Day 262: I have nothing special to report today, but I did want to bend your ear for a second.
Work was rough this morning, but it smoothed out as the (very long) day wore on. I went to the gym after work, and came home to make myself a nice steak with a simple salad (sun-dried tomatoes, feta, bibb lettuce, oil and vinegar. Perfect!). So, nothing really exciting.
But...
As I was driving to the gym, I just noticed the bright, shining sun, and the crystal blue sky, and the trees and the cars and the world and...
It was just a beautiful day.
Life is a rare and special treat, and it's really amazing when I back up and consider it.
I was tooling along in my Jeep. Just 111 years ago, mass production of automobiles was pioneered by a gentleman with the unlikely name of Ransom Olds. There were estimated to be 500 million cars 1986, which is 84 years after the first production Oldsmobiles (and 72 years after one Henry Ford dramatically expanded how quickly cars could be produced). In 2010, just 26 years later, we've doubled that to over 1 billion cars.
We've conquered the skies in just the last century, and have even gone to the moon (though one does have to wonder why we have yet to colonize the thing by this point). Good news on the outer space front, though: India is planning a manned moon landing by 2020, and America's NASA is planning an asteroid landing by 2025, and a manned orbit of Mars by 2035.
And all of this information is literally at my fingertips. I have access to entire history of human knowledge on a device I carry in my pocket. I can also use it to launch angry birds at legless pigs, but I've always felt it was a little unfair to the pigs.
We've undocked the phone from the wall, and now it's almost unthinkable to go about our day without a cellphone. And, more than that, I'm frequently mocked for having a cellphone that is so old that it is now available online for only $23; a cellphone is not enough today. It's now important that I have a smartphone and a dataplan, so that I can always, always, always be available online, in case someone wants to send me a picture of a cat.
And I'm always online anyway, either via my company laptop, or my state laptop, or my own desktop, or my iPod touch (I have my own wifi hotspot which allows the iPod to go online).
With all of this technology, we can keep up with people from high school, connect with other artists anywhere in the world, and get news of anything, happening anywhere, pretty much instantly. We'll know as soon as the new Pope is selected, for example. His reign as Pope will begin when he responds, "Accepto" when the Dean of the College of Cardinals asks him, "Do you freely accept your election?", and NOT when he is inaugurated several days later.
Life is full of remarkable little moments, and some of them are just around the corner. I hope you take the moment, from time to time, and just look around at the world we live in.
It's AMAZING.
Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! :)
Note: All facts in this post are from Wikipedia, which should never be cited as a source, but, eh, it's mostly reliable.
Work was rough this morning, but it smoothed out as the (very long) day wore on. I went to the gym after work, and came home to make myself a nice steak with a simple salad (sun-dried tomatoes, feta, bibb lettuce, oil and vinegar. Perfect!). So, nothing really exciting.
But...
As I was driving to the gym, I just noticed the bright, shining sun, and the crystal blue sky, and the trees and the cars and the world and...
It was just a beautiful day.
Life is a rare and special treat, and it's really amazing when I back up and consider it.
I was tooling along in my Jeep. Just 111 years ago, mass production of automobiles was pioneered by a gentleman with the unlikely name of Ransom Olds. There were estimated to be 500 million cars 1986, which is 84 years after the first production Oldsmobiles (and 72 years after one Henry Ford dramatically expanded how quickly cars could be produced). In 2010, just 26 years later, we've doubled that to over 1 billion cars.
We've conquered the skies in just the last century, and have even gone to the moon (though one does have to wonder why we have yet to colonize the thing by this point). Good news on the outer space front, though: India is planning a manned moon landing by 2020, and America's NASA is planning an asteroid landing by 2025, and a manned orbit of Mars by 2035.
And all of this information is literally at my fingertips. I have access to entire history of human knowledge on a device I carry in my pocket. I can also use it to launch angry birds at legless pigs, but I've always felt it was a little unfair to the pigs.
We've undocked the phone from the wall, and now it's almost unthinkable to go about our day without a cellphone. And, more than that, I'm frequently mocked for having a cellphone that is so old that it is now available online for only $23; a cellphone is not enough today. It's now important that I have a smartphone and a dataplan, so that I can always, always, always be available online, in case someone wants to send me a picture of a cat.
And I'm always online anyway, either via my company laptop, or my state laptop, or my own desktop, or my iPod touch (I have my own wifi hotspot which allows the iPod to go online).
With all of this technology, we can keep up with people from high school, connect with other artists anywhere in the world, and get news of anything, happening anywhere, pretty much instantly. We'll know as soon as the new Pope is selected, for example. His reign as Pope will begin when he responds, "Accepto" when the Dean of the College of Cardinals asks him, "Do you freely accept your election?", and NOT when he is inaugurated several days later.
Life is full of remarkable little moments, and some of them are just around the corner. I hope you take the moment, from time to time, and just look around at the world we live in.
It's AMAZING.
Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! :)
Note: All facts in this post are from Wikipedia, which should never be cited as a source, but, eh, it's mostly reliable.