Mild introduction to a new chapter of life

Last week I was able to complete the last item on my Los Angeles bucket list - something I'd been meaning to make time for, for the past few years: visit the Getty Villa.  Not to be confused with the main Getty Center, the Getty Villa requires (free) ticket reservations and is located 5 miles north on Highway 1 from Santa Monica.

I learned that heavy Greek and Roman architecture, sculpture, and overall artifacts are not my favorite styles.  That said, I'm glad that Getty took on the project of tying together his modern design approach and incorporating his historical interests; it makes for an interesting experience.  Many more geometric designs than I anticipated, and which I associate more with Arabian design; I loved the inlaid stone floors!

With my Los Angeles bucket list completed for the time being (items can always be added!), I packed a few bags (more than I should have) and walked out my front door, hopped a train, bus, and then a plane.

I embarked a journey that will take me to fjords in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, tropical beaches, markets of the last thousand years, and more.

Utilizing planes, trains, ferries, automobiles, bicycles, and, of course, my Talaria (shown here) I charge forth!

Much like this little child / kuros, I press onward in my journey of life, trying to interpret the world through the eyes of someone more wise, and learn along the way!

My first stop takes me across the International Date Line to Auckland, NZ, where my host neighborhood offers a wonderfully sporty method of controlling automobile speeds: two-way working chicanes instead of speed bumps/humps.

The photo below is taken looking straight down the street, and note the angle of the van exiting the chicane; clearly a poor execution that focused on the optimal trajectory for the first turn, ignoring the second turn and making impossible a more preferable exit from the obstacle.

Tsk, tsk, van driver.  Slow down earlier, line up optimally for your final turn, and accelerate into the straightaway.

There's also a super-awesome, hand-spinnable kinetic sculpture in town that plays with light and wind nicely:

Nicely polished welds on unpolished, raw stainless steel (?) left the piece with a beautiful raw-yet-refined finish.

This year flew by -- but why? (Post on aging: 1 of 3)

Recently, I thought about this blog and realized that it's 4th birthday was coming up -- a day that passed without notoriety on Dec 24th, 2011.  Since starting to record thoughts and experiences here, I've traveled a bit, notably New Zealand and India, I've worked again at AeroVironment, where we made some successful electrical products, including the charger for the Nissan Leaf, and posted a few side projects.  All that to say that I feel like this blog is still a "NEW" project of mine, when in reality, it's years old.

As 2011 draws to a close, I get the same feeling that I do every year when reviewing National Geographic's Photot Contest or "Year in Review" lists - WHERE did the year go?  Year after year, time seems to fly by faster and faster, and until now, this miffed me.  Each day, hour, minute, and second is a prescribed length of "time" and should, therefore, always seem to take just as long as the past.  In reality, however, time is relative to each of us, and so the way we perceive time is not fixed.  What follows is recent realization on why this is.  Please note that I have extremely little background in biology, and would love some feedback on where to look for articles about what's actually going on; these are just my guesses.

{Image credit: hplusmagazine}

Living in a physical world, with our physical bodies and physical brains, there is a finite amount of "memory space" each of us has, more or less.  (One could argue that as our brain grows, the surface area increases as folds are created, thus giving us "more brain", though I think this is relatively small amount when compared with our growing encyclopedia of experiences and reference knowledge.)**   So, if we have a finite rolodex of space on which to store memories, in our second year of life, that 12 month period gets to write its memory down on roughly half of the rolodex space.  In the fifth year, that same 12 month period has to get pared down to fit in roughly 20% of the rolodex.  And by age 100, the very same 12 month period has to somehow get squeezed in 1% of our rolodex.

   

Graphic showing how the same info has to get squeezed into a smaller portion of your brain each year.

Conversely, the "filing system" that runs our brain (maybe in another sector of the brain?) realizes that it's got to keep a bit of "buffer" free to file new experiences into.  So in the first year, perhaps it decides to leave 50% of the brain free.  Then, over the course of the next year, as it fills up the free space, it realizes that it should not fully utilize the entirety of the space, and thus sets aside, perhaps, 50% of the remaining space, each year, until at age 100, there's only a small space left on the experience book-shelf into which memories can be written.

Taking a page from compounding interest, and other financial models, on how the dollars in your bank account are worth more than any future dollars you will ever earn, this very second, reading this blog, is the longest second of your remaining life.  Every single day, minute, and second will be successively shorter than the last.  (Kinda makes you wonder why you're still reading this, doesn't it?  Shouldn't you go do something nice for someone?  Or perhaps for yourself, you little hedonist!)  Granted, your previous second (reading the last paragraph was longer, and thus you could have accomplished more that second than this, but it's in the past, so stop worrying about it; it's out of your control now.

Qualitative representation of the value of each successive second in your life.

**Some people even go so far as to think that our human body longevity may be determined by our brain capacity; that our brain only has enough space for roughly 100 years of decisions, number of connections, and event/emotion memories.  However sad it is, I prefer to think that when it nears "fullness," our brain would simply re-write over sectors that had less important memories already on it.  Bye-bye, non-eventful 7th grade gym class experiences!

[UPDATE]

Thanks to big poppa of the Anderson clan for forwarding me the timely comic in the Sunday newspaper a few weeks ago.  Thanks!  And keep cherishing those moments!  Upcoming post about why age 30 has me feeling like a pre-teen!

Sundance film reviews!

I know that I'm a bit late with this one, but I figured, as they say, "better late than never!"

Here are some quick reviews, written a few months after I saw the films at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah back in January.

First of all, the most important thing was that I loved being able to stay seated after the film and hear Q&A sessions with many of the actors, directors, producers, etc. Really made the films more human.

Second of all, the films were astonishing compared with everyday blockbuster films because the themes weren't readily apparent, or easily digested. Many times during and after the film, we'd discuss who was really the 'good guy' or 'bad guy' -- a theme you can easily find in most 'normal' films simply by the color of clothes the actors wear. It was refreshing to be so engaged.

In the order I enjoyed them, and check the ratings before showing your family:

Get Low: Loved this one -- not the Lil' Jon song, but rather a film with Bill Murray and Robert Duvall. Based in truth, about a 40 year hermit from the south (Georgia, I think?), who threw his own funeral, pre-death, and thousands of people showed up. Great story, great acting.
Score: 8/10.

Click here to open trailer in new window, (opens in LA & NY theaters July 30).



Hesher: Awesome film about who is really good and who is really evil -- it's not always easy to see. Fun, as well. Pretty irreverent, as it has to do with anarchy, etc. Cast was really fun to watch -- breaking their typical roles: Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rainn Wilson.
Score: 8/10.

Closest thing I could find to a trailer.


Winters Bone: Intense movie about living in backwoods Missouri, and a family's struggles with nasty neighbors and drug addictions. Love that it was a real 'film', and had quiet spots without dialogue or music, etc.
Score: 7/10.


Cyrus: didn't care for it too much, though it was fun to see the locations, shot in LA. Kinda quirky, didn't know where it was going at many points. Fun enough to rent.
Score: 5/10.

Climate Refugees: Didn't care for it too much, though lots of good input from Lester Brown, author of Plan B. It focused on examples of what climate change was already doing, and tried to extrapolate to a doomsday scenario. I prefer looking at trends, rather than single data points, which could be attributed to a simple bad year, etc. I did like their randomly generated numbers of how many people will be coming to America in the next 40 years (I think it was 100 million).
Score: 4/10 (Don't bother unless you're really interested)