I watched a meteor storm and all I got was a stiff neck

There was a chance the 2022 Tau Herculids meteor shower would be a storm.  I’d love to see a meteor storm, I mean, if I had a time machine, I would repeatedly go watch The Great Leonids Meteor Storm of 1833.  So I was cautiously hopeful I’d finally see one.

I went out just after midnight, and went to stand beside a shed to block a neighbor’s light.  The sky was about half hazy, so I was feeling worried.  But I was only there for a minute or so when I saw a short, but bright one.  I walked around for a bit trying to find a good spot and seeing a few.  The dog had come out with me, so I put him back in and grabbed a chair. 

I was outside for about eighty minutes, and in that time I saw 33 meteors.  About half were dim little blips, but the rest lasted for about a second and were fairly bright.  I did see three in about a minute.  Of course, it was a long, bright one at the top of my field of view, another long, bright one at the bottom of my field of view, and a dim little blip right where I was looking.  And then I’d wait about five minutes to see the next.

At the end, my neck was sore, I was getting a bit cold, and it was past the predicted time of a storm, so I told myself I’d wait until the next one.  Three or four minutes later, #32 was a dim little blip.  I can’t end like that, I thought.  So I waited for about five minutes without seeing any more.  It got to the point where I started counting down from 100, and if I got to 0 I’d go in.  But I only got to 88 when a nice, long, bright one became #33.

Also while I was out, I saw three unrelated meteors.  One went in the opposite direction, and the other two were at almost 90 degrees to other meteors in that part of the sky.  I also saw one satellite, about twenty planes, and who knows how many goddamned fireflies.

Random Story – Three quick stories.

These are just odd little stories from my life.

When I got my learner’s permit thirty years ago, there was a deal where if you drove for so many hours with an instructor from school, your parents would get a discount on their insurance.  I don’t know what setup they have nowadays.  Anyway, one day while I was driving with the instructor, I was going down this road with houses on one side and woods on the other.  I saw a cat jump out of the weeds right in front of me and before I could do anything, I heard a thump.  I think the instructor was making notes on a clipboard and didn’t say anything, so I kept going.

One time in college, I was walking somewhere with a girl.  I can’t remember if it was getting dark and I was just walking her back to her dorm from some event, or what.  But she talked for a while, and then said, “Tell me about yourself.” I thought for a moment, then replied, “I was born.” She laughed, but when I didn’t elaborate she started talking about something else.

This other time in college, I got a box of donut holes and a 1L Coke from the convenience store a few blocks from campus.  I can’t remember if my friends and I were playing poker, or watching movies, or what.  But I ate the entire box and drank the entire liter, and it made me feel queasy.  Just to be sure, a week or so later I repeated the experiment, and got the same results.