Thursday, July 14, 2005
A Life in the Day
So those of you who have kept pace with this blog or with me for more than a year know that today, in addition to being the anniversary of the Mariner 4 Mars flyby, John Adams' passage of the Sedition Acts, and Hank Aaron's joining the 500 home run club is my birthday. A quick check in the Invisible Archive indicates that last year I spent a lot of time musing over the relative significance (or lack thereof) of the day. A year later, I can't say that I've fully reconciled my feelings of sentimentality towards the occasion and the realization that in the grand scheme of things, birthdays are nothing more than an odometer clicking between miles. Earth goes around the sun and so it goes... (poo-too-weet!)
Ok, cheesy Vonnegut references aside, it was 24 years ago today that Invisible Ben first hit the scene. 24 is not a particularly interesting birthday, although 24 itself is an interesting number. In addition to being the sum of two primes (11+13), it is also 4! (That's 4 factorial...not an overly agitated 4.) Thanks to the networking geniuses at Fox, I also know that 24 is the number of hours in a day. So if we were to compress my life so far into the course of a typical day, it would look something like this:
12:00 AM-1:00 AM: 0 Years Old (1981)
Major Life Skills: Crawling, Holding my breath until I turned blue.
Favorite Song: "Turkey in the Straw"
Main Hobby: Sleeping, Getting pushed on a swing
1:00 AM-2:00 AM: 1 Years Old (1982)
Major Life Skills: Walking, Falling down, Nonsensical rambling (and I just kept on going with it...)
Favorite TV Show: Sesame Street
Strange new interests: Doors, pine cones
2:00 AM-3:00 AM: 2 Years Old (1983)
Major Life Skills: Reading, Walking without falling down as much.
Favorite Books: The Cat in the Hat, Are You My Mother?
Favorite animated movie: Winnie the Pooh
3:00 AM-4:00 AM: 3 Years Old (1984)
Major Life Skills: Ignoring newly arrived (and painfully adorable) younger sister, Writing my name (messily)
Favorite global superpower: Oceania
Favorite Care Bear: Grumpy
4:00 AM-5:00 AM: 4 Years Old (1985)
Major Life Skills: Blocks (building things and destroying them), Bicycle riding with training wheels
Major Deficiencies: Artistic ability, refusal to color inside the lines
Favorite Comic Strip: Calvin and Hobbes
5:00 AM-6:00 AM: 5 Years Old (1986)
Major Life Skills: Paleontology, Arm breaking (stupid training wheels got caught in a pothole!)
Life Altering Moments: My first day of kindergarten, the death of Optimus Prime
Earliest sports memory: Attending a Phillies game at Veteran's Stadium
6:00 AM-7:00 AM: 6 Years Old (1987)
Major Life Skills: Bicycle riding (without training wheels), Fundamental math facts (after a lot of practice)
New favorite continent: Australia
Least favorite dish: Tuna a la King
7:00 AM-8:00 AM: 7 Years Old (1988)
Major Life Skills: Astronomy, Baseball, Typing
Deeply wanted: A Nintendo Enterntainment System (8 bit)
Hero: Phillies 3rd baseman Mike Schmidt...and then he retired.
8:00 AM-9:00 AM: 8 Years Old (1989)
Major Life Skills: A detailed appreciation of Greek mythology...ok, this was not a life skill. Esp. not in 3rd grade.
Earliest memory of potential for paradox in film: Back to the Future - Part II in the theaters.
Stores open near my house at the time that are no longer around: Bradlee's, Caldor, and that restaurant specializing in pie...
9:00 AM-10:00 AM: 9 Years Old (1990)
Major Life Skills: A brief interest in astrology, street hockey
Newfound appreciation for: Lobsters and other non-kosher dishes.
Wait...they took that off the air?: No more ALF? Mr. Belvedere? You Can't Do That on Television?
10:00 AM-11:00 AM: 10 Years Old (1991)
Major Life Skills: Sledding, Commodore 64 computer gaming
Creepy Coincidence: John Heinz's helicopter crash over the playground at my old elementary school.
