D'Yer Wanna Be a Spaceman?

Hi all, been wanting to add another entry of late but haven't gotten around to it. Well, I am making a concerted effort to start doings things which I will get to later. First off, some updates from last time. I have confirmed that I will attend my 10 year high school reunion coming up next month. Yeah most of the people I polled came out in favor of attending. Be on the look out for an entry at the end of November about it. Next is that after I posted my last entry blog entry my personal laptop finally gave out. Its power supply was spotty and it finally gave out. So my Dell gave me 3+ more or less good years, which is just about as long as any laptop ends up lasting. I ordered a replacement, I won't say much but it is shiny.
So what else has been going on? The usual stuff. Work, boot camp, bike riding (I went on a 25 mile and 16ish mile bike rides in the past few weeks plus my off and on rides to work). Been hanging out also, went to a house party in Cupertino, bowling/Karaoke/drinking in the city, Oktoberfest in Campbell again, and the Clarion Alley Street Mural block party in the Mission. For the later event, I was rather hipster under-dressed for the Mission. So basically I have been humming along as usual, ordinary routine. Which would seem to be okay. However, I have been in a more reflective mood as of late. So maybe that is not all okay.

Recent events have gotten me thinking about life. The first off is that I watched the excellent documentary 49 and up on PBS two weeks ago. In a nutshell, it is part of a series of documentaries where the filmmakers follow a set people from when they were seven, every seven years. So it is a fascinating experience watching them grow up and age. But one thing struck me is that one of the checkpoints is of course, 28 and I am 28 now. So you see them at 28 and compare them to what they are now (49), and for many of them it is night and day. Well one thing is obvious all of them look much worse at 49 than 28 which makes me want to keep regularly exercising. But more importantly most of them were doing much different things than they were at 28. Well I happen to really enjoy what I am doing now that I am 28. But I have no clue what I will be doing at 49. I would like to stay in the field but who knows, I may end up somewhere totally different. It is eye-opening to see the changes throughout life.

Another thing that I got me thinking was the great news that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. Think back 7 years ago after he lost an election, which by all accounts he should have rightfully won. On top of that, for the next few years after that he was laughed off as has-been and wash-up. But look at things now. Everyone almost universally agrees (with exception of the Republicans who are in full reality denial mode) that he would have made a tremendously better president than a former alcoholic whose greatest regret in life (by his own admission) was trading Sammy Sosa for Harold Baines. But I doubt anybody would have blamed Al Gore for simply fading away after he lost in 2000. He could have quietly joined a few corporate boards (basically get paid for showing up), done the lecture circuit, maybe become a faculty member in name only at some university. But he didn't. He re-devoted his life to what he really cared about and now people are literally begging him to clean up the toxic waste dump George W Bush has left behind. So that got me thinking, is there anything more than I could be doing?

There were some more serious things that happened that gave me pause. One is that I finally got around to watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture A lot of my co-workers were students of Randy Pauch's at Carnegie Mellon. For those of you who don't know, Pausch has a non-treatable form of cancer which leaves him only three to six months of good health left before he dies. So literally it is his "last lecture." I really recommend everyone watch this lecture. It is about achieving your childhood dreams and gives some great advice about life. What struck me about it is how optimistic and energetic he is about what is obviously a very tragic event. He doesn't want to die obviously but now that it is upon him, he is determined not to keep him from enjoying what little life has left. Well I am not dying anytime soon (I hope) so it made me wonder. How much more could I be enjoying life, doing things that challenge me, etc.

Finally, one of my former SI classmates, Mark, was struck by a drunk driver earlier this month. He still hasn't regained consciousness. The last I saw Mark was back in March, when he was visiting the Bay area for a conference. I had lunch with him at Google and went out to dinner a few times. He seemed to be having a great time in his new job. In the weeks after graduating SI where I was waiting for Google on if I was getting an offer, he would organize weekly poker games that were a lot of fun. Anyway, it was sort of surreal thinking about what happened to him. My last memories of him were of a fun, living, laughing guy (who challenged me to go into a club that I thought was a brothel) and to hear his condition now, well it just leaves me speechless. Mark didn't get a last lecture but I wonder what he would have said.

Most of my close friends know that I am not a religious person, in fact I am an atheist. Which leads some people to think I am not spiritual. I guess if you equate having religious beliefs with spirituality than I am not. I guess I believe that most things in life happen because of choices individuals makes with a small remainder of random shit that happens. Randy Pauch's cancer falls into the random bad shit that happens to good people. Mark's tragedy is because of choice. Not his own but of the drunk driver who chose to risk people's lives when he put that key in the ignition. When you think about it that way, it is much harder to be an atheist than say a Christian in my opinion. For example, a Christian may believe Randy Pauch's cancer may be unfortunate but since he is a good person he will go to heaven. Or in the case of Mark, God will help heal Mark and/or send to Hell the drunk driver who hit him. But for an atheist, it is just a random interplay of certain genes and factors that caused Pauch to get cancer and it was idiotic drunken asshole who decided to hop in his car rather than take a cab that ultimately led to where Mark is right now. Change one or two things around, and maybe Pauch's cancer is treatable and he won't leave his three young children without a father or maybe that drunk driver leaves two minutes later and misses Mark but then again maybe he hits someone else. To me, its the randomness and the impact of some strangers' choices. There is no absolution in the end. No God that will make sure Pauch and Mark will end up alright and conversely, make sure the drunk driver is eternally damned. Nothing.

So yeah, what does this all mean. For anybody who reads it, take what you will. For me, I am going to start doing things I want to do before some random event or someone's choice decides for me. So that means less procrastinating and more going out of my comfort zone. Do I think this will last. I don't know. But I think the events of the past few weeks tell me that is worth a shot. Take care everyone. Until next time, peace.