I'm at Rachel's parents' house in rural New York outside of Rochester, with a large contingent of family (and bulldogs) below. For the moment I'm hiding out in the upstairs bedroom, taking a quick break to check email and blogs and, apparently, to write a quick post.

We're coming back to California tomorrow. In the last few days we've played in a 34-person poker tournament (I came in 5th), had Thanksgiving at Rachel's aunt's new beautiful home, visited with more relatives than I'll ever remember, but enjoyed meeting each one, lusted after the inexpensive homes and land while lamenting our lack of teleportation for commuting purposes, raked leaves for Rachel's grandparents, had some snow, raked soggy leaves for Rachel's parents, been french-kissed by an english bulldog, taken a whole slew of photos, played Monopoly for the first time in over a decade, and been offered a free horse with full tack.

Quite a busy Thanksgiving holiday! Anyhow, I'm told I'm missed downstairs and I need to get back. How was your Thanksgiving?

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Rachel and I are hosting our housewarming party in a few hours, and it's the biggest party either of us has ever had. From an evite of about 140 people we'll probably have about 100 guests, including most of my family, a whole lot of coworkers, and friends I've had for ages. It's like every part of my life is converging into our new house for one night only.

I read an article a few weeks ago (damn I wish Google Desktop Search worked with Firefox so I could google it and give you a link, but I just don't have enough context to find it on my own) about the 'successful New York party' and the importance of a diverse range of age, occupation, political views, and socioeconomic background. Tonight is probably the biggest gathering of people I know and cherish that I've ever seen, and should certainly warm our house.

Rachel's really smart. She clued in really early on how much has to go in to a good-sized shindig, and has been doing crazy amounts of work in getting all the ducks in a row -- damn those wandering ducks! -- and I hope I've been her able-bodied helper goose. Just in the last few days it's started settling in how this is as big a production as the move itself was. Now, each time someone IMs me or drops by my desk asking "So, are you ready for tonight?" I feel a little dumber at how long it took me to grasp what everyone else knows. I mean there's putting together a movie night for 10 of your friends when the biggest problem is where to order the pizza from, and then there's the kindo f party where we're just one small step down from having to find a band. And if I'd thought about getting that 50s bluegrassy + Theramin band we saw last year at an SFMOMA event, we probably would have. After all, an eclectic gathering needs eclectic music.

Anyhow, that's all I've time for right now. Tomorrow we get to continue the fun with a large contingent of the family going to the Cal-stanford game though, especially since Craig can't make it this year, we Cal fans are going to be seriously outnumbered. True we have the home-field advantage, but we'll be sitting inthe Stanford section. (I've never heard anyone yell "Take off that blue shirt!" before...)

That's it for now. Much to do... So much!

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As if to prove the rule about the timely dissemination of information I'm talking about in the previous post, my mom called me about an hour ago from Thailand where she and my sister Susie have been travelling for the last two weeks. Though they were scheduled to come home tomorrow, Susie's been diagnosed with appendicitis and at this moment is in surgery in a Thailand hospital having her appendix removed. They don't have the facilities for a laproscopic procedure, so her recovery will be a few days in the hospital and a few more in a hotel before she's fit to fly home.

I'll tell you more when I know.

Susie's out of surgery and there don't appear to have been any complications. They're going to keep her under observation for a few days, then she'll go back to the hotel if all seems fine. Ack. Ack.

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My Grandma Kitty is going to die today.

I don't state this for shock value, but rather because any forthcoming narrative about my own life over these past few weeks would trivialize Katherine if she was treated as a plot point, an element in an interest curve, or a catharsis amid a story about my own inconsequential troubles. Grandma Kitty is none of these things. She's my mother's beloved mother, and later today she's going to die.

Up until last month Grandma lived in Santa Ana, about an hour away from my mom in Encino, in a condominium my mom bought for her 16 years ago. There she acted as a caregiver for those who needed a little help in life. While a decade ago my Aunt Judy and her family lived nearby, over the years the husband was divorced, the kids grew up and scattered over the southland to start their own families, and Judy moved to Phoenix. And so Mom and Grandma decided that it would be a good thing for Grandma to move closer to my mom, and they went real estate shopping for her new home.

After a good deal of looking, they found just the right place a little over a month ago. Just a few miles from the house where mom raised my sister and I, this two-bedroom condo would still afford Grandma her freedom while bringing her and mom closer together geographically and emotionally. Through careful planning and a fair bit of luck, Mom sold the old place and both places were in simultaneous 30-day escrow, and both closed this week.

My grandmother's health hasn't been the best over the last year, and there have been a few bouts of illness that could be chalked up to having a body that isn't as sturdy as it once was. Three weeks ago she felt ill and visited the hospital, and was put under observation for what initially appeared to be a kidney dysfunction.

The next several days were a roller coaster of tests, changing diagnoses, and shifting predictions. At first, she was diagnosed as having failing kidneys and might have to undergo long-term dialysis. The following day tests indicated that her renal functions were almost normal and the illness may have been due to an infection in her blood. The next day they decided to perform an MRI which showed a spot in her bladder that needed further diagnosis. An MRI 'with contrast' couldn't be completed because she wasn't able to drink the ounces of barium-laced fluid needed for the procedure.

The timing of all these events is fuzzy to me since I was in Northern, not Southern California, and my mom was relaying the news on a daily basis. This was still about three weeks ago, and Rachel and I had plans to come down to Los Angeles on the weekend of June 26th (last weekend) to attend my father's burial marker dedication ceremony on the 27th, and to be with my mom and sister on the 28th, my mom's birthday. In light of Grandma, Rachel and I change our plane tickets to return on Wednesday instead of Monday, to spend more time with Grandma and family.

Back to three weeks ago, and my mom's been informed that while in the hospital the previous day, Grandma had a minor heart attack and now had problems with four organs: heart, kidneys, bladder, and I believe something else, possibly liver. She now also has come down with pneumonia. Where the day before things seemed manageable, things are now in serious doubt, and Rachel and I decide to drive down the next morning (two weeks ago, Friday) and spend several days down south, to spend time with Grandma and to help with whatever needs arise.

Saturday we get to see Grandma, along with my Aunt Joanne, Uncle Joe, and cousins Janice and Joel, whom I'd only seen once in the last 20 years. It was really good to see Grandma, and because she didn't have a room to herself, we had to go in shifts of 2 visitors at a time. Grandma was lucid, very happy to see us, and though she was very tired, had six IV drips and a feeding tube, surprised me with her energy in talking to visitor after visitor. Rachel brought copies of flower photos she had taken, including a matted daisy print that's especially beautiful, and Grandma was thrilled to have them on the windowsill.

We spent the next three days at the hospital, generally taking turns being with her and being in the 'solarium' (aka 'waiting room'). The room, with about 12 chairs, would usually sit empty, and sometimes fill to capacity. After a few days there though, it felt like our space, and it felt weird when anyone else would wait there as well.

By the third day it was clear that she was responding well to treatments. She seemed to be overcoming the pneumonia, and after two physical therapy sessions where she got on her feet and took one step, she proactively started exercising in her bed, lifting her arms and legs, doing exercises until she got out of breath. After a week of not being able to eat any food, the doctors let her have some jello, ice cream, and even bits of cookies, and it seemed likely that she could be out of the hospital within a week or two, and possibly living on her own again after a month in a caregiver environment.

When we left on Tuesday, Rachel and I looked forward to seeing her again when we got back into town for our originally scheduled trip the next Sunday.

There are so many things I'm glossing over here that deserve mention:

Over the course of this long weekend, Rachel became a granddaughter in my eyes. Her caring, not just for my grandmother, but for me, my mom, and everyone else involved, was and is incredible.

Also, At the same time that all of this is going on my mom had to plan and act on what would happen to all of Grandma's things. Everything had to be out of her condominium by the 28th, and we couldn't move new things into the new place until the 29th or later, and we were all dealing with the real possibility that she wouldn't make it through, or might never be able to live on her own again. The end solution was to move everything into storage, since no matter what it would be at least several weeks before she could possibly need the things at her new place.

Lastly, we got word that Monday that my father's burial marker wouldn't be ready until at least two or three weeks after the scheduled unveiling date, so that would have to be pushed back as well. The unveiling of the burial marker is a Jewish tradition commemorating the first anniversary of a loved one's passing. Until that time the resting place is demarked by a temporary marker, and while the permanent marker doesn't have to be dedicated exactly on the anniversary, it also marks the closure of the traditional year of mourning, so should be reasonably close to the date. All in all under the circumstances, both Mom and I were relieved to have one less thing to deal with at the moment.

