Happy Solstice!

Time to celebrate SUMMER! The longest day and shortest night of the year is tomorrow-- Summer Solstice. Sunrise will be at 6:11 AM and sunset at 9:07 PM. Solar "noon" (when the sun is highest in the sky) will be at 1:39 PM. A super-cool place to watch any of these three events is down on the Ohio River at Theodore M. Berry International Friendship Park, which has human-scale sundial.  

F-ing sweet!

Susie is goofing around on the sundial. 

The Plaza of the Sun features a sundial of 150-year-old English oak sculpted by Welsh artist David Nash, commission by the park board. The totems are positioned at points of solar equinox and solstice. The surrounding scored colored concrete is interspersed by radiating “sunbeams” of brick pavers.
Photo courtesy of EDAW, Alexandria, Va. Caption courtesy of LandscapeOnline.com ;  Editor: Stephen Kelly

When you arrive to the sundial for one of the major solar holidays, you will see how it is a common misconception when we say that the sun "rises in the east and sets in the west." During these long summer days, I actually wake up to the sun piercing through my north-facing windows. Yes, that's right-- the sun rises in the north-east and sets in the north-west to be more precise. Pay attention to it. It just goes to show how radically off our assumptions can be. 

Speaking of assumptions, I grew up assuming that I would contract an STD or end up pregnant if I swam in Oakley Pool, maintained by the Cincinnati Recreation Commission, just down the street from where I grew up and where I live now. I must have had a treacherous experience there as a five year old when my parents sent me there for latch-key, because I've never ever wanted to go back. I distinctly remember there being one boy who used to steal my lunch and splash water up my nose. So, being 90 degrees today and feeling ballsy, I decided to celebrate summer and overcome some childhood demons. So, tonight I bought a swim pass there and did a 3000 meter swim. 

Pam Webb led a neighborhood effort to save Oakley Pool last year. Thanks, Pam!

To conclude, I just wanted to throw in a cute small-town-Cincinnati twist to the story too. My wife and I actually met at that very pool when we were just five or six, and I distinctly remember Susie and her older sister showing me a tooth that Susie had lost one day when we were there. Then we didn't see each other for about 10 more years, until we met the summer before we both started high school. Then it got hot and heavy. 

 

Hubba hubba