Fun new word to spell: Schwartzkopf
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: 11 Years Old (1992)
Major Life Skills: Playing the trumpet, Carmen Sandiego computer games
Distinct cinema memories: Home Alone 2, Aladdin
Musical taste ranged towards: Billy Joel, Beach Boys, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Weird Al Yankovic
12:00 PM-1:00 PM: 12 Years Old (1993)
Major Life Skills: Geography comes into its own, amateur radio
I got to meet...: TV's own Alex Trebek!
Hey cool!: A new Star Trek series. Not quite as awesome as Time Trax or Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, but it shows promise!
1:00 PM-2:00 PM: 13 Years Old (1994)
Major Life Skills: Reading Hebrew, singing in the school chorus, boomerang throwing
My Torah portion: Korach-the tale of a rebellious Levite who attempted to overthrow Moses
First movie with a website: Stargate (deemed too strange at the time to EVER make a TV series)
2:00 PM-3:00 PM: 14 Years Old (1995)
Major Life Skills: Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs, Magic: The Gathering (yeah...I admit it.)
Inspiration for patter songs: Gilda Radner's appearance on the Muppet Show.
THAC0 stands for: To hit armor class 0.
3:00 PM-4:00 PM: 15 Years Old (1996)
Major Life Skills: Ultimate frisbee, winning televised high school trivia competitions
Which was cooler...: Sengir Vampires or Serra Angels? The world may never know.
You do not smoke a...: Messerschmitt
What I thought was a great movie: Independence Day
4:00 PM-5:00 PM: 16 Years Old (1997)
Major Life Skills: Driving!, Seizing control of high school extracurricular activities
Nerdiest television interest: Babylon 5.
And we all learned to hate: Leonardo diCaprio and Celine Dion
5:00 PM-6:00 PM: 17 Years Old (1998)
Major Life Skills: Precalculus, Spanish
Must See TV: Still had Seinfeld and therefore did not entirely suck.
Definition remains hazy: What does "is" mean?
6:00 PM-7:00 PM: 18 Years Old (1999)
Major Life Skills: College bowl, brief interest in carilloning
Newfound appreciation for: C. Montgomery Burns, Nick Carraway, the tables down at Mory's
Egyptian canopic guardian of the intestine: Qebschesnef
7:00 PM-8:00 PM: 19 Years Old (2000)
Major Life Skills: Humor writing, a capella singing
Y2K Bug: Kinda fizzled out.
Harry Potter, Book 4: Very dense for a children's book.
8:00 PM-9:00 PM: 20 Years Old (2001)
Major Life Skills: Phone interviews (for radio news stories), serious paper writing, German
What the hell?: The flew planes...into...and...Damn.
Dude!: Fellowship of the Ring is awesome. You totally have to check it out!
9:00 PM-10:00 PM: 21 Years Old (2002)
Major Life Skills: Legal drinking, game show hosting, Super Smash Bros. Melee
Say goodnight: To Uncle Miltie, A Man Called Horse, and Zira...that damned dirty ape.
My shortlived archnemesis: Señor Essay
10:00 PM-11:00 PM: 22 Years Old (2003)
Major Life Skills: Teaching social studies...or physics...or English as a second language...or math...or physical science. Oh, and blogging.
Interesting new synonyms: smart and ignorant
New neighbors: The friendly crack dealer across the street, the stoop sitters down the road.
11:00 PM-12:00 AM: 23 Years Old (2004)
Major Life Skills: Nanotechnology research, pub trivia
On a scale of 1-10, student respect level is: 5 (which is good...before it was a 3)
What I learned in the movies: Tritium is very precious, and it looks like a solid gold sphere.
The next day: 12:00 AM-1:00 AM: 24 Years Old (2005)
Major Life Skills: To be determined...
Current Age?: 8,760 days. We can only wonder what will happen tomorrow...
Thanks to all the well-wishers, esp. the Invisible Mom and Dad without whom none of this would be possible. And a happy Bastille Day to all.