Back at work after being out for three days, I fielded several inquiries and well wishes for my grandmother, and felt generally optimistic. She was getting strong enough now that they were going to continue on with the laparoscopy to investigate the mass in grandma's bladder, to determine if it was a blood clot or a tumor, and if it was the latter, what was its stage and nature.

After performing the procedure, the doctor was inclined to think that it was a cancerous tumor, but was waiting for the lab results before drawing a conclusion. The results came last Thursday, when we found that the tumor was malignant and advanced. Under the best circumstances, Grandma would be unlikely to survive the Summer, and quite possibly not the next month.

I wasn't there when the doctor told Grandma the findings, and I consider myself lucky for this, though I wish I was there for her. Grandma, considerate, lost, and scared, told her doctor "I don't know how to die," bringing her doctor to tears, as it did me when I was told.

Rachel and I arrived back in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, and Aunt Davine drove us to the hospital to a changed person. There was a presence that had diminished so much in the intervening five days. The brief moments of lucidity we saw over the course of that day were when we arrived and she smiled and said "you came back!" and a few moments when she tried to speak but didn't have the energy to be understood. We stayed with her, read to her, sang to her, and held her hands. Grandma was in constant pain now and there was only a small morphine-granted window between her pain and resting.

When we came back to the hospital the next morning, my grandma was gone. Her body was still there, breathing, fevered, but from the moment I entered the room, it was clear she wasn't there. Her presence was never so obvious as it was in its absence. All I was left with was the feeling that though she didn't know how to die, she was trying to escape the painful prison her body had become, and what remained would soon follow. In the following days, leading up to today, the doctors have confirmed this deteriorization, sought to ease her pain by putting her on a morphine drip, and they believe that in less than a day she'll be gone.

In my own mind and soul I had been paying what I would be satisfied as my final respects every day that I saw her, in case things should turn before I saw her again. In this I found an inner solace. Nearly a year ago my dad died suddenly, alone, and completely unexpectedly of a heart attack, hours after my birthday. This year is a mirror image, reflected over the calendar date of my birth. Where my father's passing was sudden, giving rise to passion, pain, grieving and coping after the fact, Grandma's impact is like an earthquake in reverse, building up slowly and culminating just before the anniversary of my own birth.

We have been grieving, smaller growing to larger, with foreshocks months ago building in volume and strength to the present, when her passing will be an exhalation instead of a burst. Not to pretend that grieving will end with her passing, not at all, but I appreciate the difference between a passing and a tearing.

Susie, Mom, Rachel and I had planned for months to go to San Juan Island for our summer vacation from this Friday through to Wednesday with my father's side of the family. Now, as has been the rest of the month, I'm up in the air. My mom needs a break more than any of us had ever expected that she would, having organized three times as many things as any person should, before even considering that one of those things is the caretaking and memorial services of her own mother.

It's the planner in my mother whose traits I've inheirited that let me understand that even in the most difficult circumstances, situations don't handle themselves. It's almost amusing in a stupid, cynical and detached way, that the mortuary charges overtime if the service is on Saturday or Monday (this Monday being a federal holiday). They don't perform services at all on Sundays (whether for religious or vocational reasons I'm not certain), and that the city has to certify a death certificate before a memorial service can take place. It may be the case that the city will not perform this task over the extended weekend, or that the service might take place any day from tomorrow through to next Tuesday. Both Judy and Joanne have left their lives and vocations to be out here and need to return to Phoenix and Dallas, respectively, as soon as they can. Like everyone else involved, they also need the rest.

Rachel is at this moment scanning photos from Grandma Kitty's life to prepare a vignette slideshow for the memorial service, a task ironically mirrored by the fact that I helped Ammy do the same thing only two weeks ago for her grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. Janice, an accomplished vocalist, has recorded three solos that we'll be incorporating into the slideshow as well.

I'm coming to terms with the ineffable nature of the universe, the awareness that planning is so often a fiction, and that still waters are a true blessing, those times when something as ethereal as a plan, a mere intention, can dictate the course of events. Sometimes the waters are calm long enough that you forget that it's simply an aberrance, and that the true nature of the world is chaos. Your plans will always have an impact on the greater whole, but in the end the outcome is just an interference pattern of hills and valleys, bearing little if any resemblance to your intention.

This morning, shortly after midnight as it is, I'm postponing grief. I'm planning through chaos much as a pilot flies through turbulence, both over- and under-compensating, buffeted by invisible forces beyond my control, by the knowledge that this, too, shall pass, and the awareness that even unstable systems reach points of equilibrium, of calm waters, however distant or brief they may be.

Thanks for listening.

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Sorry for the silent treatment for the past several days. Rachel and I have been in Los Angeles, where my grandmother's been very sick and we've been helping watch over her at the hospital, giving love and encouragement. I'll write up more later, but at the moment it's after midnight and I need to go to bed. Driving back up the state to come back home tomorrow, and back to work on Wednesday.

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Two by two we sallied forth, Karen and Crystal to the British Isles nearly two weeks ago, Ammy and Rick to Washington and Western Canada last week, and tonight Rachel and I fly off to the City of Sin (to meet up with my mom and sister). We're all coming home within about a day of each other though, pringing plenty of photographic evidence with us.

This is the first in a whole bunch of quick trips over the next couple months. Southwest is our friend in the skies.

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First I stop posting but everyone keeps commenting, now I start posting again and everyone's all hushy, even though more of you are reading than ever!

In Malibu for the weekend for my Uncle Alan's birthday, back tomorrow. I love airplanes.

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Happy holidays to everyone! Ugh, so much to do. Holiday shopping is all but done, with hyoooge props to Rachel, for taking on more than her share of the joint gifts!

I'm sitting in the 'old house' in Carmel, typing in what is essentially a renovated stable, bought by my uncle 30 years ago and serving as the base for the 'main house' built a decade later. It's after 1am and I'm sitting in front of the TV watching Runaway Bride, sitting next to my cousin Ingrid who's talking on the cellphone. After 11pm or so, this is the only place in the house for the night-owls to congregate.

So now I'm rambling. The feeling here in our 18-year tradition of Christmas is clearly different for my dad's passing nearly six months ago. He was a ringleader, an instigator. His absence has created a bit more chaos, a bit less coalescence of activity. Of course, such words don't tell a tenth of it, but that's not what I want the post to be about.

We got DSL here in the house for the first time this year. Without even a second phone line, past years found the techies in our 30+ person group up after midnight to camp out on the dialup line. Now thanks to DSL and a wireless base station, the 6 or so of us with laptops, for better or worse, are wired. Now Christmas doesn't offer a respite from email. Well, maybe I'll have some sort of moratorium tomorrow.

I'm about to go to sleep, but I just wanted people to know I'm still around during the inevitable holiday slow season.

Oh, and I want to give shouts out to Mutant and Blub, holed up at home. I hope you're not floaters by the time I get home.

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After getting such positive feedback last year, and a reminder email today from a reader (as well as from my mom, one of the singers) I'm happy to remind folks that the Verdugo Hills Showtime Chorus will be delivering live telephone singing holiday cards this holiday season.

The deal is that for just $5-9 (local, long distance, or international), you can have a group of professional-quality chorus singers call whomever you wish and sing them holiday wishes. These are live (and very nice) people, who enjoy giving holiday wishes as much as your friends and family will enjoy getting them.

All of the holidaygrams will be sung on Saturday, December 13th, and they're happy to sing on the answering machine if your recipient isn't home. Actually, some recipients prefer that so they can listen again and again.

Happy Holidays!

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Okay, the Clif's Notes version of my last five days (take two).

Thursday I was signed up to go to a philanthropic luncheon and in the evening join up with Ammy and Karen to see War Daddy, the play that Rachel was stage managing at the Zeum.

Midday Wednesday I knew that things would get too busy so I bowed out of the luncheon and had to postpone going to the play until this weekend. It turned out it was a good thing that I cancelled because I ended up staying at work all day and all night on thursday, not coming home at all, and grabbing a quick 90 minutes of sleep in a coworker's office. First time pulling an all-nighter at Google, and hopefully not a frequent occurance.

Incidentally, we're moving offices this weekend, and cardboard boxes and stickers were passed around earlier in the week. Anyhow, I worked pretty much solid until 5pm when I found out that 'be packed by the time you leave for the weekend' actually meant 'be packed by 6 when the movers start moving' (my fault, didn't read the faq closely enough). So, by 6:15 my GoogleLife is in boxes and stickered, and I'm out the door.

