Old Fart In The Crowd

I had a somewhat interesting experience today.

I got a call from a friend at around 7:30 PM. It seems that the group was going to go bowling at 9 PM.

A junior member of the group is enlisting in the United States Coast Guard and has to report at the base at 5 AM today. As you read this he is already there. The exact time of his flight to boot camp seems to be classified. But anyway, it was a good excuse to go do something.

Someone picked bowling.

Anyhow there was a sign on the door stating that only those 18 years and older could be there. and that ID checks were strictly enforced.

My ID was not checked. The friend I was with was not checked either. So much for "ID checks are strictly enforced" huh?

Anyhow I would bet I was the oldest person in the place. There was jamming music going on and black lights and funky colored bowling pins and a full bar and shit. It was really nice.

I noticed I was one of the minority wearing the "over 21" wrist band.

In the group I was in there were three "old farts". I was the oldest fart. By a year or so. The rest were minors.

I define "minor" as anyone who can not legally consume alcohol. I am that old.

Anyhow it was kind of fun being the oldest and wisest person in the room. Think you have done it all??? Really now??? So what have you done? Because once for a Christmas gift I got 4 marijuana plants. REALLY good stuff too! The harvest was legendary.

Whats that??? You were never given cuttings as a Christmas gift??

Minor. Live longer. It will happen.

Another thing that was cool was I could out drink ANYONE in the room. The waiter could not bring me the beer fast enough. He had no idea who was in his section.

So I got to thinking. It is not so bad. So what if I was older than the manager on duty? I was having more fun.

And when the DJ played classic 80s hip hop - I could dig it. I knew the words. Nobody else did.

Minors seem to think history is boring.

So the three old farts in the room just had fun dancing and singing along to what I called "classical music". We contemplated what "oldies" radio would sound like in 30 years. And we drank up a storm.

The minors were in awe.

Youth really is wasted on the young.

Slow And Steady

There are two ways to get things done. Madman style and on a geologic time scale.

Madman style is what most humans are into. You have to get something done. Time is money! So hurry up! Work faster, so that you can do more work! YOU! You are not being productive enough! So do something. It does not matter what, just so long as you are doing SOMETHING. Even if you are making things worse that is something.

So buildings are constructed, on a schedule. Take too long and it costs more, as there are penalties and stuff. Roads are built or resurfaced, at what seems like a snail pace but in reality it is all done fairly quickly. Pretty much EVERYTHING done on normal human scales is done under the "madman style" pace.

On the geologic time scale, things take a very long time. Unbelievably long time scales. Think hundreds of millions of years. Billions of years. Or at the very shortest, tens of millions of years. But in these extended periods of slow and steady productivity, entire mountain ranges are created and eroded away. Continents drift about on a sea of magma, shifting position and among climate zones, as well as colliding and/or moving away from other continents.

On these time scales, even the mighty Mount Everest is doomed. One day it will stop getting taller. Then wind, rain, and ice will slowly chip it apart. One day it will be nothing more than a stump of what was once the highest peak in the world. Life forms on the planet at that time (if any) will walk / crawl / swim over it and not even notice anything special.

One day there will be more Hawaiian Islands. One day Antarctica will be a forest again. Right now there is an inconsequential pile of dirt that will one day be the next Mount Everest - maybe even taller. Yellowstone will erupt again. The sun will run out of fuel and swell in size - cooking the Earth and anything left on it. Yes, one day this rock will be vaporized and become part of a planetary nebula. The elements on the planet - the ones we have not already launched off into deep space - will join the other elements cast off by the dying sun and drift in space, maybe becoming part of a new solar system. The leftover core of the sun will slowly cool, becoming dimmer and dimmer - till it shines no more. It will just be a dense, dark, and cool lump of stuff floating in space. Forever falling around the center of the galaxy, but never hitting anything.

On a geologic time scale, humanity is irrelevant. Everything humans have done - everything humans will do - will be undone by geology and the cosmic clock. Nothing we do will amount to anything as far as the universe is concerned.

I think I work best on a geologic time scale. Of course in my lifetime I would get very little - if anything - done. But what little I did would be added to hundreds of millions of years of additional little bits of work - and one day the results would be plain to see.

All the wiring is done on the boat. I have done a little here, a little there. With extended break periods in between the very brief periods of productivity. But now it is done. And done right. Since I was never rushing to finish - there was no reason to take shortcuts. When I encountered a problem I could think about it. For days if need be. I got one thing done at a time.

But now the grunt work is over. The hard part is done. The wires are all run and connected to either a fused positive lead or a common ground.

All that is left is to install the LED red and green side lights. This is easy. And Ill get it done sometime. Sometime. Two bolts is all it takes for each light. And then connect them to power.

