"Chance" cannot be defined except as a measure of the
observer's ignorance of the future.
- Freeman Dyson
We have a realistic presidential candidate who is of my generation (I've recently been told that we call it the Jones generation). Barack was borne the year before me ('61 vs '62). For the first time since I've been empowered to vote there's a candidate I'm willing to vote *FOR* rather than voting against.
Bloody shame he's black (or half-black), if he wins we'll not know if it was because of his skin color or because people think he's a good person working hard for a powerful office on behalf of the world's greatest nation.
March 20th
Kathy took me to the Arlo Guthrie concert in Seattle, that very
evening at 7:05 I ran out of cigarettes :-(. It was a terrific
concert, I still need to hit the store and get more smokes.
April 13th
On my way to the fire station for drill, I crashed on Bunny. To
this day I don't remember a thing about the crash, in fact, I
don't recall anything about the afternoon. Bunny was trashed, I
suffered assorted minor issues and missed 3 weeks of work. I got
no stitches, no casts, and no surgery was needed. All told I did
OK. My gratitude goes to the MBRFPD, LifeFlight, and Emanuel.
MBRFPD's crew first responded and cared for me until LifeFlight
showed up to whisk me away. I know nothing about the LifeFlight
folk, but they got me to Emanuel in one chunk. In 44 years this
is the only time I've been on a helicopter and I have no
recollection of the flight. Sigh. I've no doubt that the doctors
at Emanuel are top notch, but I never really saw them in the few
days I spent there. The nurses, however, were the best. This was
clearly a crew devoted to their patients. Through all this Kathy
was by my side, she took time off work, drove countless added
miles, and did whatever it took to be there for me.
While in the hospital I find out that my employer (c-cor) is having a layoff. For whatever reason I'm not dumped, I'm instead assigned to a new project. 4 of us on the project are in OR (2 FPGA, 2 SW), the rest are in CT.
Sometime in September
Kathy & I broke up after some number of years (4ish?).
Sometime shortly later
Kathy purchased a house and moved into it, *now* there's talk about
attempting to fix our issues.
Concurrently
The cats (Mark, Monique, Nini, Certosino, Loquito) realized that
there's no longer a "lady of the house". They organized and took
over. They've learned how to open the back door, they've taken to
sleeping on the bed, I fear one of these days they'll decide they
no longer have to share, then I'll be on the back porch.
Late December
I made the January house payment a bit in advance and thus
achieved my goal of under $100,000 by the end of the year.
We were in bed, awake but just barely. Suddenly the sweet, sweet crack of a rifle went off, then another. Moments later a few more reassuring shots drifted through the air. Just the day before we'd reassured our neighbor that it was as always just fine for him to harvest, err, hunt, elk in our south field. I hopped up, threw some clothes on and wandered up to see what the crop was like this year. He and his son-in-law each had a tag, and they'd both put them to good use. Two cows, one good size, one a bit smaller. They're guessing 450 lbs once dressed. His daughter was already in the truck heading off to get the tractor to haul the crop home. Last year I got some sausage and liver for letting them do what I'd have happily done anyhow, maybe I'll be equally lucky this year. A day of coyotes, buzzards, ravens, and crows seems like a small price to pay.
The goddess was good.
While I wrote that paragraph another 226722 gallons of water fell on us, line up the next 10 households.
Tom's (one of my co-workers) daughter & wife rescued 4 ducklings about a week after our rescue (see below), he got tired of ducks in his kitchen (duh) so I got them. Pictures coming soon.
Two nights ago I picked up my bees! I raced them home, made syrup for them and installed them in their home which I've previously assembled and painted. All went smoothly, here they've just been poured into the hive, you can just see the queen's cage under them. This is right after I got the feeder and cover on the hive.
About a week ago we found 3 ducklings caught in the chicken pen's fence. Since there was no mother around we adopted them.
The "some new chicks" referenced below turned into 39 new chicks, 6 of which we are raising for our neighbor. Now we'll have to figure out who to feed some 40 eggs a day to. At this point they're pretty much completely feathered out and for the most part look like half-size chickens. Pictures later.
Tonight we pick up some new chicks to supplement our 9 hens, they have a nice warm place in the garage for their first month or so. The idea of getting 30 eggs a day is somewhat daunting, what if the people who say they want lots of fresh eggs decide they don't?
Sunday morning I became double the uncle I was before. Mark and Anna (brother & wife) presented the world with Antoni, a bit early but in good health and as beautiful as a baby can be expected to be (which isn't saying much).
