Ticking Fast!

 

 

 

This isn't a lesson in cosmological time but unfortunately for you, you're going to get one to prove another point. Carl Sagan, in order so you could grasps the past 13.9 BILIION years of time, compressed it all down to just one year. It's a a lot easier to apprehend that than anything in the billions. 

 

 

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It kind of jolts you when you realize our Earth formed in September. It feels kind of late but that's when it happened compared to the rest of the universe's births. Even more startling, compared to the rest of time, is that the first real humans formed on December 31, 11:52PM on the last day of the year. Just 8 minutes ago..if today was New Years eve and you're seeing the ball drop now.

I wondered, could I apply this to my own life? Show my own life compressed on a one year calendar? You bet you can if you sit there and figure the damn formula out. The one I came up with may be wrong and off. I know it's not entirely accurate down to the exact day but it's enough to have startled me. I have to make one supposition though, when was I going to kick the bucket? I used a site, “Living to 100” to get a “range” of when I may pop the twig. Due to the males in my family kicking it wayyy before their time and I have those genetics, I probably ain't long for this world as well. Then again, I could be wrong an beat the genetic averages of this family but in order for the calculation to work, I need a life span in years.

According to Living to 100...which I won't and the calculation pegged me to quit at 74.

So, I'm 58 and a half now, what day of what month do I live at?

I start with my age, 58.5 x 365 = 21,353 days. Multiply that by .0138 (my personal dead factor) and that gives me 294.7. Divide that by the average number of days in a month (30) and I get 9.82.

That's 9.82 months. Nine months (September) plus .82 of the next one. That comes out to about October 25^th. Holy Mother of God. I'm in late October now! Two months left, abouts, if I actually hit it at 74 on December 31^st.

If things hold true and I float away at 74, my life on a calendar looks like this:

I started kindergarten at 5 on January 29^th.

First Communion? February 10^th at 8.

At 13, I saw the first Star Wars movie on March 8^th. That's how old that flick is!

Add to that is when I saw Apocalypse Now (1979), which fell on March 19^th. Another oldie. 

March 18th was my first concert seen, Frank Zappa.  

I got my license at 16. Which fell on March 24^th.

A certain fun something happened at 17 and a half, that was March 29^th.

High School graduation? April 3^rd.

College graduation? April 27^th (I did the FIVE year plan. It would've been April 22^nd had a relative not going completely crazy requiring me to play nurse for a good time).

Best concert I saw?  Pink Floyd, April 29th of my calendar. The Delicate Thunder tour.

I then noticed many of the great fun things I had done, all the major milestones I reached in my life, happen in my youth. Why did I notice that, because the rest of the calendar gets more sparse as I and it age. I was then a working schlepp and the fun moments were more and more spaced out. Also, I cannot recall every damn day I worked because...why would I? Why would anyone? What possible mileposts can be found with, “Sigh...another Monday again” can I peg on my calendar and why would they stick out?

My Mom died in 1996, or June 11^th. My brother in 2003 or July 21^st. That also be the time I had a nice summer fling with Roberta, who was far out of my league monetary-wise.

My dalliance with Lori of Cheyenne Wyoming? July 2^nd.

I got my first dog, a maniacal German Shepherd in 2005 which was July 26th.

I had a great free, state paid for summer vacation in 2012 which fell on abouts September 4^th.

I hit 50 on September 12^th

The last technical real mountain I climbed, Willard (which is a kid's hike vs. Mt Washington), was on or abouts October 12^th.

Covid hits the US solidly..(St Pats Day in 2020) about October 14 ish,

Today, I'm in late October...Wow.

All of this just underscores the fact I better get that bucket list checked off faster than I thought. All those days I have left ain't gonna be with a great, agile and working body come late December. Or...I may get hit by a bus tomorrow...either way, time to regain some of that fun I knew in my youth. It's time to cue that old saying they have about older men who try to grasp vitality and youth one more time, it's usually said after they make a huge mistake and create a fine mess of their lives...”You foolish old man! What were you thinking?!!”

 

No Brakes

 

Click Pic to Play!

In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath
Runs the all-time loser
Headlong to his death

Oh, he feels the piston scraping
Steam breaking on his brow
Old Charlie stole the handle
And the train it won't stop
Oh no way to slow down

 

 

I guy I know who is much younger than I, in his 20's, made a great comment on mate selection.

“Does this train have brakes that work?” Translation: “Can this girl stop herself from careening towards destruction?” I thought the saying novel, comical and right. This doesn't mean guys are immune from living lives that bounce from wall to wall, but H. and I were just talking as guys do and the subject was women.