So those of you who have kept pace with this blog or with me for more than a year know that today, in addition to being the anniversary of the Mariner 4 Mars flyby, John Adams' passage of the Sedition Acts, and Hank Aaron's joining the 500 home run club is my birthday. A quick check in the Invisible Archive indicates that last year I spent a lot of time musing over the relative significance (or lack thereof) of the day. A year later, I can't say that I've fully reconciled my feelings of sentimentality towards the occasion and the realization that in the grand scheme of things, birthdays are nothing more than an odometer clicking between miles. Earth goes around the sun and so it goes... (poo-too-weet!)
Ok, cheesy Vonnegut references aside, it was 24 years ago today that Invisible Ben first hit the scene. 24 is not a particularly interesting birthday, although 24 itself is an interesting number. In addition to being the sum of two primes (11+13), it is also 4! (That's 4 factorial...not an overly agitated 4.) Thanks to the networking geniuses at Fox, I also know that 24 is the number of hours in a day. So if we were to compress my life so far into the course of a typical day, it would look something like this:
12:00 AM-1:00 AM: 0 Years Old (1981)
Major Life Skills: Crawling, Holding my breath until I turned blue.
Favorite Song: "Turkey in the Straw"
Main Hobby: Sleeping, Getting pushed on a swing
1:00 AM-2:00 AM: 1 Years Old (1982)
Major Life Skills: Walking, Falling down, Nonsensical rambling (and I just kept on going with it...)
Favorite TV Show: Sesame Street
Strange new interests: Doors, pine cones
2:00 AM-3:00 AM: 2 Years Old (1983)
Major Life Skills: Reading, Walking without falling down as much.
Favorite Books: The Cat in the Hat, Are You My Mother?
Favorite animated movie: Winnie the Pooh
3:00 AM-4:00 AM: 3 Years Old (1984)
Major Life Skills: Ignoring newly arrived (and painfully adorable) younger sister, Writing my name (messily)
Favorite global superpower: Oceania
Favorite Care Bear: Grumpy
4:00 AM-5:00 AM: 4 Years Old (1985)
Major Life Skills: Blocks (building things and destroying them), Bicycle riding with training wheels
Major Deficiencies: Artistic ability, refusal to color inside the lines
Favorite Comic Strip: Calvin and Hobbes
5:00 AM-6:00 AM: 5 Years Old (1986)
Major Life Skills: Paleontology, Arm breaking (stupid training wheels got caught in a pothole!)
Life Altering Moments: My first day of kindergarten, the death of Optimus Prime
Earliest sports memory: Attending a Phillies game at Veteran's Stadium
6:00 AM-7:00 AM: 6 Years Old (1987)
Major Life Skills: Bicycle riding (without training wheels), Fundamental math facts (after a lot of practice)
New favorite continent: Australia
Least favorite dish: Tuna a la King
7:00 AM-8:00 AM: 7 Years Old (1988)
Major Life Skills: Astronomy, Baseball, Typing
Deeply wanted: A Nintendo Enterntainment System (8 bit)
Hero: Phillies 3rd baseman Mike Schmidt...and then he retired.
8:00 AM-9:00 AM: 8 Years Old (1989)
Major Life Skills: A detailed appreciation of Greek mythology...ok, this was not a life skill. Esp. not in 3rd grade.
Earliest memory of potential for paradox in film: Back to the Future - Part II in the theaters.
Stores open near my house at the time that are no longer around: Bradlee's, Caldor, and that restaurant specializing in pie...
9:00 AM-10:00 AM: 9 Years Old (1990)
Major Life Skills: A brief interest in astrology, street hockey
Newfound appreciation for: Lobsters and other non-kosher dishes.
Wait...they took that off the air?: No more ALF? Mr. Belvedere? You Can't Do That on Television?
10:00 AM-11:00 AM: 10 Years Old (1991)
Major Life Skills: Sledding, Commodore 64 computer gaming
Creepy Coincidence: John Heinz's helicopter crash over the playground at my old elementary school.
