Friday, April 08, 2005

1 ambulance ride, 2 plane trips, 1 birthday party, climbing, running, 1 broken computer, 1 random cosmic connection, and what you put in your head

1 ambulance ride, 2 plane trips, 1 birthday party, climbing, running, 1 broken computer, 1 random cosmic connection, and what you put in your head. Sounds like a week in the life of a member of some lame hair metal band of the late 80's, but it was my week this past week and I don't even like hair metal.

The ambulance ride was my sister's and the details of that are not mine to give. All I can say is that there are few things more heart stopping than a call from your Mom saying, "They've taken your sister to the hospital".

The plane ride came the next day. I was on my way to my Niece's first birthday party. Unfortunately she's on the other end of a 4 hour plane ride. After a harrowing day dealing with my sister, my mother and I drug ourselves to the airport. Neither of us had eaten, so after checking in we sat down in a restaurant for something to eat. We sat there long enough that we nearly missed our flight.

The next day we had my Niece's birthday party. Happy first birthday Abby. This event was rife with all of the standard first birthday stuff. Lots of little kids. Lots of noise. Lots of cake everywhere. The most dear thing of the day happened while my Brother explained that Abby's babysitter's boys (Hey everybody) called Abby, Gabigale. Upon hearing that, Abby shouted "GABIGALE". Abby's just to the point where she's starting to babble, but that word came out in the clearest voice possible. It was about a cute as anything I could imagine. The party broke up and all the little munchkins went home. After that we just sat around shooting the breeze. It seems as if the standard thing for my family to eat while in Portland is some sort of Asian food. What's up with that?

Plane trip back home the next morning.

Next comes rock climbing. This is something that I've wanted to do for a while now. A co-worker of mine at one point in time suggested a group activity that involved a day of rented shoes (bowling, skating, rock climbing, skiing etc). She also mentioned at the same time that she's been thinking about going rock climbing. At that point I suggested a day of waivers of liability instead of a day of rented shoes. You know, rock climbing, sky diving, go carts, barefoot flaming glass bottle juggling lessons. All the standard stuff. I'm not sure if either "days of" activities will ever get off the ground, but we both agreed that we'd like to try rock climbing. Well Wednesday was the day of destiny. I got to try rock climbing for the first time. I have to say that I'm hooked. It was a blast. For $25 you get an hour of safety instruction and training. Then they let you loose on the walls. I guess the nickname Monkeyboy might be appropriate, or at least I may someday earn it. I think I did pretty well. I didn't climb any of the hard stuff, and I certainly know I've got a lot to learn, but I even climbed a couple of the walls that had overhangs. It was pretty tough work. All in all we had some fun, and I think I'd like to go again. I will say that I now know that I'm lacking a lot of upper body strength. I nearly had to lay down in the shower the next day to wash my hair. It was a struggle to get my arms up over my waist, let alone up to my head.

The next day I figured I was on a roll. I thought I was going to break my streak of nearly continuous lack of physical exertion. My roommate and I went for a 3 mile run. Let me take that back. We traveled 3 miles by foot, but about only 1 was by running. I think we are going to have to try and work up to running the whole way.

I dropped my computer the other day. I knew it was bad as soon as I heard it hit the ground. I've dropped the thing many times before, but the sound this time told me that it probably wasn't going to be comming back. I was right. I guess the good thing is that I have a new computer, but the bad thing is that I'm now missing about half of the things that I had on my old computer that were not backed up. You really start to take that for granted.

Next, cosmic connections. Have you ever been driving along in your car and noticed someone singing along to the same song as you. Until Thursday this had never happened to me. It was kind of cool. I had some random connection with this person that I didn't even know. I was a little touched. Does it diminish it in anyway if we were both singing "Head Like a Hole" by Nine Inch Nails? I don't think so.

One final thought. At some point this week I was speaking with a co-worker about my propensity to just read random stuff. I will pour just about anything into my head. Whether I buy into the stuff or not is another question, but I like to see how people express opposing ideas. I will often try on ideas that I don't even believe by playing devils advocate in an argument. I'm a little twisted like that. I explained this to the co-worker, and she explained that she tended to shy away from things that she didn't agree with. In more or less words she said that you had to be careful what you put into your head, because you never know what might get stuck in there. This just blew my mind. I guess I always assumed that the ideas that I adopted held a logical merit, regardless of whether they fit into the worldview that I held prior to considering them. Normally I'd just discard this idea as baloney, but I have immense respect for this person and I'd like to consider it at length. Does it make sense to establish your world view and then only consider evidence and arguments that support it? It certainly makes for a very tidy thought process. I know that it would certainly eliminate many of the conflicting notions that I seem to hold. This is an idea that I'm going to roll around in my head for a while. Who knows it might stick. I don't think so, but it never hurts to try.

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