You won't have to fly your Lear Jet to Nova Scotia to see a total eclipse of the sun

I suppose I could try to give this a business spin -- "Utah, Nevada, expect tourism $ from May eclipse" -- but on Sunday afternoon I'd rather just write about something that fascinates me.

If you're thinking about a road trip to Las Vegas, Mesquite, St. George or even Reno, mid-May might be a good time. On May 20, Nevada and southern Utah are going to experience an annular solar eclipse. They don’t happen very often, and when they do they’re usually over the ocean or someplace far from home.

You undoubtedly know that a solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes between the Sun and the Earth and casts a shadow. An annular eclipse is when the moon is farther away from the Earth and therefore smaller in the sky and a ring of light from the sun shines on the outside.

Thanks to Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, eclipses are easy to predict, so astronomers have known for years this has been coming. Nevada and Utah are on the tail end, which means the sun will be low in the sky when the moon creeps in front of it. Given the locale -- Zion National Park, anyone? -- there could be some epic sunset pictures. If you've got people in Reno or northern California, the eclipse will be in view as well. Near Reno, the eclipse will be in its full glory along southern shore of Pyramid Lake.

After this one, the next time a solar eclipse occurs in North America will be Aug. 21, 2017. And guess what? The path will run right over central and eastern Idaho. Looking at the map, I've come to the conclusion that either Redfish Lake or Menan Butte will be the best places to see it. Mark your calendars. You read it first here.

With an annular eclipse, there's a burning ring of fire around the Moon.

Operation Juicy Burger has begun

Looking at the stats for BizMojo Idaho this past week, I'm kind of curious that the leading pageview is an item I put up Dec. 9, Carl's Jr. plans to open in Idaho Falls by Dec. 31.

Mmm ... look at that juicy burger!

Surely this is old news, yet 97 people looked at that post in the past seven days. Mystifying? Perhaps, if you don't drill down. But looking at the search information, we found that "Carl's Jr." and "juicy burger" were the leading keywords driving traffic to the blog from Google.

It's a Google world. I'm watching AdSense every day, and I'm happy to report that we're inching closer to the $100 threshold that will prompt the Google Gods to send a check directly to the BizMojo Idaho bank account.

I'd be the last person to encourage anyone to engage in an orgy of indiscriminate ad-clicking to get us there faster. But if you should you decide to do it of your own free will, there might be a juicy burger in it for you. Think about it.

Odds and ends from the Idaho Falls development front

It's pretty quiet on the building front, but there are signs that things could be on the uptick, said Brad Cramer of the Idaho Falls Planning Department.

The city planning and zoning commission and City Council  have approved a plat for a 16-lot subdivision called Bristol Heights, located south of Sunnyside Road, on land belonging to Lee Gagner. "We haven't seen a plat that size for years," Cramer said.
Likewise, the City Council on Thursday night approved 22 townhomes at John Adams and St. Clair. "I'm not sure yet if it means a lot," Cramer said. "There must be a decent market for those townhome type properties."

On the commercial front, Cramer echoed what Pentad Properties' Brent Wilson said last week, that everything seems to be on hold as developers wait to see what sort of action might be coming from Costco, which has been eyeballing ground in the Idaho Falls-Ammon area.

March opening planned for indoor trampoline park

Trampoline enthusiasts will soon have a new place to jump yearround in the Idaho Falls area. Eyeballing a March opening, iJump Idaho aims to be southeast Idaho's first indoor trampoline park. The address is 2670 E. 14 North, off Hitt Road, near Majestic Auto Body.   The business is currently taking applications, and looking for people college-age or older who are trustworthy, honest and fun. Here is a link to the online application form: http://fs9.formsite.com/ijump/form2/index.html.   In addition to wall-to-wall trampolines, the complex will also include a dodge ball court, open jump area, a three-trampoline foam pit and a separate area for younger-aged children.   We will have a more detailed report as the date draws nearer. Here is iJump Idaho's Facebook listing: http://www.facebook.com/ijumpidaho

INL engineer named to '40 Under 40' list

Jorge Navarro, 31, of the Idaho National Laboratory, has been named one of the "40 Under 40" by Hispanic Engineer Information and Technology magazine.

Navarro was born in Mexico. After high school he worked as a computer data capture analyst then enrolled in the University of Guanajuato mining engineering school. After switching his major to chemical engineering, he transferred to the University of Utah, where he received his bachelor's degree. He is now pursuing a Ph.D in the nuclear engineering graduate program.

He came to the INL in 2008 as a space nuclear research summer fellow. He has since worked on upgrading methods and codes for the Advanced Test Reactor, developing non-destructive gamma spectroscopy techniques to support the fuel management process.

In 2009, he became a United States citizen.