I was supposed to go to Liz's birthday/housewarming party on Friday night, but running on only 90 minutes sleep in the previous 40 hours, I knew I wasn't fit to drive the 140 miles to Sacramento, especially when I knew I'd have to drive back that evening to be ready to go to the Big Game (Cal vs. Stanford) on Saturday morning. So I went home and tried to sleep for about an hour before waking up to answer the phone.

After that I didn't get back to bed until after midnight, my circadian rhythms in direct opposition to my serotonin levels, making everything feel a little distant. Friday Night Waltz was at the same time, and 100 miles closer, but I didn't even think of going. Home was my final destination for the night.

Saturday morning Karen and I made an easy journey to Stanford, thanks to Rachel dropping us off on the way to work. Good thing to, since this is the first Stanford Big Game in decades without CalTrain access, since they've shut the train down on weekends for the last year and a half and didn't change the schedule for the event. (This is stupid because the way most public transit agencies increase ridership is when they introduce new potential riders to the system when they do one-off events like games and concerts. If you only run on weekdays, then only those people who use your train for commuting find out about your train. Chicken, I'd like you to meet egg.) Anyhow, Palo Alto was a resultant mess that we got to glide through relatively unscathed.

The game was a lot of fun. Both teams played badly at first, but it was nice to come from behind and pound the other team. This was also the first time I'd actually gone to a Big Game as a bona-fide alumnus. Karen wrote up a bit more on the game and the aftermath.

Karen dropped me off at the Zeum at 7:27pm for a 7:30pm curtain and I'm so glad I made it on time, though I'm so sorry that my own planning ended up making Karen sick so that she couldn't go. The show didn't actually start for another 10 minutes or so, so I even got to catch my breath.

Watching theatre alone is such a different experience for me than watching in a group. Somehow experiencing art with others, I feel that I have to immediately encapsulate my feelings and opinions into communicable nuggets, like I'm writing an essay, or at least that I have to have formed an opinion by the time the curtain falls. Seeing a play on my own I feel freer to experience it, rather than judge it.

While experiencing the play I realized a few things about my own approach to creative endeavors. I don't like anything I make to go out into the world until it's perfect. I realized on Saturday that this isn't because I'm so much a perfectionist, as it is that the kinds of art I produce are ones that stay up for a while, where imperfections are more glaring, and where the work is such an intentional act that improvisation is almost impossible. The musician can change a riff on the fly, or a painter can be very free with their brush, knowing both that the randomness and carefree effect can boost the work, and that the act itself is quick. Inspiration does play a large role in web design, but improvisation is harder to pull off, since every effect on the page is time-consuming enough to be deliberate by nature, and the best that one can hope for is for carefree inspiration that they can hold on to while transforming it into code.

Even then, if you make tools that people will use thousands of times, utility has to take a front seat to free-expression, and while aesthetics are vital, possibly even more important than in the more ephemeral disciplines of the performing arts, they're there to indicate the piece's function, or to create an emotional space to frame the work in.

It's probably a good thing I don't go to plays alone very often.

But even so, all that said, this is one of the reasons I so enjoyed riding Amtrak to and from Yahoo, more than a year ago. Setting myself to start writing in Oakland and to have a finished piece by Santa Clara, I started to see writing as an impromptu performance art, instead of a crafted and re-crafted tailored work to be scrutinized. I don't expect anyone to read what I write twice, or to write about what I write.

Back to my weekend, I enjoyed the play. I was impressed by many of the youth actors, though I felt that the playwriting lacked significant differentiation in most of the characters' dialogue. I love the Zeum's theater. It's just intimate enough to saddle the line between a performance to the audience and a performance with the audience. And of course it was technically great. After all, it had a great stage manager. :-)

Today was a day of relative sloth. There were many small things that needed to be done around the house, and Rachel, angel that she is, got the day started for us with omelettes in bed! Add on my organizing and archiving files off my powerbook before installing OS X 10.3, catching up on a little TV, a little email, and a little websurfing, and suddenly it's after midnight and I'm wondering where the day went.

In the morning I'm heading over to the new office to unpack my boxes and set up the computer, find out whether the new office has a bathroom closer than my old cube's 79 paces. We're right next to the kitchen area, which means far too many snacks in far too close proximity. Virtually nothing will get accomplished Monday, what with everyone unpacking, learning the lay of things, and with so many of us making ready for early Thanksgivings.

Rachel and I are flying out tomorrow night for Los Angeles where we'll stay a night before flying to Kauai with the greater family for Thanksgiving in Hawaii. It'll be nice to get away.

For the past few weeks I've been feeling a little growing ennui, especially when I'm alone. I don't know if I'm experiencing it more now, or if I'm just noticing it more now, but as I sit at home when Rachel's off shopping, visiting Nym, or off running a show, I sometimes compare the mental me to the person I'd expect I'd be and I seem muted. I'm not looking for sympathy, but I feel that acknowledging this alteration is probably an important step in changing it, and so I put it here to pin this acknowledgement down.

So yeah, Tomorrow night is LA, then Kauai, then back to LA and back here on an unspecified flight.

Overall, life is very, very good. Trouble is, I can usually identify problems and fix them when things aren't going their best. Right now though, I feel like fixing the problem involves letting go of something I don't yet want to let go of, because I feel like if I loose my grip I'll forget what it was like to hold on to it.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make any sense to newer readers, or even those who have been here for a while. Maybe it makes a lot of sense. I don't really know. I'm just looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have so much to be thankful for, and though I may have less now, I value it so much more.

Anyhow, next week Rachel starts work on her next gig, a production of the Santaland Diaries, I have my company party, we might get to go to Dickens Fair, and then the next week I'll be getting my new car, and then it's only a few more weeks to Christmas.

And, as I've thought every Sunday night since I came back to the Bay Area three months ago, I know I'm lucky when I remember that tomorrow's Monday and I need to go to work, and it fills me with excitement.

I hope y'all had a good weekend.

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Heya! I went to Las Vegas last weekend with Mom and Susie. We had a great time, I saw 'O' for the second time in three months (it really is the best show ever) and after being down $260 and up $360 I ended up down $60. Not too bad, considering the amount of time I spent at the tables.

Mom taught Susie and I pinochle. This is important because it was the game that my Dad, Uncle, and Grandfather would play whenever they got together. 'The three beards' we called them (even after Dad shaved his off!) and nobody else ever played. Now that the threesome has been broken up, Steve has taken up playing, and Mom taught it to Susie and I so now we have another three-person game to bond with. Cribbage works with three players, but is really made for two, or to a lesser extent, four.

Working late tonight, and will be coming in early tomorrow, but I wanted to pop my head in and say hi. On the flight back from Vegas I remembered just how fast my mind works when I'm confined to a small chair, reading an intelligent book, listening to good music. I have tons of ideas on deck now, including one I want to work into an article for Salon or the New Yorker, and another that I'd like to turn into a book.

Where are all those hours that used to be in my days?

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It's 12:02am and I'm downstairs in my townhouse, with my powerbook in my lap, thinking about a lot of things. To share...

Rachel and I went to dance class today and it was a lot of fun. It's a pleasure to be in any dance class Richard teaches, even (especially?) if I already know the dance. It's the only time I can really focus on technique and cure myself of bad habits on the dance floor.

We're working on costumes for the Halloween Gaskell's Masquerade Ball. We're not doing anything fantastically involved, but it should be cool if we can pull it off.

My mom's coming in to town this weekend. It's the first time in a long time that mom's come up just to see me, since I usually come down to LA more often. I'm looking forward to showing her my home. I'm so house-proud. I'm so proud that this is probably the first time I've ever actually used that term.

My dad's business is selling today. It stirs up a lot of emotion. The house is in escrow, and will close in a few weeks. Piece by piece it's coming undone. I know this feeling isn't fair, since we have the important things, the memories, the pictures, the writings, and a whole lot of stuff, but the exchange of things for cash has a dehumanizing effect even in the best of times. I'll get over it, but right now I'm still a little under it.

A handful of people at Google read my weblog, and I know a few did when I was being considered for employment, but I don't know if my coworkers know about my dad's death. It's not something that's come up in conversation, but one of my coworkers is going on vacation for two weeks with her husband and new baby to visit both sets of relatives back east. We were talking about families, and I just wanted to tell her to cherish these times, these visits, because you never know what might happen before you see them next. Playing it in my head, it all sounded so morbid. I didn't say anything.

