HliAT #8

How Long It Actually Takes to...

switch my monitor on its bracket from Landscape to Portrait orientation, meaning: get screwdriver, unscrew 4 screws, reposition monitor (holding it up), rescrew 4 screws, put screwdriver away: 04:36.00

This is definitely to file under "things I'd overestimate because they seem fussy." I'd've guessed this'd take 4 times as long as this. But it was simple.

counterpoint: installing the second monitor on the same set of brackets, later that night, took almost 2 hours not because of technical issues but because of a dumb stubborness on my part about checking the ONE THING that would've solved a problem I was having ten minutes in... that is dumb, but is how long THAT thing took, which is perhaps why I'd tend to so overestimate stuff like the subject of this HLiaT. "Something always go wrong."

HliAT #7

How Long It Actually Takes to...

"put the surfboard back," i.e.,: reposition the car, unstrap the board from the room, throw any towels or whatever in the car, throw the strap in the car, reposition the board in the first then the second hanging loop (where it's stored, hanging, in the carpot), put the stick that I use to help with that part back, tidy the back of the hatch a bit: 03:55.60

This one's interesting; another underestimation! I'd've guessed five minutes, and--in so guessing--said to myself "that's way too little." The lesson here's simple: I really dislike futzy things with lots of little business and locking and unlocking and latching and unlatching, and possibly tend to overestimate them.

HLiaT: #6

COMPARISON HLiaT: 
biking vs. driving from home to yoga

How Long it Actually Takes To...

set up the darn bike, because it's locked behind the car and you have to get it out and get the keys out of the car and maneuver this that and the other thing so the whole thing takes: 3:57.34

[recap: HLiaT #5]  bike, from the moment you are seated on your bike, all set, to the moment you've locked your bike at Maha Yoga: 08:48.99

bike, from my apartment to Maha Yoga, total (adding ~30 seconds for walk from bike rack, which is right by the studio): 13:17.33

vs.

How Long it Actually Takes To...

drive, from my carport to Maha: 4:27.65

walk from a representative parking spot to the studio (further than the bike rack): 02:17.12

drive from home to Maha: 06:44.77

All righty then. Looking at this, seems like biking is worth it unless I'm really cutting it close.

HliAT, #5

How Long it Actually Takes To...

bike--from the moment you are seated on your bike, all set (it takes a couple minutes to get to this moment - that's for another HliAT)--to the moment you've locked your bike at Maha Yoga: 08:48.99

FIRST EVER HliAT UNDERESTIMATION. Google Maps says the ride alone should take 9 minutes. Yes!

HliAT, #4

How Long it Actually Takes to...

go from your apartment down 1 flight of stairs quick pick something up in the car then walk out front to where your friend is waiting in her car: 8 minutes

Expected time: 2 minutes

Factor of error: THREE HUNDRED PERCENT

anonymized to protect the innocent. thank you for keeping me honest.

Spaceship Crash Dream. June 3, 2015.

i wake up in a space ship that is going down.

i've woken up when "the thing's about to happen", although it's unclear what that is. 

it's strange that i've been sleeping -- that i consciously was like "may as well sleep for these 3-4 hours, before the thing happens" -- because 'the thing' is a landing of some kind in which i may well die.

the spaceship chamber has a broad window towards my head. a bed in which i am laying along the right wall, with disordered covers. an area at the back that is kind of locker/do-things-here ish, with maybe a red toplight, though there is no locker.

the chamber is cold; earlier i'd rolled down the covers, hot, and now i'm cold. and i'm worried that that is because the capsule is failing or is otherwise indicative of something going wrong, of the way i will die.

it is one of those fears that you'd like to discount as essentially 0% chance of happening -- it's only a dream; it really almost certainly won't happen -- but in fact i know in this case that is wrong, that there is a reasonably good chance that i will die in this landing and there's nothing i can do and i am terrified.

there is land -- red, craggy, like NASA pictures of Mars -- racing past beneath and in front of us, looming closer (there are now more windows) and i wonder if i should have on my suit and i don't really know what the land is, and if we're supposed to be coming in that quickly, and in my brain i literally scream the words,  "what is that? WHAT IS THAT?"

later, in Santa Monica, I see an attractive woman who looks like my friend from high school, L---, biking up a hill as I sit in a hotel parking lot; i assume that it's probably not her. then I see C----, another friend from high school and L's recent husband, doing the same. i call his name, and he waits and stops, happy, and we begin walking downhill; he says something about how "he says he's here and everyone says" and i respond with something general about how nice and perfect it is in California so that's why they say that, which feels like i may have missed the point of what he was saying. 

we're walking downhill, and L has biked ahead. i don't mind at all that they didn't look me up, though i knew they were in town from social media, and they must know i live here. it's nice to see C, and maybe i'll get to say "hi" to L soon, as well, and it's pretty as we walk down a hill towards the rocky, curved coast.

Just: Healing

Quick post-fight healing-up-soft-tissue thought:

There is a funny transition when a bit of you goes from being "injured" - in this case, a bruised left thigh that I couldn't bend, etc. - to "functional-but-hurt", when you're trying to start using it again, etc.

You're almost more annoyed at/with it in the second category, even though it is obviously stronger in that category than it was in the first.