Time in a bottle

Time......

Too little...too much....not enough......where did it go.....how much is left....I don't have any...when will it be...

Damned if I know. All these are questions asked thousands of times a day, week in and week out.

We....that is mankind has been measuring it in some fashion for as long as we've had any cognitive thought processes at all. Whether it's making marks on the cell wall counting the days left or the days spent, we all in some form or another tend to keep up with time.

Why???.....good question, and I don't have a good answer for it that will do the subject justice.....there's just so many reasons...all of them related and all specific to our particular situation at the moment. Moment.....once defined as

A moment is actually a medieval unit of time equal to 1/40 hour or 1.5 minutes or 90 seconds. Of course now it means a short period of time

Source here

As a youngster I used to love to spring that definition on someone. It's funny sometimes the things that stick in your brain.

Anyway....I've always loved keeping time... every first my first Timex watch when a teenager. Of course back then you had to wind the mainspring every morning....
but I enjoyed being able to keep up with the passage of time...to be able to show up at the allotted hour.

Of course while I was in the Army flying fling wings it was important to know the time accurately. Take offs were set for a specific time......missions started at a specific time...... Instrument landings were timed after the crossing of a beacon..you started your descent at a specific time.....and of course you had to log your flight time in the log book accurately.

But, beyond all those things I just like being able to measure time. I like clocks and watches.....especially wrist watches and pocket watches.

I still have the Omega Speedmaster Chronograph I bought in 1972 because it was the same kind of watch the astronauts that went to the moon wore. It still keeps great time although mostly now it is regulated to an occasional wearing just for old times sake.

I have work watches...dress watches and even one that was give to the UGA Bulldog staff for being in the SEC championship game that they lost to LSU several years ago. Got it from a pawnshop here in Athens. I wish I still had the watch they got the year before when they won the SEC championship. In a moment of weakness I sold it to a friend who had attended UGA. I later learned he'd traded it to someone else. Mostly my watches are not expensive. I after all cannot afford a Rolex or some of the big name watches. Bulova is about my price range and I don't mean the really nice ones.

But occasionally even a blind hog turns up and acorn or two.

I picked up from my jeweler buddy in Toccoa today (also got a glimpse of the Portuguese beauty) a couple of watches I had him send off to be cleaned and adjusted. Got them with a bunch of scrap a couple weeks ago. I bought them for the gold cases. 18 kt gold both of them....one a Lucien Piccard (a quartz movement, but at least a Swiss movement and not one from China).....the other a Girard Perreagaux with a self winding movement (maybe 50 years old?).

In a day and time when Walmart is the king of retailers and China makes everything it seems, it's nice to see precision timepieces and remember that there is still quality in the world.

Both in watches, and people.

I'm thankful to know some of both. It's difficult to part from either.