On Sunday, I went to a memorial service for a guy a used to work with, back in my airline days. He was 50 years old, with a wife and a fourteen year old daughter. He died of complications due to lung cancer, but wasn't a smoker, and was an athlete and outdoors man all his life. I never really knew him well, but we worked together for about 8 years on and off, and enjoyed giving each other crap and a lot of joking around.
He was diagnosed with cancer in July of 2008, and fought it with everything he had, and a positive spirit. I had lost touch with him after I left the company in January of 2008, and didn't even know he was sick until I was told that he had died a week ago last Sunday. It kind of took my breath away.
I went to the memorial for a couple of reasons. One, to show my support for the family, and to let them know that a lot of people will have good memories of him, far beyond those who knew him really well. The other reason, was probably a little selfish, but it was to see some of the folks I hadn't talked to or seen since I left the airline. I wanted them to know I still was out there, and that I hadn't forgotten all the good friendships when my career moved on.
But what really struck me as I listened to the eulogies, one given by his pastor, one given by his best friend, one by his brother, and one by his brother-in-law, was the long term bonds that he had formed in his life, and how much these people still meant to each other. His college room-mate was still his best friend. They lived close to each other, hung out on long weekends camping together on father-daughter trips, and drank micro-brews together on the weekends.
I felt slightly jealous of that. I've moved around a lot in my life, and was driven by a lot of solo projects and solo efforts. I enjoyed long distance cycling when I was in Colorado for the challenge and the solace. I like to read and write and play golf because it relaxes me and they're all things I can do by myself. I worked hard, and jumped at opportunities around the country (and from Canada to the US) because I could, and I didn't have anything to tie me down in my younger years. I don't regret moving here, as I have a great life, with a wonderful family and a job I love. But I haven't formed those long term bonds that he had. I don't have friends who have known me all my adult life and know all the stories about the stupid stuff I did in college, or that wild weekend in Wasaga Beach the summer of 1992, or how close I came to falling off a cliff in Utah in 1996. I know those stories, and some I'll tell to my kids (perhaps as cautionary tales), but there's something about someone you know coming up to you and asking 'Hey, do you remember that time..." that I probably won't get to experience as often as I'd like.
But I also realized, as I drove home, that it wasn't (hopefully) too late too make the effort to reconnect with some of those folks I used to know. More than to just add them as friends in Facebook, but to try to see them once in a while, hang out, and to help out when needed. Friendship isn't something that's always easy, but at least it's easier and more clear cut for me, since I'm a guy. Guy's have notoriously lower maintenance friendships than that other gender. I'm just saying.
Anyway, we all lead busy lives, and there's a hundred excuses we can find for not doing stuff with our friends. But maybe, just once in a while we need to sacrifice the important stuff, like watching a rerun of some old movie, to do the really important stuff like go and have a beer with an old friend, or to write an email to someone you haven't talked to in five or ten years.
So if you want to hang out and have a beer sometime soon, and I haven't called you already, give me a holler.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
What's new?
Again, it's been a long time since we've updated this. Life gets pretty hectic, and some things fall by the wayside.
The kids are doing great, and talking up a storm. Whoever calls the house these days usually gets the 'treat' of getting to talk to them on the phone for as long as they want to listen. Its cute to us, but probably not so cute to the sales people who cold call us. No, we don't really do that. But we should.
Reece loves to play on the little V_Tech computers we bought them for Christmas. He can count (usually misses #4 for some reason), and knows a lot of the letters by sight now. He's better at some of the games than I am already. But I still kick his but on the XBox. No mercy!
We got out of our routine for a few weeks around Christmas and New Years with parties (birthdays x 3) and holidays, and three of four colds that ripped through the area and made everyone miserable. I was going to say this is the first week since Thanksgiving that everyone has been healthy, but there's a distinct possibility that the kids aren't feeling well tonight. They were asking to go to bed at 6:45 (a half hour early), saying Elmo was tired. And there was all the poop today. That might be another indicator.
We try not to watch a lot of TV, but the kids do love Sesame Street as long as Big Bird and Elmo are on all the time. And they like watching Daddy's Fire Truck show, an old drama I DVR from one of the Retro networks called "Emergency". My mom and I loved that show growing up, and unlike a lot of old shows, it hasn't aged badly. We'll watch an episode on Saturday or Sunday morning sometimes.
Work is going well for me, but extremely busy, and will stay that way until at least the end of July as I am working on a big project. I'm learning a lot, but this is definitely the most high profile project I've ever worked on, and the pressure to get it right is going to be enormous by the end of it.
Lisa is still working as well, and actually added a few more hours per week (now 3.5 days instead of 3). She's dancing a lot and going to another dance competition this weekend.
