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I used to like flying. I really did. As time goes on, I find that I hate it more and more. It's not so much the actual flight itself. I am fine once I am in the air. In fact, flying is an excellent way to practice release of control. You get in that seat, and well, whatever is going to happen will happen. You have no control.
Anyway. Like I said, the actual flying isn't bad. It's all the bullshit that you have to go through to get on/off/in/out of planes. Security, I am ok with. I don't need to have any security problems on planes. Neither does anyone else.
As I think though my intense hatred of the act of flying, I am starting to narrow down the two things that really make me miserable.
In case you are now wondering "where is Bryan going?", I will tell you. I am on my way to Newburgh, NY for some work training. I was supposed to go back on Friday, but unfortunately, my grandmother (on my dad's side) passed away adn there is a memorial service for her on Sunday. So, in addition to the week, I am also staying the weekend. I will be back in Austin a week from today.
This training is for the Microsoft IAG product which will be extremely helpful for me in my professional life.
In other news, you may have seen pictures or heard us talk about Astoria. She was a black border collie/lab mix that we had for a few weeks. Unfortunately, it did not work out with her. She had just way too much energy and we were not able to provide enough of an outlet for her. She chewed up a bunch of stuff in the closet including 3 pairs of my shoes and my sparring gear (see ya in class without it, no gear, no contact, tee hee). I can only assume that she did this because she was left alone for so long with nothing to do. I can't really blame the dog or anything for this other than we didn't provide enough of an outlet for her, so she chewed.
In light of that, we gave her away to someone from Austin that works at a dog friendly office. He will be able to bring her there so she can expend her mountains of energy every day.
It was hard to give her up, but it was the right thing to do. We were, perhaps, a little over zealous in picking her. Thinking back, if we had seen her in a shelter or something, we probably wouldn't have taken her. She was a little too big for what we want. For me (I can't speak for V), I felt like it would have been crazy to say no to taking her after driving almost 2 hours to get to Seguine. Still though, we did our due diligence in trying to give her what she needed. Since we couldn't, we had to give her to someone that would.
I remember when I was maybe 10-13 in that area, my parents brought a dog home from the North Shore Animal shelter. It was a pretty large dog named Bruno. When it stood up, it could rest it's front legs on my shoulders.
This dog was insane. It needed to live on a farm. When my dad would it out, it would just run laps around the house. It tore a Nerf football into a mountain of foam snow. It would get off the leash and have my mother chasing it around the neighborhood at 6am. It pulled the framing off of our front door. It took a crap right behind the closed front door... so when it opened.... ew.... my parents tried bolting it to the stairs. That didn't work either. It ripped the bolt right out.
You can see where this is going. We had to take the dog back b/c it was too much for them to handle. I didn't understand at the time because I was just a kid. I cried my head off b/c, duh, after like 2 days I was in love with the dog. I'm sure my parents wanted to muzzle me.
These memories all came back to me when we decided to put an add on Craigslist for her. Surprisingly though, I was only sad for a few hours and then got over it. Don't get me wrong, I did care about the animal, but I hadn't really bonded that much with her yet. I didn't really feel like she was "our dog" yet, so letting go wasn't terribly painful.
Later in the day, yesterday, we went to the Williamson country shelter to look and see what they had. We actually decided on a much smaller (roughly 1/2 the size and weight) white terrier mix named Atley. From what I can tell, he looks like a Brazilian terrier, but I am not sure. Victoria will most likely pick him up on Tuesday after he finishes up with their vet. Although a high energy breed, I think we can do the same that we did with Astoria, but he will still get tired. My walking speed was Astoria's slow walk speed. My walking speed will be this dogs trotting speed. Big difference.
Finally, although I am happy to be getting this training (believe me, I have been asking for it for a LONG time), I am sad to be away this week. I am sad to be away from Victoria. I am sad to miss classes. I am really sad to miss the pancake theater party on Friday night as well as Sam's birthday on Saturday night. Oh well, though. I am sure that my grandmother didn't die with the intention of making me miss social events. I only hope that when I go, people will be willing to forgo something they had been looking forward to to come and see me one last time.
I think we are landing soon. It's a short flight.
So, I'm experimenting with WordPress. I installed it on my domain and have been messing with it. One feature is an import from blogger. When I try to do it, I get this error:
Huh?
I was watching some Science channel this morning. Particularly, I was watching a show about atoms and quantum theories. It was mostly a historical account of how physics has gotten to where it is today.
One of the cool things they talked about was the "Schrodinger's Cat Thought Experiment". I had read about this a few years ago in some cosmology book, maybe one by Brian Greene.
Anyway, it's a really cool thought experiment, so I thought I would share. Due to my laziness, I found a summary of it on some website:
Schrodinger's cat
Schrödinger's cat is a famous illustration of the principle in quantum theory ofsuperposition , proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. Schrödinger's cat serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us is true about the nature and behavior of matter on the microscopic level and what we observe to be true about the nature and behavior of matter on the macroscopic level.
Here's Schrödinger's (theoretical) experiment: We place a living cat into a steel chamber, along with a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. There is, in the chamber, a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. Since we cannot know, the cat is both dead and alive according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive). This situation is sometimes called quantum indeterminacy or the observer's paradox : the observation or measurement itself affects an outcome, so that the outcome as such does not exist unless the measurement is made. (That is, there is no single outcome unless it is observed.)
We know that superposition actually occurs at the subatomic level, because there are observable effects of interference, in which a single particle is demonstrated to be in multiple locations simultaneously. What that fact implies about the nature of reality on the observable level (cats, for example, as opposed to electrons) is one of the stickiest areas of quantum physics. Schrödinger himself is rumored to have said, later in life, that he wished he had never met that cat.
So, the cat's in the box, but, we don't know if it's dead or alive, so we assume both when the box is closed. Interesting, huh? What do you think?
When you apply the thought experiment above to particles in space, it gets more interesting. Basically, until we look at an atom, its everywhere. It only "somewhere" when we actually try to measure it. Interestingly enough, I can't help but think of all of the metaphysical books I read when I was younger that say that our reality is created by, you guess it... US.
Thanks to Bren... ugh...
We did a crossfit benchmark in this morning's conditioning class. The workout consisted of the following:
The goal was to finish all of the above in 20 minutes or less doing everything with the best form possible. Initially the reps were set at 100, but Bren lowered the number due to moans and groans from the class.
Personally, I think 100 would have been way more challenging. Not to say that 75 is not hard, but I think 100 would have put me closer to 20 minutes. Anyway... here are my times:
My times were:
Total time (rounded milliseconds): 13:06 (2nd in the class, I am sure 3rd if Bren were working out)
We've got a really busy weekend lined up. Here's the brief to-do:
Saturday:
Sunday:
I can't freaking wait for my vacation time the week after next.
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