Today’s Music: Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – Skaboy JFK
I have a love/hate relationship with gravity. From an astromechanical point of view, I love being in its pull, zooming earthward, only to pull up/bounceback/splash through at the end.
The feeling of wind whipping past your head at terminal velocity while your brains try and pick which ear to crawl out of is one of those experiences that make life worth living.
Sure, physics will make this much clearer!
Then there’s interpersonal gravity. The only person who’s gravity well I’ve fallen into is my wife’s (The Most Wonderful Girl In The Universe. That means that I keep myself attuned to where she is, what her mood is, and whether she needs a hug or caress or joke from me. (To be fair, she’s also pretty good at knowing when I need one of those, or when I need to give her one.
There’s also the gravity of situations. I spent last Friday working at our data center until about 2130 diagnosing a server failure. Turns out it was a bad memory chip.
But it needed to be found, and the server’s disposition needed to be definitively diagnosed – would we be able to get it up by market open Monday? Did we have spare memory for it? Was Guap going to accidentally power down a whole rack of servers? Again?
(The answers were Yes, Sort of, No, NO!)
Three very different uses of the word gravity, all sort of tied together by different facets of the same definition.
Some bad, but some pretty damn good.
That’s my post for today.
Can you see what I’m getting at?
Yes! I am painfully bored!
Oh, and if anyone has anything I can jump off of, I’m open to suggestions (he said with gravitas).
Guapola 
Glad you figured it out, Guap.
You’ll like this clip — I thought of you when I watched it (at my son’s request). The scenery is magnificent.
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My stomach was in my throat watching some of those.
but I WANNA GO!!!
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You just think you do, be serious!
Okay, that was the best 3+ minutes in awhile, but NO, you can’t make me.
Some things are just meant to be watched and enjoyed (music great too)
Patti
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Oh, I would definitely try that, after I had a whole bunch of drop time under my belt! Wind and aerodynamics along a cliff is completely different from the same on an open air jump from a plane (I’ve heard).
If I ever get there, I’ll wear a helmet cam so we can both enjoy “GOOD LORD WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?” footage.
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Yes! As long as we have this understanding…
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Hey, you can jump off of my imaginary pony!
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ha! I bet that’s a trap!
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Pfft. Now WHY would you think that???
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Ha! I knew someone who once powered down the entire floor of a stock exchange. Fantastic. I am trying to imagine how hard it must be to FIND the bad chip and how much sweating and swearing must be involved!
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Surprisingly, IT guys can curse with the best of them.
I’ve been on the floor of the NYSE and met some of their tech guys. I bet they never let your friend live it down.
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Just for you.
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I would be terrified of doing a bellyflop.
Wouldn’t stop me tho!
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That a way!
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Awesome video!!!
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Thank you!
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Sorry Guap…I am so fascinated by those two videos above I forgot what I was going to say.
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No apology needed – they’re great distractions!
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This weekend I taught my 18 month old nephew the word gravity. He already knew the concept but now he knows what to call it when he experiences the phenomena.
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If he can explain the math behind it, I’ll be very impressed!
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But not during naptime.
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Oh, and by the way, in a grand waterslide adventure my “as I started to descend” scream wasn’t EEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH! It was “I want a pony!” Unfortunately the meaning was lost on the listeners though they were able to make it out.
Hope your today is a good one.
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I hope this will be the start of the Adventure Pony movement!
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Congratulations I nominated you for the Shine On Award 🙂
http://kmushbeauty.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/shine-on-award/
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Thanks so much, kmush!
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Hope you have a better day today…dealing with all that gravity can be heavy…hahahaha…get it? Heavy? Yeah…I’m bored too…ugh.
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Yeah, these long days are really weighing us down!
(See what I did there? Didja? Didja?)
Sigh…
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Hahaha….Yeah.
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Gravity and I are not friends. We stopped talking to each other when I turned 40. 🙂
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I actually appreciate that it keeps me down when I’m too drunk to walk.
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This handsome man he is named El Guapola
Diagnosed some server crapola
With furrowed brow-ed gravity
and his leap towards the cavity
He sussed out the shit from shinola
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Good lord! If I ever have need of business cards again, I’m printing this on them!
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awwwwwww
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We should thank gravity for the underwire bra 😉
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I don’t thank anything for bras… 😀
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You may jump off ONE, I said ONE, squirrel. That’s it…nothing else….shall I send a squirrel unit to help you with the server problems?
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You know, if you give me two, I can use them like rollerskates.
WHEEEE!!!!
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I love when you mention TMWGITU. It always makes me smile. Having been in IT wayyyyyyyyyyyyy back when Windows 2.0 had just come out, I still have flashbacks to server problems. But this was when servers were backed up onto tapes, and when an entire server held less than the average smartphone today.
Also, gravity sucks. Or pulls. Or something.
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TMWGITU is the only thing that makes the rest of the tomfoolery bearable.
I still remember struggling to install drivers on NT4. I got into this when Windows 3.5 was just about (thankfully) history.
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I rather like defying gravity. Which reminds me I need to call the shop and see if my broom is repaired properly.
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I like playing with gravity, in an endless complex ballet of BOING….Boing…boING….