I finished writing my latest novel on January 1st, and have been going through my old writing and finishing off some short stories I've had laying around before I jump back in to a major effort again. I've been slowly editing it as well, and trying to find a publisher / agent to help me market it, but that, I hear, can be as much work as writing it in the first place. I'm not holding my breath at this point. Once I get this edit done on it, I may circulate it a little bit to see if people like it. It's going to take me a month or two to edit it at the rate I am going right now though.
I haven't done much reading lately, so no reviews today. We also haven't seen any really good movies lately either. We've been watching Battlestar Galactica, House, CSI, and a pretty funny show on the CBC called Being Erica.
I started working in the garden on Sunday, pulling weeds and planning the vegetables for this year. But it snowed here today, so I might still be a little early. Only in the Pacific Northwest do the weeds grow bigger in the winter than in the summer. What a mess.
Anyway, that's about it. I'll post some pictures tonight too if any of the 300+ on our camera turned out. We'll soon see.
The kids are doing great, and talking up a storm. Whoever calls the house these days usually gets the 'treat' of getting to talk to them on the phone for as long as they want to listen. Its cute to us, but probably not so cute to the sales people who cold call us. No, we don't really do that. But we should.
Reece loves to play on the little V_Tech computers we bought them for Christmas. He can count (usually misses #4 for some reason), and knows a lot of the letters by sight now. He's better at some of the games than I am already. But I still kick his but on the XBox. No mercy!
We got out of our routine for a few weeks around Christmas and New Years with parties (birthdays x 3) and holidays, and three of four colds that ripped through the area and made everyone miserable. I was going to say this is the first week since Thanksgiving that everyone has been healthy, but there's a distinct possibility that the kids aren't feeling well tonight. They were asking to go to bed at 6:45 (a half hour early), saying Elmo was tired. And there was all the poop today. That might be another indicator.
We try not to watch a lot of TV, but the kids do love Sesame Street as long as Big Bird and Elmo are on all the time. And they like watching Daddy's Fire Truck show, an old drama I DVR from one of the Retro networks called "Emergency". My mom and I loved that show growing up, and unlike a lot of old shows, it hasn't aged badly. We'll watch an episode on Saturday or Sunday morning sometimes.
Work is going well for me, but extremely busy, and will stay that way until at least the end of July as I am working on a big project. I'm learning a lot, but this is definitely the most high profile project I've ever worked on, and the pressure to get it right is going to be enormous by the end of it.
Lisa is still working as well, and actually added a few more hours per week (now 3.5 days instead of 3). She's dancing a lot and going to another dance competition this weekend.
I finished writing my latest novel on January 1st, and have been going through my old writing and finishing off some short stories I've had laying around before I jump back in to a major effort again. I've been slowly editing it as well, and trying to find a publisher / agent to help me market it, but that, I hear, can be as much work as writing it in the first place. I'm not holding my breath at this point. Once I get this edit done on it, I may circulate it a little bit to see if people like it. It's going to take me a month or two to edit it at the rate I am going right now though.
I haven't done much reading lately, so no reviews today. We also haven't seen any really good movies lately either. We've been watching Battlestar Galactica, House, CSI, and a pretty funny show on the CBC called Being Erica.
I started working in the garden on Sunday, pulling weeds and planning the vegetables for this year. But it snowed here today, so I might still be a little early. Only in the Pacific Northwest do the weeds grow bigger in the winter than in the summer. What a mess.
Anyway, that's about it. I'll post some pictures tonight too if any of the 300+ on our camera turned out. We'll soon see.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
We're dry
Just a quick update on the weather.
We seem to have escaped the flooding in our neighborhood, though I was getting very concerned yesterday. Down river from us, close to Puyallup and Fife, they said the Puyallup River was 6 inches from going over the top of the levees. We have a lot of friends living in those areas, and some, I think , were evacuated, but I haven't heard officially.
The USGS site today listed the previous record for January 8 for the flow rate on the Puyallup River at Alderton (just a mile from Sumner and 2 miles from my house) at 8550 cubic feet per second. The actual rate today: 53200 cfs. 6.5 times the previous record. That's a lot of water. It's the biggest recorded since 1917. I guess that is the hundred year flood.
Anyway, the rain is slowing down, and the freezing level has come down the mountain from 9500 feet to 2000 feet, so the snow melt has stopped. The river has crested, and the worst seems to be over.
Of course, the Sounder (the commuter rail system) wasn't running this morning so I drove in. Not too bad considering everything going on. We'll see how the trip home goes this afternoon.