Susie and I are both looking at getting Priuses ('Priae'?). I have a deposit down on one up here, but there's a 60-90-day wait list. They officially arrive in dealerships today, so I might be able to actually see one this weekend. I'm still looking at other options, like the Outback. I finally got another interim license until the DMV gets me my real one (another story) so I can test-drive.

Tomorrow's Friday Night Waltz. Rachel and I both need new dance shoes. I'd rather not break mine in at Gaskell's, as three hours of dancing in new shoes would kill my feet. I don't know how we'd find time to get shoes for tomorrow night.

I'm thrilled that iTunes for Windows has come out. I'm really interested in hearing the download stats for the Apple Music Store in the coming weeks and months. This is a great move for Apple, though I was surprised to read that Apple expects to do little more than break even on the music store. Instead, the whole thing is a vehicle to sell more iPods, where the real money is.

Work is fantastic, and that's enough said about that for right now.

I can't find my beard trimmer, so my goatee gets longer and longer, held in check only by a small pair of scissors in my bathroom.

The house is almost entirely unpacked, and looking good. I hosted a brunch last weekend and it felt so good to entertain. Bagels, lox, and friends. The perfect Sunday morning.

I have this weird irregular heartbeat thing about once a day. I need to get it looked at, as it's been going on for months. They'll hook me up with a portable EKG for a day or two, where I'll press a button and take notes whenever I feel anything odd. I can't really describe it other than to say my heart feels like it wants to yawn but it can't. I'm looking for a good doctor and I'll make an appointment next week.

Wednesday night Rachel and I went to a corporate night event at SF MOMA. We got to see the Chagall exhibit and a few other collections. Chagall's never blown my socks off, but they had a fascinating display of 19th century photography, a James Turell installation (if you've never seen any James Turell, find out where you can see some and do it. That stuff blows my socks off.), a gallery of the lifestyle of asian prostitutes, as well as a standing collection of mid-20th-century art including Magritte, Jasper Johns, Rothko, and Lichtenstein.

The hors devours were very yummy, but the high point of the evening was the band. They were playing good seductive lounge-y music and had a fantastic female vocalist. "Whatever Lola Wants" and the like. Bass, Guitar, Drums, lead vocals, and an exquisite Theramin player.

Theramins are so cool. I've heard them before, but usually in the context of B-movies. I'd never seen one being played, let alone so expertly played. The man could make the Theramin sound like a pedal-steel guitar, a jaw harp, or a flock of birds. Within I was playing my own 'air theramin' and I know I just have to give one a try. Turns out that at about $350, they're not as expensive as I'd thought. Even cooler, I discovered a MIDI-compatable Theramin player, which seems almost impossible, because everything about the Theramin is analog, and totally nonconducive to traditional composition.

I've been thinking more about ambient displays, looking at possibly hardware for the house, and had the realization that many ambient displays exist as the causal interface between the trajector and the landmark, that is to say, the display doesn't just convey information, its very implementation is in some way tightly related to the resulting reaction triggered by the display. When you think about it this way, any step in a causal chain could be seen as a display, and the 'interesting' displays are those that are either naturally ubiquitous, or otherwise ignorable or conditional. I don't expect this to make sense yet, but hopefully it will soon.

Fury's been getting a lot of google hits today because google thinks a post I wrote two years ago explains why The West Wing wasn't shown as expected Wednesday night. The real answer is that NBC shelved the episode for two weeks so it wouldn't compete with the Baseball playoffs or world series. West Wing will be back on October 29th.

That's it for now. I still need to get down to coding the site, and I have half a mind to do a drastic redesign, beyond the Fury 4.0 designs I was passing around a few months ago. At the very least, there will be a complete rewrite under the hood.

That ought to be some good fodder for comments. I'll talk to y'all tomorrow!

Comments?

My sister's house got broken into today.

They also broke into her tenant's house in back.

My mom and sister went to Home Depot to get doors to replace those obliterated by the thieves.

While they went to load one into the car, someone stole the other two.

Crap crap crap crap. Damnit. Did you know doors can cost over $200 apiece?

Comments?

It's been the subhead of a site I visit frequently for the past month, yet the dying just doesn't seem to stop.

Volt, a coworker of Ammy's died over the weekend after slipping in the shower and cutting his arm on the glass. He called 9-1-1, but died before the paramedics got there. He was 34.

There's hearing about people you never heard of dying ("Two shot in a school in Minnesota" or "Baby killed yesterday by stray bullet in Bayfair" (links omitted because, really, why do you need to read that?)), then there's celebrities dying (as they seem to every other day nowadays), then there's people your friends know, and then people you know. Why has it been happening on every level, most notably to young and hitherto healthy people?

It's really, really starting to get to me.

Oh, to balance the freak-vibe to friends and family reading this, one of the reasons I'm leaning toward the Prius is that the package I want comes with front, side, and side-curtain airbags. All the better to save me with.

Comments?

Happy Birthday Sister! You make my life brighter! I'm looking forward to our trip so much. I'm so glad I got to go to your party!

Comments?

On the 'coping' front, every now and then I come across an emotion I'm really not sure how to internalize. I spent nearly two weeks working with Mom and Susie on Dad's house last month, and I got updates every few days from Mom on how things were progressing. Repairing tiles, repainting, fixing a latch, getting an appraisal.

Susie and I both carefully thought it through, and decided that neither of us would be living in the house in any reasonable timeframe and, as fond as I am of the house, I'm in the Bay Area for good as far as I can see, and Sherman Oaks home prices are peaking, especially with rising interest rates. It's the right thing to do.

Even though I've been a part of the process at every step; even though I went through the house to say goodbyes when Ammy and I came to Los Angeles a week ago on the last stop of our road trip, I got a profound pang when I looked up the listing for my Dad's house online today.

While walking though it, empty and repainted, amidst real estate agents scoping it out, I was okay. Somehow I was still protecting it, watching over and cradling my dad's home as I can't watch over him anymore. Seeing it as an anonymous listing on the internet, distilled to a 320x240 picture and a handful of database fields, I just feel like I'm leaving a memory and a spirit naked and unprotected amidst strangers.

...

I need a home of my own. The townhouse I'm moving in to next week reminds me of Dad in a way I can't describe, and a few ways I can. Something about the walls reminds me of the condo he had over 20 years ago in San Francisco, and the flowerpots and drip watering system that I asked the landlord to leve in reminds me of when Dad, Susie and I would go to Grandma's in the Spring and set up tomato plants and drip systems on the terraced steps alongside the house, and when we did the same in my Uncle's backyard years later, bringing forth tiny pumpkinds and zuccini into the world.

I want to make things grow. I want to nurture. I'm really looking forward to unpacking a few of my 'Dad boxes' so I can wear some of my memories externally. My insides are getting a little too crowded, and I need to breathe.

Comments?

Well, it's the end of week one, and where else would I be on a Sunday afternoon but at work?

No, it's completely by choice. I wanted to get a head start (sooo many meetings last week) and it's always nice to get a little work done when the office is quiet.

In other news, as my Mom has already mentioned in the comments of the previous posts, I got the two bedroom, 2.5 bath townhouse I really wanted. My landlord-to-be bought the place when it was built, and has lived there for the last 18 years, only now his sister and her husband are relocating to Guadalahara for three or four years, for work purposes, and he's moving in to their house, where he just has to pay utilities.

So moving out of his place and renting it out means he gets to live in a million dollar house in Los Altos and gets to collect rent on his own place in the meantime. Quite the sweet deal.

Sweet for me too, since it means I'm living in a townhouse worth nearly a half-million (gak!). It has beautiful new hardwood floors and the place has been kept-up perfectly. I get to move in a week from today!

Last night my cousins Steve and Susan, Jill, and Randy and Debbie were all in town at the same time, like some planetary alignment. (Well, Jill lives in Palo Alto, so that's no huge coincidence.) I came over for dinner and to hang out with the next generation. I was the only one there without kids!

Spending time with them, I felt closer to them than in a long time. I'm absolutely going to make a point of spending more time with Jill and the kids, in addition to driving down to LA more often.

Stuff stuff stuff stuff. So come Sunday I'l have the keys to an empty living space, and I'll need to fill it. My stuff from Pittsburgh should be in a truck and on it's way before the end of the week, but in the meantime I have a two-bedroom apartment's worth of stuff in storage in Berkeley, and here and there in a few friends' houses. I'm going to take a look at getting a U-Haul to trundle the furniture and boxes down from Berkeley to Mountain View, or I could hire movers. I've got to go to the space and do a little accounting of what I have, what I want, and what, if anything, I'll need to leave in storage a bit longer.