I bought a mini Mac to complement my PowerBook. These two toys rock. They've made it easier than ever to have no Microsoft software at home and have made it such that I no longer much use my Unix boxes either. Talk about pretty, robust, and easy to use. Things that used to seem difficult and that required days of scripting now just happen with a few mouse clicks.
I've actually wanted a Mac since my brother got one of the original ones way back in 1984 but for one reason or another I've held off. What was I thinking? Oh well, someone born when I first fell for the Mac would be almost old enough to raise a pint and toast my new toy with me <grin>.
For 2005 nCube is no longer. We got purchased by a Pennsylvania company called C-COR. As seems to always be the case we had an immediate round of layoffs, I was spared though many good comrades fell. I'm not yet certain how this is going to work out though due to too really good layers of management between me and the new overlord I can't say that I've noticed a substantial change in my work. As a matter of fact the only real changes seem to stem from our overlord's mediocre and rather arrogant IT department, I'm thinking of buying them each a copy of DNS for dummies. Fortunately they kept enough of our old IT group that through lots and lots of hustling on their part things keep moving forward.
I'm starting to think that I have a curse I carry around with me. I've been fortunate to be hired on by two wonderful companies with very rich histories, Sequent and nCube. Both have been acquired by other companies and the old legendary names have been tossed out. I guess that's life in the high tech world for you.
My sister sent me a great picture of herself with Pico. She also sent pictures of her new pet Gwynnie, part Harbor Seal, and part Black Lab.
Kathy, my girlfriend has moved in with me. I've been living alone for many years so it will take me some time to get used to the new state of affairs. When we get tired of each other we'll be able to hide behind stacks of boxes :-).
I've finally bought a place in Mist. The process was agonizing but I finally closed on the 31st of December of 2002. The requirements were simple enough. I wanted enough land to be able to keep horses on and to afford me solitude when I want it but I want to be close enough to civilization that I can get to work and visit with my friends when in a social mood. Having set my requirements as less than one hour commute time, more than 25 acres, and obviously a $$$ limit the search was all but easy. Several potentials turned up and got rejected for some reason or other. What I finally came up with is an 83 acre farm in Mist, OR. No horses yet but I'm hoping to fix that before winter comes along.
I now work for nCUBE, we make video on demand (VOD) systems based on herperconnected cubes constructed from PCs on steroids running a derivative of Bell Labs's Plan 9. We are a small company, of about 180 very motivated people. We are small enough that there is the definite feeling that every individual makes a real difference. IBM purchasing and destroying Sequent and the total waste of my life which a year and a half at Veritas amounted to makes this job seem fantastic. I love my job!
After a one year error in which I got stuck in new england, I've been back in Oregon since May of '97. Prior to my Boston, MA hiatus, I had lived here since September 28th of 1982. Before that I spent 11 years in Milan, Italy and 5 prior to that in France. All that went by before that is irrelevant as I don't remember it. I used to spend my days working for IBM since they bought my employer Sequent Computer Systems. I finally got away from them and found employment at Veritas. Turns out that was a mistake. Sigh. For more info on what I do and have done, look at my resume.
My friends [?] refer to me as the nerd, this is in fact my login and email address in many places.
For three years my life was governed by motorcycle racing. I've now retired from racing but I had lots of fun when I did it, some of my adventures are chronicled here.
My favorite pastimes include motorcycling, horses, reading, ice cream, chocolate, photography, sailing, and skiing.
My main motorcycle is a Honda ST1100, whom I'm very fond of, she's called Black Rabbit, Bunny for short. I just picked up my first dirt-bike in almost 30 years, a KTM 625 SXC. Hmmm, maybe that mid-life crisis isn't over after-all :-). I also have a backup bike, it is a Honda Ascot VT500 called Ebb. This is my old bike, a Kawasaki Concourse which was giving me many more problems than it was worth even though she and I have had many a good time together, she was Bunny the 1st.
I prefer Porter beers, my favorite being Black Butte Porter brewed in Bend, OR. Another excellent Porter comes from the Bridgeport in Portland, OR located on 13th and Marshall. If you end up near either one, have one for me too.
My favorite ice creams come from Tillamook, OR. Specifically I love Brown Cow, French Silk, and Cookie Dough. Yum! This already great ice cream is made better by the fantastic motorcycle ride through the coastal range needed to get there.
My brother Mark is a real rocket scientist at the Los Alamos National Labs, check him out.
My sister does not have her own web page but here's a picture of her with her current favorite horse Pico.
Many of my friend's have a web presence, Jason Edwards, Greg Becker, Jeff Beadles, Lorne Vaught, Christine Moore, Allen Thompson, Ed Drury, and Kathy Blain.
Coming soon, some interesting pictures I've taken over the years.