(Is it a Nimbus 3000?)
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Only the best, dahling.
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I got nothing for you, aside from being like Weebs, and smiling when you mention TMWGITU. Otherwise, I’m lying on my sofa, enjoying the central air.
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I would love a day of lying on the couch.
Fortunately, we’re taking a Mental Health day tomorrow.
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I’m a technological illiterate, but a lot of my friends work in IT, so I have some idea of the demanding nature of the job. I’ve noticed there are two kinds of IT guys–the proactive kind, which I’ll bet you are, who try to anticipate problems, and reactors, dudes who spend all their time putting out fires.
Hope you beat back that boredom! Boredom kills me, man.
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On the bright side, the new memory came, so I’ll be back at the data center tonight.
Yay.
I think none of us would be surprised at the stats if boredom could be listed as a cause of many accidents.
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I love the gravity between you and your wife. You are so fortunate…. I hope she never has to diagnose a bad chip in your memory, like if you live until you’re 102. Maybe there will be a machine by then to do that… I don’t know why I’m in a down, alzheimery mood today. I’ll go read your previous post now.
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Gah! If there’s anything I can do to cheer you up, let me know!
(And my wife enjoys pointing out when I’ve done something stupid.)
(Not that I’ll ever admit to doing something stupid though…) 😉
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Gaup, you really shut down an entire rack of servers? That’s effin’ hilarious.
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Totally my fault. Installing a new server, rack was already drawing about 13 amps (15 amp circuit). Plugged in the new one, it spiked to 17 during the boot.
Poof – 3 primary production servers.
Every time I was on my way to the data center for the next six months, I had to listen to warnings about plugging a vibrator into the production rack.
Hmph.
Finally, we went with dual power supplies on redundant circuits.
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Bahahahahaha! That’s great.
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Looking at the bright side, at least you got to go home by midnight. 🙂 Seriously, it was good that the problem was resolved before the week ended or the next week began.
Your question reminded me of that movie/ play – Stop the World, I want to Get Off. I hope the boredom is not so much that you would wish to jump of the world even for a brief moment. 🙂
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Ha! Jumping off the world sounds like a great stunt!
I’m just worried about the landing.
(I have no interest in dying just yet, but the thrill of the risk is exhilarating.)
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I love gravity when Wonderbutt is sleeping upside down and it pulls his jowls toward the floor. Maybe if I sleep upside down like him, it will pull my wrinkles out.
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Careful, sleeping like that may cause other WB behaviors too!
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I’m just glad John Mayer wasn’t your music for the day.
He’s ok, though I guess. Just think he’s a whiny, rude, entitled wanker. I’d rather be stuck in an elevator with Richard Simmons.
Hey, there’s a gravity question… If you’re in an elevator that’s lost power and going down quick, would jumping really high save your life when it crashed? Always wondered. But never wanted to test the theory.
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Ha! I wonder that at least once a week in an elevator.
I also wonder how I’ll know we’re about to hit bottom so I know when to jump…
I heard an interview where John Mayer said he met Eric Clapton and he was going on about how someone had set the meeting up so Eric could “pass the torch” or somesuch to John.
Then I read someone asked Clapton about it and he said something like “Nice kid. Not really my thing though…”.
Right there with you on John Mayer.
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You sir, have always blinded me with science. I’m always glad I came across you. Or hey, maybe you came across me and then I hit you back. Never mind the details, I’m all about your big wave now that I found it. And thanks for that. Really. Thanks.
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Fortunately,science would also be happy to restore your vision!
I occasionally try and remember how I’ve met people on here. We probably met through Susie.
No matter how it happened, I enjoy your company and posts.
And seriously, you have the best analogies in the game.
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Gravity is not my friend (I refer to my recent fall). Also to the damn thing in my ear that keeps going wonky & not allowing my head to know where it is in relation to the rest of space! Gravity . . .
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Gravity is definitely overrated.
Though it does keep all my stuff (and me) from floating away, so…
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Wow!!! Gravity is amazing! I can feel that too (in my dreams) 😀
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Ha! Many of my dreams feature a lack of gravity.
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Proving once again there is always something to be thankful for. Even if it’s just gravity. Go Jupiter!
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Reblogged this on hastywords and commented:
It really doesn’t get much better than this!!!! Love like this deserves to be noticed, witnessed, enjoyed, and spread like the cure to a disease.
Then there’s interpersonal gravity. The only person who’s gravity well I’ve fallen into is my wife’s (The Most Wonderful Girl In The Universe. That means that I keep myself attuned to where she is, what her mood is, and whether she needs a hug or caress or joke from me. (To be fair, she’s also pretty good at knowing when I need one of those, or when I need to give her one.
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Thank you thank you!!!
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umm… Gravity makes my man-boobs sag… that’s why I am going to the gym now… but that part about getting caught in your wife’s gravity well was freekin’ awesome… unless she actually is so large that she has a gravity well… and then… sorry…
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Mostly I like the gravity effect stretching other…things…
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You say that now, but when your balls are dragging on the floor…
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It’ll be like one of those bouncy things!
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Except there would be two of them… and there would be more purple mixed with the red… if you bounce on them…
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