Unspectacular Solar Eclipse, 2012

Dr Desert Flower wanted to go see a movie Sunday afternoon, after I got the pool filters blasted clean & reinstalled.  I told her that I wanted to stay home to see the solar eclipse that was supposed to happen between 5:45 and 6:45... so she reluctantly agreed.  Solar eclipses happen like clock work, every 18 years (and X hours and Y minutes and Z seconds..  but I am not an astronomer, so you'll have to look it up or leave it as a comment below.)  We tried to see if there was ANY visible eclipsing of the sun, using reflections from the windows, using digital cameras with various sensitive and in-sensitive settings...  and nothing worked.

When the sun got close to our neighbors' roofs we walked out to the park across the street, and still, there was nothing indicative of a true eclipse.   It was supposed to look like this (link).  But instead, all it looked like was this:

In another 18 years, when I am nearing retirement and maybe a grand father, I'll go out proactively and get those $5 polarized glasses made out of welding glass materials so I can look directly into the sun instead of looking for reflections.and just getting frustrated... except I'll have to be in South Africa or Southern Australia, according to the NASA map (link here) in November of 2030 (link).