We seem to have escaped the flooding in our neighborhood, though I was getting very concerned yesterday. Down river from us, close to Puyallup and Fife, they said the Puyallup River was 6 inches from going over the top of the levees. We have a lot of friends living in those areas, and some, I think , were evacuated, but I haven't heard officially.
The USGS site today listed the previous record for January 8 for the flow rate on the Puyallup River at Alderton (just a mile from Sumner and 2 miles from my house) at 8550 cubic feet per second. The actual rate today: 53200 cfs. 6.5 times the previous record. That's a lot of water. It's the biggest recorded since 1917. I guess that is the hundred year flood.
Anyway, the rain is slowing down, and the freezing level has come down the mountain from 9500 feet to 2000 feet, so the snow melt has stopped. The river has crested, and the worst seems to be over.
Of course, the Sounder (the commuter rail system) wasn't running this morning so I drove in. Not too bad considering everything going on. We'll see how the trip home goes this afternoon.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Monthly Update
I posted some pics earlier today, so i guess this counts as my third post of the day, which brings my daily average for the month up to ... .5?
Anyway, the last few weeks have been rather hectic.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving (American Thanksgiving, that is) I went fishing on the Columbia River with my father-in-law Roger, and my brother-in-law, Eric. I drove out to Eastern Washington on Friday night, and arrived at Eric's place around 11:00 PM. I made the necessary mistake of stopping at Starbucks in Ellensburg, Washington to get a cup of coffee around 9:15 PM, and therefore couldn't sleep all night. We were up at 4:00 AM to get to the river. We stopped at McDonald's on the way there for more coffee and a biscuit. Those of you who know me will be shocked by that admission. I haven't eaten at McDonald's since 1997, and had a very long streak of avoiding that place that I cherished. I hope I have now started another steak.
It was frightfully cold, but a beautiful day other than that. The stars were out, the coyotes were howling, and at sunup, the fish started biting. I landed a Steelhead at 7:15 AM, and Roger got one at 7:25. We took to the boat around 9:30 and Eric pulled in a Pike Minnow (aka Squawfish) and a Steelhead later in the day. We left the river around 2:00, drove back to Eric's, gutted and filleted the fish, and I headed home, arriving around 7:15 PM, just in time to see my kids off to bed. I slept well that night.
The following weekend, Lisa did a dance competition up in Everett, WA, and I was left with the kids for pretty much the whole weekend. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. They tend to not act up as much when it's just one of us at home. Not sure why that is.
Thanksgiving weekend we went to Lisa's parent's place for Turkey Day, and came back late at night, did our Christmas shopping on-line on Friday, and tried to take it easy. Unfortunately, while playing with Lorelai on Saturday morning, I took a spill and re-dislocated my right shoulder, something I've done four or five times in the past. This one was pretty bad though and I ended up in the ER on Saturday afternoon verifying that I had gotten it back into place correctly. I had, but it was still pretty sore for a few days.
This weekend, we took the kids to the Aquarium in downtown Seattle, and they had a blast. We got pretty tired chasing them all around, but they loved to splash in the tidal pool displays where you can touch the starfish, and it was fun to watch them point at all the fish. We also had lunch at a place called the Fisherman's Bar and Restaurant down on the pier, and they gave us a free pass to the indoor carousel next door. The kids loved riding on the horsees and I had to pry Reece's fingers loose when the ride came to a stop. We met up with Lisa's sister Katy there and she took some great photos of the kids. Lorelai loved running around the pier with her (as you can see in the photos).
In other news, my work is going very well. I'm working on a really big project that is very high profile in my industry. It's going to be a career maker if it works and I'm learning a lot about brand new technology that hasn't even been released to the public yet, doing stuff I never thought I'd get into, and really enjoying it.
My writing is still going really well too. I'm not sure if I will meet my goal of finishing the story I am working on by Christmas since I don't know how it is going to end yet, but it's nearly two hundred pages long at this point and the words keep coming, so I'll keep typing until they don't.
My reading list over the last few weeks has included:
The Sunrise Lands (SM Stirling) - Book 4 in the Change series. Pretty good, but not as good as book 1
Down the Long Hills (Louis L'Amour) - An old west yarn about two kids lost in the prairies. Pretty good and a quick read
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (Stephen King) - I loved this book about a little girl lost in the woods of Maine.
The Appeal (John Grisham) - Probably my least favorite JG book I've ever read, and I think I've read all his fiction.
Latest Movies
Definitely, Maybe -Yes it's a chick flick, but a good one. I'll give it 4 stars out of 5
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - not bad. I can see why it's so popular, but the soundtrack is pretty bad.
First Snow - Not bad, but not great
Four Brothers - Horrible movie. Skip it
Casino Royale - Had to watch this before we went to see Quantum of Solace (which we still haven't seen due to my shoulder injury.) Loved this movie.
