To The Apartment
Tuesday. I was listening to a report on the Large Hadron Collider yesterday where they mentioned they'd set a record for the energies achieved by an accelerated proton. There are many further stages ahead before it achieves its full power. The energy contained in a single proton at this current level is about that of a flying mosquito (mass times speed squared equals power). There are more than a few protons in the stream, of course, so the stream itself has the energy equivalent of an aircraft carrier doing twenty knots. An aircraft carrier doing twenty knots. No wonder they're careful (really, really, really careful) as they tweak this thing up each and every notch. An aircraft carrier at twenty knots, is, well not something you'd want to experience punching, say, through your (office, bedroom, collider) wall. No sir.
A reasonably eventful and active morning: pick up Ms. T to take her to a doctor's appointment (pulled ligament, it turns out), heading then for breakfast and the papers, finishing breakfast and the Chronicle by the time she was ready; take her back home and then head up 880 to downtown Oakland and park in plenty of time to sit for twenty minutes at a table in the City Center and read the Times over a cup of coffee before getting the hair clipped and returning to the apartment. Pretty exciting stuff for an old fart on a Tuesday given my recent history.
You talk like you're ninety-five.
Maybe so, maybe so, but it's morning and that's the mask I seem to have chosen for the moment.
UPS tracking confirmed my camera and lens are on the way and will arrive day after tomorrow. Sounds like I'll not be going out and walking Thursday until that truck arrives. Well, maybe get the walk in early, they almost always come after noon. Ha! Fat chance. Still, the Oakland Holiday Parade coming up on Saturday, an opportunity to try the both of them together. Will they make any difference at my level of competence? Probably not. But we don't admit to that. At least not in public.
Later. A walk down to the BofA ATM and then a walk farther on down to the morning café for a coffee (small) and a chocolate pastry of some kind. Dry, not overly gooey, but one I've had before that's proven itself to be more than marginally good. Better than marginally good, but not great. Not that great. What has my appetite come to?
Anyway, a walk back with a short stop to sit in a chair in the area where they set up the Saturday farmer's market, not because I was physically tired, but, well, “mentally” tired? Kind of a lost in a cloud sort of a feeling. Not bad. In fact I would guess, if you could manufacture pills to bring on this condition, you could get a good price for them on the street. Coming back along the lake I took a picture or two, an obligatory figure silhouetted against the lake with the city in the background. Nobody, I'm sure, has ever taken a picture quite like this before.
Easy to get trapped in shooting things you've seen a million times because, well, you've seen them a million times and you know people will like them. And there's no reason not to add one million and one to the pile, but it's best, maybe, if you're looking for new ways to look at the world to, you know, not get carried away. Then, of course, you might be the one to “see” that silhouette in just that one different, eye inspiring way. But not today, I'm afraid. No complaints. With my head in a cloud I'm happy to have brought anything back to the apartment. This first day of December.
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