Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward - Trying to live a life out of the comfort zone

First thing I want to say in this post is where I am writing it from. There are two interesting aspects about this. One is that after 20 years of using PC, today is the day when I officially switched to a Mac. Rumor has it that “once you go Mac, you never come back.” We’ll see what happens with me.

Another interesting aspect about this post is that I’m writing it up in the air, about 33,000 feet from the ground, in an airplane with Wi-Fi while en route to San Francisco for SU after a brief family visit in Buenos Aires.

This visit had a bittersweet flavor: It allowed me to be closer to a wonderful natural phenomenon but, at the same time, it meant that I unexpectedly missed at Singularity University what could have possible been a unique moment, fulfilling a dream of a lifetime.

Let’s get started with the bright side… Yesterday, as I was expecting for over a year, we had a total solar eclipse in Argentina. This is an extremely rare event. Next total solar eclipse in South America will take place in 9 years (and just because we were lucky this time!). Yesterday’s phenomenon could only be seen at the southernmost regions of our country, ideally in Calafate. Originally, my plan was going over, but I had the opportunity of going to Singularity University and I left this aside. That’s why last night I asked those of my Twitter followers who had the chance of observing it or taking pictures to share their experiences. Here they are:

Flor Aikawa, from Calafate, tweeted these two pictures, taken with only one-minute difference. By the end of the eclipse, the “artificial night” gave place to a usual sunset. We can have more from Calafate with these great pictures sent by Matias Natiello and published by Ahora Calafate.

Nestor Galina, from Comodoro Rivadavia, sent this picture of the partial solar eclipse.

Some of the best shots were tweeted by Daniel Fischer, a German citizen who travelled especially to Argentina to witness this. He said: “Total solar eclipse just before sunset in Patagonia, Argentina a giant success: perfect skies, overwhelming show. 11 early pictures follow!” The sequence of 11 pictures is really good. I am sure he will soon upload them to his blog with higher definition in a couple of hours. I suggest you open them, you can’t appreciate them in thumbnails.

Luiz Guzman, @luigikeynes on Twitter, sent me his perspective of the eclipse (partial) from Salta, in an exclusive coverage for R&R! : “The city of Salta received Sunday afternoon with a great weather for this time of the year. Spring temperature and clear skies. Since I like astronomy, I have a small telescope. Although I didn’t have time to prepare it to use the projection method -and thus have a better detail of the eclipse-, I used a rudimentary method: observing through an old X-ray. I could admire how the moon let the sun kiss her briefly. The bottom of the sun started to get covered at 5.20 p.m.. By 5.40, 10% was already blacked out. Approximately 5.50 was the highest point, with no more than 15% of the sun blocked by the moon. It looked like a shouting Pacman. Finally, at 6.20, while the sun started to hide behind the Andean foothills, the moonlight shadow let the sun alone once again. This magnificent act of nature was over, and night was beginning to fall.”

Finally, here’s an image gallery from Easter Island, the best place to enjoy this.

To close this post, I will tell you why I said I missed a really unique moment last week. Partly thanks to the support many of you gave me in the comments of this post, I decided to focus my work at Singularity University on Space Exploration. Last Tuesday, the person in charge of this area at SU asked us if there was any speaker we would like to have as guest in particular, so they could try to bring them in the upcoming weeks. I approached him and told him one of my dreams was to meet and listen to someone who had walked on the moon.

On Thursday, I left for the airport in the morning to spend the weekend with my familiy in Buenos Aires. When arriving to SFO, I checked my e-mail and I read: “Urgent notice! Today, lunch and meeting with Buzz Aldrin!”. I swear to you I felt more frustrated than when Argentina lost against Germany! That meeting I asked for, thinking it would be almost impossible, became true in two days! Just when I had to travel…

So now I will have to wait for the next eclipse (here is the NASA chart with all the solar eclipses for the decade) and for my next chance to talk with an astronaut who travelled to the moon (if that ever happens again!).

I must leave you for now, in preparation for our landing.

Picture: Daniel Fischer

Translated by: Palindromic