Daily Inspiration: Eclipse 2024 – “Make more of the moments that matter!”

“Make more of the moments that matter!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

This was a selfie I took yesterday at the airport in Sherbrooke, Quebec, yesterday, just moments after the conclusion of the full totality portion of the 2024 eclipse. To say that I was a bit overwhelmed by the experience would be an understatement – as would seem to be the case with everyone there, and all of the millions who made their way to the path.

I tried to immerse myself within the moment, rather than spending a lot of time trying to film and record the event, having read and listened to a few reports from various eclipse veterans. But my good friend and pilot of our adventure, Osama Arafat, did manage to catch the moment in all its glory.

I won’t try to wax poetic about what I witnessed and the beauty of the moment, other than to say it far exceeded all of my expectations. I am so thrilled to have put in the effort and drawn upon the information resources I had to end up at a tiny little airport in Southern Quebec, traveling there in a private plane.

My original plan was to head down to Fort Erie to visit a close friend; however, a health issue that emerged for him last week put this out of the line of action. Not only that, but the weather forecast for the region started to look pretty dismal.

For days, I’d been relying on every powerful cloud prediction model available, obsessing over the potential accuracy of a difficult weather forecast. I ended up relying on a fantastic site that a Ph.D. in meteorological science had put together that gave detailed, up-to-date forecasts for every city along the path.

I began to look at options – it was becoming evident that Southern Ontario might not be the best-case scenario. The weather models told me, “Go east, young man!” So I began working on options. I bought a train ticket to Kingston, Ontario, and a flight to Fredericton, New Brunswick, the weather forecast carefully.

And then, on Saturday, I sent a text to my good friend Osama – we go back some 30 years when I wrote his company – an Internet service provider – into the 2nd edition of our Canadian Internet Handbook, and a year later, did a custom ‘mini-book;’ with him that included a floppy disk (!) that people could use to sign up online. Osama went on to build a cloud server company after that project and did very, very well. He also took up flying as a side project and hobby, flying charters, personal trips, and medevacs. He told me he had no real plans, but that I wanted to go somewhere to see it, and he’d be pleased to get me there.

I swung into action – it was back to the weather maps, and Sherbrooke, Quebec, kept staring at me with blinking lights, with all the models almost giving a guarantee of clear skies in this region in Southern Quebec.

And away we went on his TBM-850 – the fastest, highest-altitude single-engine turboprop in production – on a fast, one-hour flight at 28,000 feet, landing at this small, usually sleepy regional airport.

And it was wild, bustling with activity, as it seemed a lot of private pilots came to the same weather conclusion that I had! There were dozens and dozens of arrivals of private aircraft of every size, shape, and form – we only managed to get in by the seat of our pants, getting a tarmac reservation at the last moment before it filled up. There were now 4 of us involved in this adventure, with another buddy of Osama’s flying in from Toronto on his helicopter with 5 others – because he couldn’t get ramp space for his jet!

The scene was indescribable – with perhaps one of my favorite moments when this jet came in from New York City, a couple of families tumbled out – and proceeded to set up an eclipse picnic right at the edge of the tarmac.

And with all that – what a day, what a moment, and what an experience.

As they say, it’s one that I will never forget – and I am so glad that I put in the effort, with the help of my good friend, to make a moment that matters, matter more!