Then there's the stuff in Los Angeles. The ten days of going through Dad's house with Mom and Susie has yeilded about 10 boxes of 'near-term' items I want to incorporate into my own life, as well as a few more 'long-term' items for when I end up getting a house of my own.

Luckily, the townhouse has a garage that's longer than a car, so I may have some room to put things. Or there's always storage.

This morning was more hangoutage with the cousins, and this evening is friend hangoutage and spaghetti dinner. I meant to get a new cellphone today, realizing that both my phone's form factor (bar of soap) and service provider (T-Mobile) are ill-equipped to serve as my mobile communication solution. I'm interested in trying out the Treo 600, but it doesn't come out until October at the earliest. Now that I'm working full-time again, portable IM and email aren't as important as they were on campus. AT&T has one of the best coverage blankets in the Bay Area, and I'm thinking of the Nokia 3650 or the Ericsson T616. They both have bluetooth, and both have cameras (yeah, a gimick, I know. That is, until I set up the phonecam-to-weblog gateway and can blog pictures on the fly).

I just want a phone that fits in my jeans pocket, and though none of them approach the sveltitude of my old Nokia 8290, that phone only works on Cingular and T-Mobile, both of which share the same spotty network in the Bay Area (unlike in Pittsburgh, where T-Mobile covers you like a bolt of wool!). I'll take a look at the phones in person and give one a 30-day trial. It couldn't be worse than the Sidekick, which dropped my call no les than 5 times in 90 minutes while talking to Rachel today.

Well, that's it for now. Tomorrow is the one-two punch of Plough and Death Guild, which Karen says is okay because everyone expects you to come in bleary-eyed on the Tuesday after Labor Day.

I hope everyone has a nice, calming, fruitful month in September! Don't forget your 'Rabbit, rabbit!' tonight, if you're a latenighter, or in the morning otherwise. You'll thank yourself for it!

Oh yeah, and tomorrow I'll write in and tell you about my unexpected dental visit on Friday, and my plan to save a cherished tooth through sheer will.

Comments?

So in a half day I start my first day at Google. So much backblog stuff to write about: the road trip, my sister's birthday party at the Inn of the Seventh Ray, coming back home, apartment hunting (sooo excited now that I have a rental application in at a 2 bedroom townhouse in Mountain View that I'm highly enamored of), house painting at Karen and Crystal's brand new house (they got the keys Friday!) (Crystal just said, apropos of nothing, "We're not just talking about house. We're doing house!") They're incredibly excited, and so am I.

We painted two rooms today, and painted clouds in one of them. It's a fun place.

Okay, now off to dancing, then sleep, then Google, then to see a cottage in case the townhouse doesn't go through, then Plough (more dancing), then sleep, and repeat!

Comments?

[all times Pacific, regardless of geographic location]

Wednesday, July 30

11pm: Finish packing for weeklong trip. Set three alarms (Alarm clock, watch, and palm) for wakeup at 12:15am (75 minutes). Rachel and I go to sleep.

Thursday, July 31

12:05am: Woken up by call on cellphone. Automated Orbitz flight status update. Flight is on schedule for 3am (6am Eastern) departure.

12:15am: Alarm clock goes off. I get up and disarm watch alarm. I pick up the palm just as it goes off. I press a button to stop the din, then go to the bathroom. While I'm occupied, the palm goes off again (I'd inadvertantly 'snoozed' it) and Rachel gets up to turn it off.

1:30am: Packed, showered, and dressed, we head out the door to Pittsburgh International Airport.

2:04am: Arrive at Extended Parking, take bags to shuttle stop and wait for terminal shuttle.

2:10am: Terminal shuttle, having picked us up, drops us off at the terminal.

2:16am: Checked in for flight, taking checked bags for security inspection. The line is a good 20 minutes long, plus unknown time for the 'regular' security screening (metal detectors, x-ray machine, etc.)

2:22am: TSA inspector inexplicably plucks us out of the middle of the line for inspection.

2:30am: Inspection done, we proceed to security checkpoint.

2:42am: Done with security checkpoint, taking Bombardier subway to gates.

2:46am: Rachel's buying a few breakfasty things for us at Seattle's Best. I run to gate to make sure everything's okay.

2:54am: All is well, we board the plane to Atlanta with minutes to spare.

3:07am: In the aircraft, we're informed that maintenance has not completed their routine work, and we'll be a little bit longer on the tarmac.

3:40am: We take off 40 minutes late. By this schedule we'll have 8 minutes to make our connecting flight to San Francisco in Atlanta, including deplaning time.

4:43am: Flight attendants read off connecting gates. Our flight connection is at gate B-4 and we're coming in at gate B-12.

5:11am: Making up a few minutes in flight, our plane pulls up to the gate with 12 minutes for us to make our connection. Flight attendants ask passengers to let those with connections off first. Atlanta is a Delta hub. Half the plane deplanes. We're in the far rear corner.

5:16am: Off the plane, we start walking to gate B-4, with time to spare. On the way we check out the departures board and discover our flight is departing from gate B-34, not B-4, and is at the other end of the 1/2 mile terminal. Luggage-jogging ensues.

5:23am: Board SF flight with two minutes to spare.

10:17am: Land in San Francisco, 11 minutes early. Quickly get bags from baggage claim, highly impressed that they made the connection in Atlanta. Go to Alaska airlines ticket counter as planned to see if we can check bags 7 hours in advance. Luckily, Alaska is in Terminal 1, same as Delta.

10:23am: No joy. Check in opens 4 hours prior to departure.

11:16am: Karen picks Rachel and me up from the airport. We drive to Mountain View.

11:50am: Arrive at first apartment complex. Manager says she already has an application in for the apartment, and won't show it until that one pans out or doesn't, by 5pm today. I explain that I'll be gone by then, and that I'd like to see it, but am fine holding off applying until the other application doesn't go through. She says look around the complex, and she'll find us in 10 minutes. Karen, Rachel and I look around. We'er unenthused, and note that loud children live on either side of the relatively drab townhouse unit. We leave and I wave to the manager on our way out.

12:14pm: Driving around Mountain View, looking at (and for) for rent signs, heading toward Palo Alto Hobee's.

12:25pm: Arrive at Palo Alto Hobee's. Meet up with Ammy, Fred, Dawn, and Christyn. A little later Paul joins us, having gone to the wrong Hobee's. Merry lunch ensues. Stanford 'Cardinal' Omlette for me. Naturally I chose the blueberry coffee cake.

1:54pm: Done eating, paing, hugging, Karen, Rachel, and I head back into the car to go to the next apartment, this one a half mile away in Menlo Park.

2:01pm: Arrive at apartment. Manager shows us around. I'm completely unenthused.

2:14pm: While we're gassing up Karen's car, the manager of the 3rd place calls to confirm our 3pm time. I ask if we can move it up since we're nearby and ready. We agree to meet a little after 2:30.

2:30pm: After a little trouble finding Laurel St., we arrive at the apartment. Shortly afterwards the manager arrives and shows us this 2br bottom unit will hardwood floors throughout. It's very nice but does'nt hit me right. Maybe it's the large windows of a front bottom unit on a wide street, but I don't feel that I could be myself there, and that theft could be a factor. Also, I'm not sure I want to live in Menlo Park, when Mountain View is also charming, and so very close to work. Clearly, more hunting needs to be done, despite the beautiful oak tree outside the unit.

2:53pm: We leave for SFO.

3:21pm: Arrive at SFO, say farewells to Karen, go in and check in for our flight to Vancouver.

3:29pm: Selected for special screening, Rachel and I submit to full-body wanding and bag checks.

3:43pm: Cheese tortellini with Alfredo sauce was the perfect thing to revitalize catatonic Kevin and Rachel.

5:36pm: Board plane for Vancouver.

5:50pm: Plane takes off on schedule. We nap a bit, then watch successively larger snow-capped mountains drift by (Shasta, Hood, Ranier, etc.).

7:58pm: Land in Vancouver, BC on schedule.

8:34pm: Complete Immigration

8:42pm: Get bags from baggage claim. Meet Ben outside.

9:13pm: Go by hotel to check bags.

9:14pm: Ben gives a personalized driving tour of the Greater Vancouver Area from his convertable.

10:39pm: Stop for extremely unusual Japanese food from an extremely unusual Japanese restaurant. Amazingly delicious.

11:21pm: Drive a bit more and get gelato. Experienced amazingly high-fidelity Grapefruit gelato.

11:48pm: Arrive back at hotel, say goodbyes to Ben, check in, get bags sent up to room.

