Another week gone by, and I’m sat here trying to work out what actually happened versus what feels like it happened. Spoiler alert: physics was involved in both versions.
This week brought a school trip that served as a rather dramatic reminder of why I have such nice, safe indoor hobbies. Someone in their infinite wisdom decided it would be character-building to start us off on one of those treetop obstacle courses. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Picture this: me, twenty feet up in the canopy, quite literally shaking in my boots while white-knuckling safety lines and questioning every life choice that led to being suspended on wobbly planks between trees. Every few minutes I’d be reminded exactly why I prefer my feet firmly planted on solid ground, ideally indoors, preferably near a nice warm computer that doesn’t sway in the wind.
The truly bizarre bit? I found myself reciting Newton’s laws like they were some sort of fucking mantra keeping me from plummeting to my death, using them to work out how to swing rope obstacles in my direction and calculating momentum transfers for platform jumps. Physics as a survival mechanism… There’s definitely something deeply wrong with me, but at least it’s consistent.
Despite every fibre of my being screaming that I belonged on terra firma with a cup of tea, completing the course felt absolutely incredible. There’s something weirdly addictive about doing the exact thing that terrifies you, even when your rational brain is filing formal complaints about the whole situation.
After that ordeal, the mountain portion felt like a gentle reward. Pleasant views, fresh air, and the occasional hill to roll down, standard mountain activities that don’t require waivers or existential questioning.
Speaking of physics appearing in unexpected places, the dreaded “physics teacher Daniel” made his annual bonus appearance this week. Usually he only gets two or three proper outings a year, generally reserved for electronics and wave theory as they relate to radio work, but we had an impromptu session. Inertia and net force were explained (again, but this time to people who weren’t clinging to tree branches), rude analogies were deployed with surgical precision, and she was on the call too. Having my favourite person there whilst I got to ramble about objects at rest and unbalanced forces made the whole thing particularly enjoyable, there’s something quite lovely about sharing the things you’re genuinely passionate about when there’s someone there who you care about (whether any of my actual teaching was listened to or relevant specifically to her, that’s another question…) I really love sharing knowledge with people, it’s become such a fundamental part of who I am that apparently I’ll do it even when suspended 10 metres above the ground.
Back in the civilised world of things that don’t require safety harnesses or impromptu physics lessons, life ticks along at its usual pace. The printers have been churning away happily, producing whatever random bits and pieces I’ve thrown at them. The new laptop continues its streak of actually working, which still feels like a minor miracle after the ThinkPad debacle.
I’ve also been deep in the weeds with some codido ng projects, most notably working on an RPN scientific calculator app for the laptop. It’s purely a personal challenge really, there are plenty of excellent emulators for the HP48 and such that do everything you could want and more. But sometimes you just need to build something yourself, even if it’s reinventing a perfectly good wheel. There’s something satisfying about implementing your own stack operations and trigonometric functions, like solving a puzzle that nobody asked you to solve.
All in all, not a bad week. Large frights, small victories, and the occasional reminder that physics really is everywhere, whether you want it to be or not.
73, Daniel