Time

Lately I've been more pre-occupied with the concept of time and my own aging. In many ways having kids makes you think about your own mortality. It's not something I enjoy thinking about, realizing that life is passing me by and that I very well may be halfway through it. This is a very unpleasant thought and my body gets very tense at the mere notion that the blip of my existence is whizzing by so quickly. It is so unpleasant to consider that I think I will not continue to expound on it.

Time also comes into play often with the ranch. Carly and I have a really great vision of what the property can become. We've done so much in the 3.5 years that we've been here, and have accomplished so many things, but the list of projects that lies ahead and continues to grow in way that at times seems daunting. The property boasts so many great assets, but they hadn't been properly cared for in the 15 years before we moved onto the ranch. For example, the chicken coop was a really well built structure, but it needed a total refurbishment that took me a year to complete. And there are a bunch of other structures that need the same. It's about an even split between trying to keep the existing things in good condition and trying to add new aspects to the property.

At the beginning of the year we renovated the ancillary house which was way overdue for some upgrades. I did a majority of work on that myself with the help of some tradesmen we know. We're now living there while we renovate the main ranch house. That work is being done by a GC, but it still is generating projects for me like building the outdoor kitchen for the beer fridge and flattop. Once the house is done then it'll be time to focus on the landscaping, where we have big plans for a garden, bike grotto, greenhouse and tool shed. Those alone are a few years worth of projects.

But the truth is that I love doing it, and I love seeing it come together as part of our vision. I have no problem investing my time, sweat and money into this ranch. I'm building on the progress made by Carly's father and grandfather. If I can make progress on making this ranch a better place for my kids, I think that would make my blip of an existence might be worth it.

Daylight Savings Time

My favorite day of the year is June 21st because that is the day that it says light out the latest. I enjoy sunlight. I like being able to go out at night and have the last glimmering specs of twilight still present at 10pm. Today the sun went down at 4:18 here in Seattle. Sunrise was at 7:50, giving the city 8 and a half hours of the sun's ultraviolet glory. This corresponds almost perfectly to people's work schedules, effectively forcing people to drive to work in the dark and drive home in the dark. I find that criminally depressive and I've blogged about how I hate that the sunlight doesn't match up people's schedules. This year I took a stand, and changed nothing.

Yep I changed nothing, but everyone around me changed. Because I enjoy the extra hour of sunlight, I decided to stay on DST this winter. So far it has worked out terrifically. Basically I never set my clocks back an hour and it's great. I get out of bed at the same time as I have all year, but now I get to work an hour early. If I oversleep by an hour, I get to work right on time. I work my 8 hours and go home but it's an hour earlier in the day. I get an extra hour of sunlight and I can show up an hour late for anything and be right on time. For me the bars close at 3AM instead of 2AM and my Michigan Football games don't start at 9AM but at 10AM giving me what seems like an extra hour of sleep.

This could all be accomplished by converting back to standard time and adjusting my schedule. But for me it works because time is all about perception. I wouldn't be able to go to bed at 9:30PM usually but when I look at my clock and says 10:30, I realize that I have to get to bed. It's the same thing with getting up in the morning. The only way I'll get out of bed is if my clock tells me if I don't I'll be late. I have the same amount of time from when I leave work until I go to bed, but it seems like more because I have more sunlight and I actually get to enjoy a little of it.

Come March when everyone talks about how great the extra hour of sunlight in the summer is I'll remind them that I've been enjoying it the entire time. I'll also mention how I won't be losing that hour of sleep during the switchover.

Punk'd by an Inanimate Object

I got April Fooled by my alarm clock. It thought it would be funny to fake daylight savings time again spring forward another hour. The fucker woke me up at 7:20 and told me it was 8:20. It wasn't until I saw Mike on the bus that I realized I had been duped harder than Peter Sarsgaard in Shattered Glass. And what really chaps my ass is that it wont let it go. It still is trying to fuck with me. I guess we can't really ever trust computers. But when will be the next time we will wake up and be messed with? Well here is the list.

3:14:07 on Tuesday, January 19, 2038 - Planes will fall out of the sky, up will be down, black will be white, hippies will be normal. The way that computers keep track of time is using a signed 32 bit counter that adds one each second. The problem is that 2^32 is just over 4 billion. So that in 2038 the counter will hit reach its maximum and become negative. Negative time. Many predict this to be the date when computers take over the world and Ann Coulter comes out of the closet.

Y2K10 - You wake up in new years day, still hung over from year 9999 and realize that its not year 10,000 at all but actually year 0000. This is because modern computers that will still be in use in 8000 years only give 4 places to store the year, and only the last 4 are displayed. This is a very pressing issue that many scientist have already theorized has no solution.

I thought there would be more, but it looks like were safe from the tyranny of our alarm clocks for another 31 years.