Friday, August 1:

12:04am: Pull out powerbook and start logging last 24 hours.

12:08am: Rachel goes to sleep.

12:20am: Realize that the new month has started and I forgot to say 'Rabbit, Rabbit'

12:21am: Realize that I haven't said anything out loud in the last 21 minutes, and can still say "Rabbit, rabbit." Do so.

12:23am: Finish writing up this post.

One day, nearly 4500 miles of travel, with stops in all four quadrants of North America.

And tomorrow we start our 7 day cruise up the Alaskan coastline.

Goodnight y'all.

Comments?

Things are very different when death comes in the middle of a life, and not at the end. In a thousand ways the life seems to go on, a dotted line continuing along the trail of what would have been solid if not for the sudden stop; electric bills, friends calling. The memory of an ongoing life, where we find ourselves stopping mid-thought to factor in this course correction in the midst of thinking our everyday thoughts.

I can't speak for other families and other tragedies, but one of the gifts my family has unspokenly given to each other is that of uncorrected tense. "Dad likes to do" this, or "Dad buys these kinds of trinkets on trips." Though it's been nearly a month, we all tend to put phrases like this in the present instead of the past, more often than not, though none of us mentions it.

Maybe we all have our own reasons. I can think of several. Functional fixedness, or habit, is an obvious possibility. I'm sure some out there might think it's denial. For me, it's an unconscious manifestation of the idea that what my dad was and is lives on. In so much as these qualities (that the present-tense comments are usually describing) shape our feelings about him, those qualities still live on. Naturally Dad doesn't literally take pictures at every possible opportunity anymore, but the quality that he takes pictures at every opportunity remains.

Like I said, I don't know the cause of this tense in the rest of my family, but I do know that we share the common emotion, the common little gift that we give each other whenever it happens. We don't correct each other. We don't force each other to open our hearts wide to the truth, like the harsh glare of the sun after a matinee. Instead we take the small comfort that we still can talk about Dad this way, that he's here and along for the ride, and not just a stop along the way.

Maybe over the years we'll migrate to "used to" and "I remember how he," but even then the focus will be on the living, and on the action, not the cessation. I'm proud of my family for this combination of maturity and support, that we're in a common struggle and gather strength from it, without pushing each other down to keep ourselves up.

This 'gift of tense' is just one of the things that makes this time more bearable.

Comments?

So suddenly the five weeks I had to complete grad school has vaporized to one, two weeks spent in Los Angeles with family, one week back now, and leaving one week early to spend more much-needed time with family.

My life is suddenly thrown into fast-forward, a mixed blessing of keeping busy and of having to work fast enough to stay on my own life's train.

Within the next week I have a bunch of work do do on my masters project, and my independent study project, and I need to pack up my apartment to be ready for movers to come and take it all in their van.

Late next week Rachel and I head to Vancouver, with a 7 hour layover in San Francisco, where we can spend a little time with friends, then a week with family, then flying home from Anchorage by way of a redeye to Atlanta (can you believe there's a plane that goes from Anchorage to Atlanta?) where we'll meet Ammy and hop on another plane to complete the return to Pittsburgh. Then it's two days in Pittsburgh before Ammy and I drive off on a 12 day road trip back to San Francisco, with stops in Los Angeles, Vegas and the Grand Canyon for certain (not in that order), and a bunch of other destinations to be finalized, but likely including Mammoth Caves, Mesa Verde, and the Painted Desert.

Two days later is my first day at Google. Meanwhile I'll be staying with Ammy and Rick for a few weeks (or less) while I find an apartment and tell the movers where to appear with my stuff.

All-told I'll be living in six different environments over the next six weeks. Maybe my internal bolstering preparing for once again changing my total environment has helped a bit in dealing with the unexpected change in my life. I knew I'd be off-kilter, and so perhaps I'm a little more prepared emotionally, though just enough to keep standing, not enough to absorb the blow.

So much to do, and so little time. I need to compartmentalize. I need to make sure that when I leave next Thursday that school is checked off. I need to make sure that when I leave on the road trip, Pittsburgh is checked of. (I mean materially, not personally. Those I love here in the 'burgh will be with me for a long, long time, and do not have little boxes next to their avatars in my mind).

The last 10% is always the hardest.

Here we go!

Comments?

I haven't been crying much recently but for the last week my eyes keep feeling tight around the corners, like I'd just finished.

I feel like I'm a nuclear core, with control rods to help stop a cascade of grief. The control rods can be work, a book, sleep, or for all last week the labor of going through dad's house, and making arrangements.

Being around family, I felt like the control rods were even more important because if any of us let go it would cascade to the others. We each grieve in our own way, and I've been worrying about letting mine out, because I don't want to make anyone else feel worse. I wish I could tell them that grieving is a good thing, and that my own expression of it shouldn't make anyone else feel worse. It's easier to hold it in like a balloon with a slow leak. I think about him in a thousand small ways, every minute, each time crying a little inside. It shames me that I even worry what other people think, that I'm worried about showing my pain too much, while at the same time worrying that I'm showing it too little.

I feel it, inside, and that's what tells me that I'm not a bad person.

Yet I still feel the compulsion to write this post. The irony's not lost...

Comments?

On the morning of my birthday, July 4th, my dad stayed up late writing me a letter. The letter touched me very deeply, and when I called him later that morning we shared a wonderful conversation, confiding how proud we each were with each other.

I told him how I bought two iSight cameras, one for each of us, so that despite being at opposite ends of the country we'd be able to see each other and talk like we were in the same room. He told me that he'd ordered a slew of multicolor-led Google pens, a few shirts, and baseball caps, in honor of my starting there next month.

We talked about our writings, about visiting me when I get my apartment in Mountain View, and about using both his and my frequent flier miles to get Rachel and me plane tickets to visit Los Angeles in the next couple weekends.

After the call, I went to a BBQ at a friend's new house, followed by tremendous fireworks in downtown Pittsburgh. My Dad went to a party at my uncle's house in Malibu, where he had a great day with family and friends, staying late and driving a friend home late that evening before returning to his own home.

Some time early in the following morning, July 5th, 2003, he suffered a severe heart attack and passed away at his home.

At the memorial service the following Friday, Susie and I were the last people to speak after my mom, grandfather, cousins Steve, Craig, and Jill, and Dad's brother, my Uncle Alan. After the service, a handful of people asked if I could send them the text of the eulogy I gave:

"The last time I spoke to David was last Friday, on my birthday. Earlier in the day he wrote me a letter, and gave me a gift more important than he could possibly have known. I'd like to read it to you:

To My Son Kevin on his 30th Birthday

It's 5 a.m. on your 30th Birthday and I'm still pondering what present to honor you with. My first present, very carefully selected with your mother's help, was your birth name – Kevin David Fox. Kevin because I wanted to do my best to provide you with a first name kids wouldn't be able to tease you about-- like they did to Dana Steven Fox who had to abandon Dana and retreat into Steven/Steve to escape. And because I wanted you to have a name that was substantial and more than ordinary, but not too unusual.

I'm not nearly as clear about why I held out for David. My deep sense is I somehow wanted you to know I would always do my best to be there with you and for you through all the scary and difficult times whenever and wherever they might envelope you.

Your plunge into sharing your "true voice" experiences on the verge of your 30th Birthday has inspired be to jump in after you. Here's a true voice poem I wrote five years ago.

Ordinary Terror

This morning I went to my appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles to pick-up my personalized license plates. I didn't know why they were important to me.

While I waited for my name to be called, I was jarred by the appearance of scores of people without appointments waiting in dreary lines. They were on the short side and didn't stand out in any way. They were nothing more than ordinary, living out unremarkable lives.

Down deep I'm terrified of being ordinary. They seemed content.

The first time I felt the horror of ordinary gushing through my body came when I was seven. I was asleep in the basement room of our two-story up-side-down house when the cold water pipe hugging the ceiling above my bed burst at 3:00 a.m. I was frightened and confused. I screamed for mom and dad while I slapped at the light switch until the nightstand lamp snapped on.

The plumber arrived about an hour later. He was old and grizzly with knarled calloused hands, but he liked me. While he wrenched off the old lead pipes and wrenched on their shinny copper replacements, I asked him what it was like to be a plumber for a lifetime.

I was shocked by his answer. He said it was difficult for the first few years until he learned how to fix each different plumbing problem. But after that, he said it had been easy for the next 30 years because he just kept doing what he already knew how to do.

Right then I vowed never to be a plumber! To be doomed to a lifetime of fixing the same pipe problems over and over until I died with my knarled, calloused hands clutching my favorite wrench. How awful – how ordinary. He didn't seem to mind.