We both agreed that some excitement is needed, some unpredictability, but not the 'Cops at 3AM in the morning arresting your girlfriend because she's setting fire to your car' kind of adventure. But..more of a positive kind of fun, think Six Flags in a way. The price for that kind of person, if her brakes DO work on her train, are probably some crashes, but they're not fatal to life or the relationship.

Being much older my advice is sometimes warranted but certain areas I steer clear from advising anyone about due to the fact I sucked at certain decisions I made. One area was my choice in women. I tended to find the kind who would stand on the roof of her Acela train, arms waving in air...and had questionable brakes. Luckily for me, I never crashed too hard but it was enough to be painful at times but no broken bones nor massive payouts in any divorce case.

Except one time where my desire for “fun” over rode my usual chicken-shit-scared of any variable I can't control in life. (Sheesh, at this age you'd think I'd ease up on it, but I was warned that the older you get, the more cautious you get about everything!) Anyways, I tossed my reconnoitering of situations, my cost/benefit analyses when it came to some accessible pretty thing who seemed to promise fun I never saw before.

I've written about her before, Lori, the one who lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She had grown up in the Attleboro's and by chance, I found her in a chatroom on the internet. She was married, bored to death and she too liked speed and thrills and other boisterous activities. She flew back to meet up and we have our “fun.” Well, that didn't last long because looking back on it, she wanted her husband to find out. Whatever the reason why I don't know but when you leave travel plans, addresses and the such around the house for him to trip across easily, you're really not trying to hide anything, are you?

It was my one and only time an irate, seriously pissed off husband who called my house and spoke to me in the most sarcastic tone ever. Well, I can understand why. I was lucky enough to have 2,000 miles between us and he wasn't about to jump in any car, rail or plane to come here to pull my skin off bit by bit. Last I heard, and this was years ago, they divorced and she found another guy and living in Denver, CO now. I wonder if he notices her train brakes are useless?

Lori, was Queen #1 'No brakes at all on her train' kinda girl I knew. I'm not a big fan of the Spooky House at the fairgrounds. Being scared to make me jump out of my skin ain't my idea of fun. I have come within 50 feet of a lightning strike once, fallen off a bridge 40 feet down into a scummy algae ridden river at 13. I have lost my grip on a branch and tumbled far to many yards down a slope of rocks and to be stopped, by a larger boulder in the way of my descent. None of those times have I reminisced on as fun. Fright does not do it for me. They're war stories to tell is all.  Lori's kind of fun was a bit over the limit when it included her hubby in the end. 

I did have a time with an exact opposite of the female kind too. Karen, who was the most stable, normal, predictable and boring women I was with. The brakes on her train were inspected daily, upgraded yearly and her train never went faster than 30mph. It made sense, she was a parent of two girls who did quite well with that stability. They did excellent in school and were involved in many other social activities that promised a normal upbringing. I have to give Karen that. She was a good Mom who was home...”there” and was going to be there for a long time for her girls. There were no drugs, booze or low self esteem bulimia to contend with when it came to her life as a parent.

However, like I said already, Karen was a crushing bore a lot of the time. I'd come up with some adventures and she'd back off or..”wanted to think about it.” One was to take her and the girls to Ausable Chasm in in the Adirondacks, a miniature Grand Canyon. It had a maintained trail with guides and Park Rangers and silly safe family friendly areas and hotels. I made the mistake of telling her there was one rope bridge we'd have to cross over a part of the Ausable river that was all whitewater. Well, that killed that idea in her head. I think the brakes on her train may have had frozen calipers that always gripped and slowed the entire train down no matter what. 

 

 Ain't that bad...I did it once. The walk along the cliffs is scarier. 

I finally told H, as we talked, that “don't go by my life...it's way different than what you experienced.” IE: Don't go by my example of looking for the rides that you'd find at questionable fairs that pop up in large Walmart parking lots....or those ill maintained chlorine tanker trains in the Mid West that like to hop the track.

“You've had some years of that kind of girl...who couldn't slow her own train down...don't go looking for another” was all I could say.

Now had he asked me about oil futures, why American refineries are mainly heavy crude distillers of Canadian and Venezuelan slop oil and not the nice light sweet crude the USA itself is awash with...I'd be happy to chat him up. That I am very stable and rational about and take so few chances with . By the way, it's true, the USA pumps out incredible amounts of light sweet crude till we're up to our ears with it.  But, there are many refineries in Texas and Louisiana that are built just to handle heavy sludge oil.  The private oil companies are too scared to invest in refineries that can crack down light sweet crude. Why? One day the price of oil will drop and they'll be standing there with high cost refineries that will take forever to pay back on.