Atonement - Pretty good movie, but a little hard to get into at the start
The Machinist - Freaky movie. Christian Bale dropped to 121 lbs to make this movie and looked really disgusting. The guy gets a little too into his part for my taste.
The Incredible Hulk - Actually a pretty good flick if you accept it for what it is, a comic book on steroids
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - A complete waste of 2 good hours.
Run, Fat Boy, Run - Not bad, but not up to my expectations for Simon Pegg
Anyway, the last few weeks have been rather hectic.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving (American Thanksgiving, that is) I went fishing on the Columbia River with my father-in-law Roger, and my brother-in-law, Eric. I drove out to Eastern Washington on Friday night, and arrived at Eric's place around 11:00 PM. I made the necessary mistake of stopping at Starbucks in Ellensburg, Washington to get a cup of coffee around 9:15 PM, and therefore couldn't sleep all night. We were up at 4:00 AM to get to the river. We stopped at McDonald's on the way there for more coffee and a biscuit. Those of you who know me will be shocked by that admission. I haven't eaten at McDonald's since 1997, and had a very long streak of avoiding that place that I cherished. I hope I have now started another steak.
It was frightfully cold, but a beautiful day other than that. The stars were out, the coyotes were howling, and at sunup, the fish started biting. I landed a Steelhead at 7:15 AM, and Roger got one at 7:25. We took to the boat around 9:30 and Eric pulled in a Pike Minnow (aka Squawfish) and a Steelhead later in the day. We left the river around 2:00, drove back to Eric's, gutted and filleted the fish, and I headed home, arriving around 7:15 PM, just in time to see my kids off to bed. I slept well that night.
The following weekend, Lisa did a dance competition up in Everett, WA, and I was left with the kids for pretty much the whole weekend. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. They tend to not act up as much when it's just one of us at home. Not sure why that is.
Thanksgiving weekend we went to Lisa's parent's place for Turkey Day, and came back late at night, did our Christmas shopping on-line on Friday, and tried to take it easy. Unfortunately, while playing with Lorelai on Saturday morning, I took a spill and re-dislocated my right shoulder, something I've done four or five times in the past. This one was pretty bad though and I ended up in the ER on Saturday afternoon verifying that I had gotten it back into place correctly. I had, but it was still pretty sore for a few days.
This weekend, we took the kids to the Aquarium in downtown Seattle, and they had a blast. We got pretty tired chasing them all around, but they loved to splash in the tidal pool displays where you can touch the starfish, and it was fun to watch them point at all the fish. We also had lunch at a place called the Fisherman's Bar and Restaurant down on the pier, and they gave us a free pass to the indoor carousel next door. The kids loved riding on the horsees and I had to pry Reece's fingers loose when the ride came to a stop. We met up with Lisa's sister Katy there and she took some great photos of the kids. Lorelai loved running around the pier with her (as you can see in the photos).
In other news, my work is going very well. I'm working on a really big project that is very high profile in my industry. It's going to be a career maker if it works and I'm learning a lot about brand new technology that hasn't even been released to the public yet, doing stuff I never thought I'd get into, and really enjoying it.
My writing is still going really well too. I'm not sure if I will meet my goal of finishing the story I am working on by Christmas since I don't know how it is going to end yet, but it's nearly two hundred pages long at this point and the words keep coming, so I'll keep typing until they don't.
My reading list over the last few weeks has included:
The Sunrise Lands (SM Stirling) - Book 4 in the Change series. Pretty good, but not as good as book 1
Down the Long Hills (Louis L'Amour) - An old west yarn about two kids lost in the prairies. Pretty good and a quick read
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (Stephen King) - I loved this book about a little girl lost in the woods of Maine.
The Appeal (John Grisham) - Probably my least favorite JG book I've ever read, and I think I've read all his fiction.
Latest Movies
Definitely, Maybe -Yes it's a chick flick, but a good one. I'll give it 4 stars out of 5
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - not bad. I can see why it's so popular, but the soundtrack is pretty bad.
First Snow - Not bad, but not great
Four Brothers - Horrible movie. Skip it
Casino Royale - Had to watch this before we went to see Quantum of Solace (which we still haven't seen due to my shoulder injury.) Loved this movie.
Atonement - Pretty good movie, but a little hard to get into at the start
The Machinist - Freaky movie. Christian Bale dropped to 121 lbs to make this movie and looked really disgusting. The guy gets a little too into his part for my taste.
The Incredible Hulk - Actually a pretty good flick if you accept it for what it is, a comic book on steroids
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - A complete waste of 2 good hours.
Run, Fat Boy, Run - Not bad, but not up to my expectations for Simon Pegg
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