I'm walking toward my car with the desperate hope the personalized plates my hands are wrapped around will some how, some way shield me from the terror of ordinary, and open my pipeline to salvation.

David Fox     March, 1998

I feel much different today. If I write a new true voice poem the title that appeals to me is "Ordinary Joy." Further bulletins will follow in celebration of your 30th birth year.

I just grabbed "14,000 things to be happy about." off my bookshelf and opened it at random to pages 100-101: "...the intimacy of humor...flashlights that work...a bowl of tiny mandarin oranges...a breeze tiptoeing into the room, afraid to intrude...Timbuktu...opening stuck windows...steak fries...the splendor of fall...deep-set windowsills...electric morning coffee-maker...every seventh wave being a big one...the pleasure of water...V-formation of migrating geese...." And there are 13,984 more in Barbara Kipfer's book.

How many more known and yet to be known are there in my "book? or you book?" Could be bazillion, or even kabillion more! (I've been wanting to use bazillion and kabillion somehow somewhere for months, and now I have Ta Dah! (I've also been wanting to use Ta Dah!). This is such fun!

And thank you for adding a bunch from your book: "having the canola...the extra mile...following a dream...Winter's blankets of snow...cacophonous cicada...thundershowers before sunset...lush green grass...surreptitiously placing Easter eggs....the midnight moon...picnicking on the grass...following foot-deep footholes in the snow...fireflies flicking on and off, talking to each other...paper cut-outs...sneaking into IKEA...the last day of classes...snowscaped graveyards...dancing with abandon... ...all nighters...pockets...tandem skydiving...keyboards...cloverleaf intersections... kettle drums ...Mardi Gras beads...a kitten sleeping in your lap having mouse-chasing dreams........" and so many many more. What I am happiest about right now is you on your 30th Birthday – TAH DAH!!!!

Love, hugs and so much more,

Dad

Dad derived his greatest happiness from finding joy, and bringing that joy to those around him.

He loved the immediate pleasure of teaching people something new, whether it was cribbage or kite-flying, computing or how to cook the perfect quesadilla.

He passionately shared the photographs he took at every opportunity, pulling out his powerbook in any free moment to give a personal tour of China, the Galapagos, or just a day at the beach. He loved sharing the beauty he saw in the world and in everyone he met.

Most importantly, Dad found his deepest satisfaction in helping people realize and pursue their own dreams. When he and I chose the name for his company 12 years ago, David wanted to keep it as open-ended as possible, reflecting his mission of helping people achieve their own goals -- in this instance, occupational goals -- hence the name "Professional Advancement Success Systems" or "PASS."

To David, the meaning of life is in the journey.

Dad never expected anyone to follow in his footsteps, but he hoped that they would walk in the same direction -- following their ambitions and dreams, and helping others to do the same.

My dad was the most supportive person I've ever known and, even after his passing, he's still supporting us, as we -- each and every one of us -- has been bettered by the impact he's had on our lives.

The finest memorial we can give to David is to keep on walking in his life's direction, to keep finding the joy and the beauty in life every day, and doubling that joy by selflessly sharing it with everyone we touch in our own lives.

Thanks for reading. As I've mentioned before, I have a lot more to say, and I'll be putting together a site of some of his writings, photos, and memories. I'll be talking about it here as it progresses. If you're just visiting Fury and aren't a regular reader, email me and I'll drop you a return email when there's more about David.

Comments?

Hey guys. I've spent the last week caring for my father's things, caring for myself, and caring for my family. Though it still seems incredibly early, considering what needs to be done, I'm heading back to Pittsburgh on Saturday, my last 5 weeks of grad school suddenly turning into my last two weeks instead.

A small shining light is that the memorial service was lovely. The family really held it together, and Dad would have been proud of us. I'll be talking about him a lot for a while, so you all can get a good picture of the man I'm proud to call my father.

Tomorrow (err, in the morning, rather) I'll be posting the text of what I said at the service. There's still so much to go through, and to work through, but I'm incredibly thankful, both for the strong family we all have to lean on in this tragedy, and in the copious amounts of work I've been doing for the last week and a half, which has helped distract me from letting the wave hit full-force.

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Sorry for the dearth of posts. Dad's memorial service was today, and we've all just been incredibly busy. I have so much to tell, to share, but I've been running on only a couple hours sleep a night for a while...

The Los Angeles Times printed an extended obituary in today's paper. We went to the newsstands this evening and they were sold out. If anyone has a copy of this, my family would greatly cherish getting a hold of it. If you have one, please do contact me. We're really appreciate it.

The URL for the online copy, sans picture, is here. (sorrry, LA Times free registration required)

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Thank you Liz. Today I've been thinking about the time so long ago when we sat overlooking Lake Tahoe, and you shared your loss with me.

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Art will come later.

My father, David Henry Fox, passed away unexpectedly this morning. I'm going out to Los Angeles tomorrow morning (everything's completely booked tonight) and will be out there for a while. Further bulletins will definitely follow, but I probably won't be as responsive as usual. I should have email access while I'm out there.

Thanks. There's so much more that I want to say about my father, about my love for him, about a thousand things, but I can't right now. It will come later.

I love you, Dad.

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Rachel and I are heading up to Bloomfield, New York tomorrow (near Rochester) to visit her parents. We'll be hanging out for a few days, maybe helping out in their new restaurant, and generally doing the things there are to do up there, including hiking to the waterfalls, or possibly bike riding along the Erie canal.

Sunday we're heading back south, but jagging right at Lake Erie, staying the night in Sandusky, Ohio, and getting up early Monday morning to take on Cedar Point, home of the tallest (420ft), fastest (120mph) roller coaster on the planet, the Dragster. [or, um, not. still, we won't be hurting, considering the 15 other thrill coasters they have at the park].

I don't know how much I'll be posting this weekend, but I'll try to take pictures. I hope everyone has a great weekend! Beat the heat any way you can!

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I understand this old Chinese curse better now than I ever have. Two weeks ago I was sure that I would be in China right now, with Karen and almost 20 family members and friends of family, but it wasn't to be.

When the news about SARS broke out a week from last Sunday, I was concerned, but not overly so. I was glad that it was still a week until our trip, so that informed analyses would have time to replace sensationalism and we could make an informed choice as to the outcome of our trip.

As the days rolled on, and three cases in Hong Kong became 12, then 50, then 260, I grew more and more concerned. Cases had turned up in Canada, the disease was blossoming in Hanoi, and 12 nations had people with atypical pneumonia, all recent visitors to affected areas, under observation and isolation.

I raised the issue to a few people who were going on the trip, and some were concerned. My cousin, a doctor, assured us that the dangers were minimal, and that if he was taking his one-year-old son along, then it should be clear that in his informed decision there was no substantially increased danger.

Each day I'd check Google News to find out the latest on the virus investigation and spread. On the night before I was supposed to fly to Los Angeles to catch a flight to Tokyo then Beijing the next day, I did a lot of soul searching.

While cases had been cropping out in several areas connected to Hong Kong, the Chinese Ministry of Health claimed that there were no cases in China outside Hong Kong, and released a report about 305 cases (with 5 fatalities) that occurred from November to February in Guangdong province. They claimed that that outbreak was under control, and hadn't spread beyond Guangdong.

Considering that there is more personal traffic between Hong Kong and Beijing and Shanghai than several places with documented cases, it seemed questionable that Mainland China was somehow free from disease.

The New York Times published a piece discussing how infection rates are considered 'state information' and are controlled by the government. In the previous Guangdong outbreak, the government-controlled media was specifically prohibited from broadcasting information about the new disease or its spread. Investigators from the World Health Organization who came to Beijing were not allowed to travel to Guangdong province to conduct their own assessment of the current state of the disease.

...

Backing out of the trip is no small deal. Magnanimously paid for by my uncle, it probably cost about $6,000 per person. Though it sounds like we could get an 80% refund on the last minute cancellations, due to the outbreak and war policies, that's not certain. I had a lot of thinking to do, and family politics, like it or not, would play a major role.

As the infection numbers grew daily, so did my concern. Family members who claimed it was no big deal were still purchasing N95-level face masks for protection on the trip. On Thursday, word came that two people had died of SARS in Beijing. Two cases and two fatalities wouldn't concern me overly much, if not for the knowledge of the extent to which the Ministry attempts to hide this information. Sure enough, it turns out that the doctor in the medical hospital who told the French press about the fatalities was fired the next day.