The power leads are already wired in and connected to the switch. Simple to finish. I could have done it today.......but why bother. I do not need the boat tomorrow or the next day or even next week. So why rush?

Yes, you can indeed get a lot done by working slowly. Productivity experts are all morons. And long after their bodies have been reduced to dust - Mount Everest will still be growing as the Indian Subcontinent continues to push into the Asian Plate. But these "experts" today would say that the mountain is unproductive, for in their short time on this planet they will look at the mountain and not see any change. No progress. But yet there is progress.


We would all live longer if everything did not have to be a big race to the finish line.

When In Doubt, Make Something Up

This is going to be a cool Friday. You see, I have to conduct a training class thing. In fact I get to instruct it. Not really a big deal.

Except I have never actually done the stuff I am supposed to train others to do before. Not that this is a big deal. I learned how to deal with these situations however.

1. Don't Panic (I have been watching the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy BBC TV series)
2. Make something up.
3. Whatever you make up, stick to it.

That is pretty much it. Make something up, and stick to it. And if you don't panic, you will come across like you know what the hell you are talking about. Since nobody else will know any better (otherwise they will not be there), you can pull it all off. Really. You can!

You just have to throw in a few "cover your ass" statements. Things like "This is the theory. When you get out on the water, you will receive further instruction". Or something like that. I will make up something that sounds plausible.

I am making this all sound worse than it is. Really I know the stuff. It is not terribly difficult. It is just the proper way to communicate over the radio. Now this may sound very easy. And it is. But there is a proper way to do it. There are proper pro-words and stuff. And procedures such as "call base every 30 minutes even if nothing is going on - which will be normal". Normal operations means just that - nothing is going on and therefore you have nothing to report. Well you report your location but that is it. And nothing going on is GOOD - because that means nothing horrible has happened. You are just hanging out in the bay, watching chicks in other boats. Some may be topless. But you do not report that stuff.

Anything other than "normal operations" means something is on fire, boats have crashed into something, or something else crazy is going on. So nothing is much better than something in this case. I guess. I have never actually been out in the water to notice things like that. I was just the other guy out there in a boat, running about trying not to hit anything. And looking for boobs. But not looking for problems.

And looking for / at boobs takes talent. You see, sometimes there are chicks on your boat who get upset for some reason if you are looking at boobs on other boats. They get all like "see anything you like" and when you say "yea, over there on that Contender with the twin engines" they get upset. Because I am never on the Contender with the twin engines.

This is why a good pair of sunglasses is so important. That way, nobody can tell what you are looking at. You can be looking at anything. Now you are supposed to be looking at where the boat is going. This is the best idea. But this is also the most boring idea. So you get a good pair of sunglasses that are polarized so there is no glare from the water, and so you can look at things other than where you are actually going. And since nobody can see your eyes, nobody can say "see anything over there you like" and get pissed at your answer - which is always wrong. Say "no, those things are disgusting" and what does that make you? I mean what does that make you besides gay? And of you say "yes" then that means you are a man pig and deserve to get slapped. So it it better to wear the sunglasses and then you can look at whatever you like without having to worry about hearing anything.

And this is how you crash into things. Like this guy did.

And when you see something like that, you have to call someone over the radio and say something. Something other than "nothing going on out here".

This pretty much concludes the training thing I have to do. Well there will be more of course, I am supposed to fill up 2 hours of time. But the chapter is not that long and really not that complicated. I think I can get through it all in an hour. And then comes the best part! The yacht club where the training takes place has a bar. And even if I am not technically a member, someone is. So the bar serves us. A group stays for a few hours every week and we all kick back and order a few pitchers. And food. And kick the bobo. Or shoot the shit. Whichever term you prefer. They both mean the same thing.

Days.

Welcome to Monday! Yea I know - a lot of people hate Monday. It is the start of yet another work week - unless you are retired, so rich you do not have to work, or have strange days off like Wednesday and Thursday. Having Wednesday and Thursday off sucks the most, because on Friday everyone is all like "YEA! Today is Friday" while you are like "Crap, it is Monday".

But before you think you are going to have a shitty day, consider the day this guy is about to have.

I have done shift work. It really is not that bad. And even if it is, what choice do you have? Not a whole lot except for quit and look for another job. And chances are it will involve shift work too - so you will not be any better off.

But who really wants the same days off as everyone else? I always thought it was kind of cool having weekdays off. The boat ramps were always clear! On the weekends they can be swamped.

Anyhow, the point is that I think people create their own shitty days. Yea every so often crap is going to happen that you have no control over that will make for a shitty day. But those days should not be the norm. In some way, we can create our own reality. Not totally, but in some capacity.

So what kind of day are you going to have today? Mine will be OK. Not great, not shitty - but OK. Unlike the guy digging the tunnel.