Fun new word to spell: Schwartzkopf
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: 11 Years Old (1992)
Major Life Skills: Playing the trumpet, Carmen Sandiego computer games
Distinct cinema memories: Home Alone 2, Aladdin
Musical taste ranged towards: Billy Joel, Beach Boys, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Weird Al Yankovic
12:00 PM-1:00 PM: 12 Years Old (1993)
Major Life Skills: Geography comes into its own, amateur radio
I got to meet...: TV's own Alex Trebek!
Hey cool!: A new Star Trek series. Not quite as awesome as Time Trax or Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, but it shows promise!
1:00 PM-2:00 PM: 13 Years Old (1994)
Major Life Skills: Reading Hebrew, singing in the school chorus, boomerang throwing
My Torah portion: Korach-the tale of a rebellious Levite who attempted to overthrow Moses
First movie with a website: Stargate (deemed too strange at the time to EVER make a TV series)
2:00 PM-3:00 PM: 14 Years Old (1995)
Major Life Skills: Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs, Magic: The Gathering (yeah...I admit it.)
Inspiration for patter songs: Gilda Radner's appearance on the Muppet Show.
THAC0 stands for: To hit armor class 0.
3:00 PM-4:00 PM: 15 Years Old (1996)
Major Life Skills: Ultimate frisbee, winning televised high school trivia competitions
Which was cooler...: Sengir Vampires or Serra Angels? The world may never know.
You do not smoke a...: Messerschmitt
What I thought was a great movie: Independence Day
4:00 PM-5:00 PM: 16 Years Old (1997)
Major Life Skills: Driving!, Seizing control of high school extracurricular activities
Nerdiest television interest: Babylon 5.
And we all learned to hate: Leonardo diCaprio and Celine Dion
5:00 PM-6:00 PM: 17 Years Old (1998)
Major Life Skills: Precalculus, Spanish
Must See TV: Still had Seinfeld and therefore did not entirely suck.
Definition remains hazy: What does "is" mean?
6:00 PM-7:00 PM: 18 Years Old (1999)
Major Life Skills: College bowl, brief interest in carilloning
Newfound appreciation for: C. Montgomery Burns, Nick Carraway, the tables down at Mory's
Egyptian canopic guardian of the intestine: Qebschesnef
7:00 PM-8:00 PM: 19 Years Old (2000)
Major Life Skills: Humor writing, a capella singing
Y2K Bug: Kinda fizzled out.
Harry Potter, Book 4: Very dense for a children's book.
8:00 PM-9:00 PM: 20 Years Old (2001)
Major Life Skills: Phone interviews (for radio news stories), serious paper writing, German
What the hell?: The flew planes...into...and...Damn.
Dude!: Fellowship of the Ring is awesome. You totally have to check it out!
9:00 PM-10:00 PM: 21 Years Old (2002)
Major Life Skills: Legal drinking, game show hosting, Super Smash Bros. Melee
Say goodnight: To Uncle Miltie, A Man Called Horse, and Zira...that damned dirty ape.
My shortlived archnemesis: Señor Essay
10:00 PM-11:00 PM: 22 Years Old (2003)
Major Life Skills: Teaching social studies...or physics...or English as a second language...or math...or physical science. Oh, and blogging.
Interesting new synonyms: smart and ignorant
New neighbors: The friendly crack dealer across the street, the stoop sitters down the road.
11:00 PM-12:00 AM: 23 Years Old (2004)
Major Life Skills: Nanotechnology research, pub trivia
On a scale of 1-10, student respect level is: 5 (which is good...before it was a 3)
What I learned in the movies: Tritium is very precious, and it looks like a solid gold sphere.
The next day: 12:00 AM-1:00 AM: 24 Years Old (2005)
Major Life Skills: To be determined...
Current Age?: 8,760 days. We can only wonder what will happen tomorrow...
Thanks to all the well-wishers, esp. the Invisible Mom and Dad without whom none of this would be possible. And a happy Bastille Day to all.
