On Things That I Did / Happened To Me Last Week

So I had been thinking a lot last week about what to write in this here blog again, and I came up with a few ideas, but somehow never found the time to type it in. Here's the roundup.

Time
I had a birthday this week, Thursday to be precise, and it got me thinking about time. Well not time really, but Time. OK, Time is a magazine (and it's not Outside or Backpacker so I don't read it), so let's call it time then. In short, I'm talking about the concept of time, that is, the idea that physical life is metered out in lineal chunks during which events and actions (and all sorts of other things) occur. (I was having trouble coming up with a good definition of time there without being circular. My definition still assumes you know what I'm talking about since it uses words like "lineal" - time has a progression and "during" - durations are made of time slices. I just looked it up in the dictionary and it doesn't do much better than I.) So what I'm curious about is how do we know time exists, and what can we prove about the nature of it? I'm not sure either of those questions are able to be answered (certainly not by me). [Boy I'm using a lot of parentheses here - thought I'd switch it up with brackets there.] The point is, somehow we just know time is. It's not a theory we can test like gravity (yes, gravity is a theory). That brings up another point; the assumption of time is implicit in so many of the physical theories we attempt to study. Strange isn't it? What's to say that time doesn't speed up and slow down and perhaps the physical laws with it? Anyway, what got me thinking about time, was my birthday, and I know a couple people who surely understood time better than I do are Dorothy and Patty Tuttle. Every year they somehow arranged for birthday cards to arrive on exactly the right date, and consider that they did this at every slice of geography which I have lived. How did they do that? Perhaps there is a secret manual handed down with all these answers one you become an Aunt or a Grandma. I guess I'll always be in the dark on this one. We miss you Patty and Grandma. :)

Birthday
So, yeah, like I said I had another birthday, and actually, this one went pretty much just as I'd hoped, wellllll, apart from that meeting I had on Thursday afternoon. Jeff was kind enough to buy us all a beer after work at Naja's. Lucky for Jeff and I, we got there first and scored the last two pints of Stone's black IPA "Self-Righteous." Sorry, Erik. It was nice of all who were able to make it. I may have got Jeff in a little trouble as we kind of lost track of time philosophizing (on one topic of which I will get to soon). Sorry, Jeff. Saturday, Gwen came over and we had a late lunch at the new Father's Office location in L.A. proper. The new location is HUGE and I had a fantastic time. With an Office Burger and a Maredsous 8, I was euphoric as soon as we sat down. I think I went on and on about this (I'm sure Gwen can confirm), but that was really about one of the best meals I have had in a while. Terrific. Afterwards, we watched a couple movies, which leads me to...

Netflix
Yep, Jeff finally convinced me to join Netflix as we examined the workings of Man at Naja's. My biggest reservation is that I really like supporting my local video store guy. I don't get to the farmer's markets too much, but I figure I could at least "shop local" for my video rentals. Honestly, the guy has a really good selection and is reasonably priced. I think I will still go there for new releases and the like, but Netflix has a lot of old movies, plus instant streaming on a lot of titles, so I went for it.

Mustache
I reduced my facial hair down to a mustache last weekend before I went camping (more to follow in another post) last weekend, and this morning I I finally put you all, er... it out of its misery. It was kind of fun for a while. Here's me now, clean shaven as I blog, with a handy assist from one Gorillapod - thanks, Mike and Paul's!

Thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes this week!



UPDATE: One More Thing
I started reading Catch-22 (for book club). I mentioned this to my buddy Nathan a couple of weeks ago when it was decided that would be what we would read next. Nathan said it was his favorite book (I think), but after considering the subject matter more thoroughly, he wondered what that being his favorite book might say about him. Well, it's fairly clear to me now why Nathan likes the book. I'm about 90 pages in and the narrator is still introducing a bunch of "crazy" bomber officers from WWII. They all talk in paradoxes and take words at their most exact - and exasperating - meaning. Every conversation I have ever had with Nathan is much like this.