During my time in the sports department, say from about 1976 to 1993, I was not a columnist, per se, nor was I one of the paper's all-star reporters. I put in my t