In many ways, I wish I could have gone to see the total eclipse today, but it wasn’t going to happen. I thought about it for a long time as April 2024 approached to head to the area of total eclipse, but I knew it wouldn’t happen. It was originally scheduled to be a session day, and while many of the divisions are working from home, mine is more difficult as most of Data Services requires access to various internal-intranet services, the server, and specialized software. While some people have access to the VPN including myself, it’s not really fair to those who do not. I also haven’t been in the Menands office in a while, except for a brief period early Friday morning, so it’s important to be back and catching up on ordinary office business.

Plus, the eclipse unfortunately falls in early April which means there is still a lot of snow around in the higher elevation locations like the Adirondacks and even Central New York. Places like Charles Baker State Forest or the East Branch of the Scanadaga River while usually great places to camp, aren’t actually in the path of the total eclipse. I did originally consider them as options, but it would have still required me to drive either farther north — to a minimum of Indian Lake village in Adirondacks or Cortland County to the east. And I would have hit traffic.

It would have been great if the eclipse was just a bit farther east, the weather a bit nicer, especially if it had occurred during the summer month when there was no session and I could have spent the whole weekend away from town. But that wasn’t to be.

So instead, I’m going to watch the partial eclipse — 97 percent eclipse — from the office parking lot or second floor lobby, looking out at the eclipse over Interstate 90 through my eclipse glasses. Not that it makes that much of a difference where you are when looking through eclipse glasses, as everything but the sun will look completely black. But so it is.

It still is a much bigger eclipse then I’ve seen before — the one I saw in Erie Penna at the beaches of Lake Erie at Presque Isle in 2017 was only about 78 percent. The other one one I witnessed at 5:30 in the morning after working until 3 AM on a late-night legislative session in June 2021 at Five Rivers Environmental Education Center was only like 30 or 40 percent. So this will still be a far larger eclipse then some of the other ones I’ve seen.