I've been reading "Time Enough For Love" by Robert Anson Heinlein recently. It's the story of one "Lazarus Long", man's oldest living man (approx 2000 years old). I started reading this because I had stumbled across a truly amazing quote from the story:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
When I sought out the origin of the quote, I found that the author had a lot of other really good quotes. The bulk of them seemed to come from "Time Enough for Love", so the next time I was ordering junk from Amazon, I slipped it into my cart. So far, it's a good book. The human race has spread out through the cosmos, people can essentially "live forever" thanks to rejuvanation techniques, but many choose to terminate their lives after a couple hundred years. The main character (Lazarus Long) was born in 1912 as part of a long-life selective breeding experiment, and lived long enough naturally (say around 250 years) to see inter-stellar flight and ultimately to benefit from rejuvination/cloning techniques.
In the course of his long life, he has done pretty much everything and is now bored and wants to die. He attempted to go off and die peacefully, but was rescued by his descendants (which are a major power in the galaxy). Apparently, they require some final service from him, but their true goal is not yet revealed. Currently in the tale, Lazarus is being persuaded to tell his life stories; to share his wisdom as it is. So far, it's a very good read.
In more present-day news, it seems that 15 days remain till the wedding ceremony. At this point, we're pretty much just dealing with final steps such as flowers and ceremonial music. All in all though, everything has come together nicely.
The bedroom itself is done. The closet is in the final stages. I actually just finished sanding down the mud and putting a coat of paint on. It'll need one more coat, then I need to wire in the the fixtures and put the shelf in. In theory, it's one day's work. The door between the bedroom and the bathroom still needs the doorknob put in place. To do that, I'll need to drill a hole of a certain size into the doorframe, and I haven't looked to see if I have the right tools or not.
In the meantime, we've also been working on cleaning up the house and getting all the construction remnants put away (or tossed when appropriate). It's a major job going from "remodelling phase" to "finished house".
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