Speaking with my cousin (doctor) Thursday night, I heard a few rationalizations as to why the disease wasn't a concern: First, the current risk seems to be equivalent to that of driving in China, an admittedly more hazardous activity than driving in the US. Second, the virus appears to require close contact for transmission, and the large majority of documented transmissions were between relatives or to hospital workers. Third, in response to my concern that we'll be in Shanghai for several days after the virus has a chance to go through an additional four or five incubation cycles, I was told that either the virus is non-contagious enough to be avoidable, or it is virulent enough that it will eventually reach all corners of the globe (like the Spanish Flu of 1917) so it doesn't matter whether exposure happens in China or in my home town.

Most of my family had already made a firm decision to go, and they had put their fears to rest, bolstered by these arguments. I didn't make a significant effort to try and persuade others to the validity of my views, since it was clear that I wouldn't be able to convince others to consider alternate plans at this late date, and trying to would likely only make a tense situation worse.

Having heard the arguments as to why SARS is no big deal, I still had significant reservations. Any infectious risk assessment is based on three factors: How many carriers there are, ease of transmission, and risk groups.

The number of carriers right now in Beijing and Shanghai is unknown. Today the Ministry of Health admitted that their report on the November-February outbreak was incorrect. There were over 600 cases, not 305, and there were at least 31 fatalities, not 5. Meanwhile, the Ministry continues to deny that there is any outbreak in other mainland areas, even though several SARS cases in other countries are in travellers who only visited Shanghai or Beijing. Without government support, we can't hope to know how large the outbreak in Beijing and Shanghai is, or how far it will spread amongst an uninformed populace over two weeks. In the absence of concrete information, I prefer to err on the side of caution.

On transmission vectors, the statement that documented cases of transmission are heavily weighted to personal acquaintances and hospital personnel is misleading at best. Documented cases always favor these groups because they are easier to document. Most cases at this point have no documented transmission vector, so saying that those that are identified tend to be of the type that are easier to identify is a meaningless tautology. As it turns out, as cases are being investigated further, several cases of in-aircraft transmission have been documented, along with the hundreds of cases with no identifiable source. 'Casual contact' is a completely ambiguous term, especially when it seems to cover the contact between a hospital worker and a patient known to be contagious. One patient infected 40 hospital workers in Honk Kong last week, even after it was known that he had a communicable disease. While proximity was certainly a factor in transmission, many of these hospital workers used barrier systems (face masks, gloves) when interacting with the patient, and the fact that they came down with SARS means that the means of transmission goes beyond casual contact.

Lastly is risk groups. Viral infections, especially non-airborne infections, are social diseases, in that they spread through social groups (healthcare workers, families, communities, etc.). As it happens, in the current outbreak, a high percentage of the cases in the last two weeks have been among travellers. Those cases of non-familial and non-hospital transmissions have all taken place within the social group of 'traveller'. People are being infected in hotels and airplanes. This makes some sense because the traveller comes in to contact with so many more people on a given day than someone following their regular daily routine. This localization of infection should be kept in mind when weighing total documented cases against a population in order to estimate risk. In this case, the population of greater Beijing isn't as relevant as the population of travellers in the city.

In the end, it came down to the fact that this is an emerging disease, with an unknown but growing infected population in the areas we were travelling, unknown transmission vector, unknown treatment, in a country that deliberately hides cases of the disease by transferring them to military hospitals and ordering doctors not to discuss them. In 1975, 85,000 Chinese were killed by a broken reservoir, and it went unreported for 23 years. In 1995, China finally revealed that 694 people died in a cinema fire 18 years earlier. Yesterday China announced that the November-February infections in Guangdong Province were 790 with 31 dead, not 305 with 5 dead. Even now they won't allow health officials into the province to assess the situation.

In short, vacations are supposed to be relaxing, and it wouldn't be relaxing to spend two weeks in a land with a rapidly spreading disease and a government rushing to stop the spread of information instead of disease. I believe that there is a middle ground between an epidemic that poses virtually no statistical risk of infection and one that will sweep the entire world. I believe that there are cases where travel to specific areas should be curtailed during times of local epidemics, and I believe that this is one of those times. Within days they'll likely know the causative agent, and soon after a test, and an ideal course of treatment. For now, none of those things is confirmed.

I dearly hope that none of the 20 in the group that went anyhow gets sick. If one of them catches SARS then many likely will. If one gets sick with anything else requiring a visit to a hospital, they'll find an overtaxed system and waiting rooms filled with parents worried about their coughing children (as reported). A stuffed up nose and red eyes is enough to convince ticket agents not to allow a passenger on their flight home.

All in all, I was very much looking forward to the trip, and I hope those that went have a fantastic time. It wasn't right for me and my sensibilities, even if it was for others. I know they'll be happier without a nervous Kevin spreading his paranoia, and I hope that they accept that I had to go my own way.

Throw in the Iraq War and the fact that South Korea moved to Defcon 2, their highest point in 12 years, in concern for a preemptive North Korean strike, and you truly have interesting times.

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It seems that I regualrly pull one all-nighter a week nowadays. Last night was that night for me, working on an assignment for Programming User Interfaces. Argh. I got to sleep for a couple hours between 9 and 11 this morning before my 11:30 class, yet I have class until 9:30 tonight, and then Rachel's picking me up from school and we're goin gto watch TiVoed Buffy (since we both have class at 8 on Tuesdays. Grr!)

Anyhow, my last project for Game Design was to write up a bit about my five favorite games. I shifted it around a little. Bango's gone, and Air Hockey, #5 until the last minute, didn't make the cut, when I remembered a game I had'nt played in years, but really want to again.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it, especially the picture of my cousin Sara and the monster Cirbbage board.

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And boop! I'm in Malibu. Will be here 'till Saturday night when I fly to Berkeley for two friends' wedding in Tilden, then back to Pittsburgh on Monday.

Biggest shock of the day was walking outside of the LAX terminal to find that the outside was warmer than the inside.

I kinda miss California.

Especially as I sit here in a beautiful office at 12 after midnight, 20 feet from the pounding California surf.

Contented sigh... Now to bead my dad at cribbage (and put a little more time into my game list which is actually larger than 300 entries now!) and then to sleep.

Be well!

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I've written a couple robust posts, but don't have a net connection to send them. I'm sending this from my sidekick, which can't connect to my computer.

At this moment I'm sitting at the table in a restaurant in Salinas with 20 relatives, finishing up dinner, but saving plenty of room for the coming ollaliberry pie (and I don't care if I spelt it wrong!)

Merry Christmas!

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(Executive summary: Internationally renowned women's chorus (and my mom) sings holiday greetings to the persons of your choosing, anywhere in the world, for $7-10)

I probably don't post about my family as much as I ought to, and I keep meaning to write about how proud I am of my sister for becoming a foster parent this year, or the rest of my family for their wide-reaching accomplishments, but today I'm writing to tell you how proud I am of my mom, and to let you know about a really cool gift you can get for your loved ones. Yes, this is a plug, but it's a really worthwhile one. If you think so too, I hope that you'll tell your family and friends, and/or post it on your own weblog. These nice folks deserve all the exposure they can get.

My mom's a member of the Verdugo Hills Showtime Chorus, a member chorus of Sweet Adelines International. Along with about a hundred other accomplished vocalists in her chorus, she regularly performs in large competitions. I had the privilidge of hearing them perform at the Buckeye Invitational competition in Columbus, Ohio last August, where they swept all the award categories. They're really good.

Okay Kevin, cut to the chase:

For the past several years, every holiday season, the girls have done singing holiday cards. You give them the name and phone number of the person you want to serenade, and the best time to call, and on December 14th they'll call that person up, anywhere in the world, home, cellphone, whatever, and they'll sing your choice of one of ten holiday songs (repertoire includes Silent Night, Jingle Bell Rock, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, the Hanukkah song, and others listed on the order page). No recordings, no canned anything. The real deal.

The lowdown: Twenty-five singers performing live in four-part harmony (barbershop style): tenor, lead, baritone and base, singing specifically to your recipient. People really love it. It has a very personal touch, and won't be a throwaway gift that'll gather dust in the closet, but a memory that they'll keep with them.

So how much does it cost? Just $7. Less than you'd spend on a doohicky they'd never use. If your recipient is outside of Southern California, it's just $8 (long distance charges included in the price). International is only $10.

Renting a philharmonic orchestra costs $70,000 a day, so having a chorus of highly talented singers spreading holiday cheer for one ten-thousandth of that is quite a deal!

I recommend ordering early. The order deadline is December 11th, as long as they don't fill up before then. If they get enough interest, they may add