Tuesday, April 23, 2013

A-Z Challenge: Time

Time.  I'm going to tackle this one from multiple angles.

For starters, I've been short on time lately.  Work is busy.  It's a good kind of busy, though, working for a growing company with a bunch of good people.  But the work / life balance is difficult.  You know how the old formula goes:

(work * (two kids + dog) / (wife - cost of living) = get back to work

The hours at the office limit my personal initiatives.  I'm planning to run a half-marathon, but I'm only getting out and running once a week...a long run on the weekends.  It hurts. 

This A-Z challenge has certainly lived up to its name...but it's a challenge I've needed because I haven't been writing much else lately.  I've been getting up early to make the time to post, but when you miss a weekend day, it's tough to catch up again. 

Time is relative, though.  I have a bit of jetlag today.  I flew to California on Sunday, you see, and got to bed at 10:00 pm California time, which is 1:00 am Ohio time.  Then I woke up at 7:30 am Ohio time, which is 4:45 am California time.  I got caught up on work, had a great meeting, then flew home, a destination I reached at 11:00 pm California time, which is 2:00 am Ohio time.  Then I got to work by 9:00 am Ohio time, whihc is 6:00am California time.  So you get the point.  My internal clock is a bit scrambled.

But if you do it right, you can manipulate and stretch time when you travel.  I've flown to Chicago and arrived before I took off, thanks to a 55-minute flight to a destination 60 minutes behind.

One time I flew home from Germany on my birthday.  October 10th lasted 30 hours that year. It might have been 31 hours, actually, because I touched ground in Chicago to change planes and then flew ahead to Ohio.  You see, Dusseldorf is six hours ahead of Ohio, and I flew back chasing the sun..and winning.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around, to come up behind you again
The sun is the same, in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death...
-  "Time" by Roger Waters / Pink Floyd

Dark Side of the Moon holds a Guinness World Record for being in the charts longer than any other album in history...591 consecutive weeks (a little over 11 years straight).  It's a masterpiece, best listened to in whole, and rather loud. 

"Time" stands out for it's blend of insightful lyrics, music (how many songs open with a cool drum solo?), and sound effects (thanks to Alan Parsons, who had once recorded every clock in a shop). 

Roger Waters was pushing thirty when he wrote those lyrics.  He had been playing with Pink Floyd for a decade, successful enough to make a living, but not yet a superstar. 

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run.  You missed the starting gun...

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2 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Not a Floyd fan, but I appreciate that song.

Anne Gallagher said...

I used to be able to tell time by the sun when I lived at the beach. It's a lot harder to do now, living in the mountains.

I love that song by Pink Floyd. It's so poignant.

And I love traveling to the West Coast even though it messes with my internal clock. I like thinking I have extra time.