{"id":939,"date":"2017-03-20T13:48:43","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T13:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=939"},"modified":"2017-03-20T14:08:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T14:08:13","slug":"brooms-and-eggs-and-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=939","title":{"rendered":"Brooms and Eggs and Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is one of my favorite days \u2014 spring (astronomically speaking) arrived \u2014 at 6:38 a.m. EDT to exact. Even though meteorological spring begins on March 1 (and continues through May 31) today is the real deal. And boy am I ready for it\u2026 someone (sorry I don\u2019t know who) expressed my feelings exactly when they wrote<\/p>\n

I hate winter in the springtime
\nI hate winter in the fall
\nI hate winter in the summer, but
\nI hate winter in the winter most of all.<\/p>\n

But anyhow, back to today \u2014 and the Vernal Equinox. At the Vernal Equinox, the sun crosses the celestial equator on its way north along the ecliptic. What this means is that all over the world, days and nights are (approximately) equal. The name equinox comes from Latin words that mean \u201cequal night\u201d \u2014 aequus (equal) and nox (night.)<\/p>\n

On the equinox, earth\u2019s two hemispheres are receiving the sun\u2019s rays just about equally because the tilt of the earth is zero relative to the sun, so the earth\u2019s axis doesn\u2019t point toward or away from the sun.<\/p>\n

Some people believe that you can stand a raw egg on its end on the equinox. I remember trying this a number of years ago \u2014 I\u2019m not sure but I think it was possible, but maybe it would be possible other times, too. Maybe I\u2019ll try it again this year\u2026 or maybe not.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also heard that during the equinox brooms will stand by themselves \u2014 straight up. I\u2019ve never tried it, but I plan to later today\u2026 if it does work, I can assure you I\u2019ll report on it here \u2014 maybe even with pictures.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I\u2019m skeptical about both brooms and eggs\u2026 I think they\u2019re both a lot like people \u2014 unbalanced. Happy Vernal Equinox!!
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n

UPDATE:
\n\"\"<\/a>I tried the broom experiment… and it worked!
\nI’m not sure it wouldn’t work any other time, so I’ll wait a few weeks and try it again….
\nThe picture at right was taken after the broom had been “standing” for about twenty minutes.
\nAmazing, or creepy or spooky or……<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is one of my favorite days \u2014 spring (astronomically speaking) arrived \u2014 at 6:38 a.m. EDT to exact. Even though meteorological spring begins on March 1 (and continues through May 31) today is the real deal. And boy am … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":942,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}