Espola's newest neighborhood
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I am right now preparing to go to the memorial service for a friend of mine from work, sailing, bodysurfing, and soccer (we played together on a company-sponsored indoor team in the 80's). The invitation suggests Hawaiian shirt apparel.
I was on that trip.
This poem from Mother Teresa was printed on the back of the memorial pamphlet --
Mother Teresa's Anyway Poem
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
It didn't upload...........
tried again. Did it work this time?
The guy on the left, salty-dog hat, blue Poway Soccer Club t-shirt (cowboy in boots with spurs juggling a soccer ball), guarding the wine bottle, circa 1981.
The Friday ceremony was Lutheran proper, with hymns and prayers and music from a good pianist/singer and a series of photographs from the life of the deceased projected on screens above the stage/pulpit. The picture shown above was in the sequence, so my happy face showed up every minute or so. I didn't realize that the cremation urn was on the stage amongst the flowers until the preacher held his hand over it while making a blessing prayer.
Me, after the ceremony to the pastor: When I was younger, churches had organs. Now they have drum kits.
He: We have three services on Sunday, and we only use the drum kit in two of them.
At the reception afterward in the social room, light refreshments were served. I had a glass of water and a chocolate chip cookie. Most of the people there were family (of which I had only ever met the wife and two sons) and the friends who attended were either from the Church (in which I had never been before) and later co-workers who had met him after our careers diverged, so I didn't know any of them either.
I spent most of my time talking with the widow's cousin, who told a tale of being given up for adoption by the widow's aunt as a baby, adopted by a nice family, and then educated into a medical career that culminated in a position as a neurosurgeon at Harvard Medical School. After he retired, he tried to backtrack through the adoption records to find his birth parents. A South Carolina social worker informed the mother that he was looking for her, but she declined to meet him. However, she told her sister (the widow's mother) about it, so she volunteered to bring him back into the family.
I of course, had a lot of questions about neurology. He told me about his new book that proved there life after death (I think that's what he meant, anyway).
Me, after the ceremony to the pastor: When I was younger, churches had organs. Now they have drum kits.
He: We have three services on Sunday, and we only use the drum kit in two of them.
At the reception afterward in the social room, light refreshments were served. I had a glass of water and a chocolate chip cookie. Most of the people there were family (of which I had only ever met the wife and two sons) and the friends who attended were either from the Church (in which I had never been before) and later co-workers who had met him after our careers diverged, so I didn't know any of them either.
I spent most of my time talking with the widow's cousin, who told a tale of being given up for adoption by the widow's aunt as a baby, adopted by a nice family, and then educated into a medical career that culminated in a position as a neurosurgeon at Harvard Medical School. After he retired, he tried to backtrack through the adoption records to find his birth parents. A South Carolina social worker informed the mother that he was looking for her, but she declined to meet him. However, she told her sister (the widow's mother) about it, so she volunteered to bring him back into the family.
I of course, had a lot of questions about neurology. He told me about his new book that proved there life after death (I think that's what he meant, anyway).
Saturday was more upbeat - a buffet lunch and open bar in a bayside meeting room at Paradise Point Resort in Mission Bay (nobody told me about the hydroplane races and resulting traffic jam (I issued 1 finger and 2 thumbs up before clearing the jam)). In all the time we worked together we were sailing and bodysurfing buddies, so the setting was appropriate. I was surprised to meet a lot of old friends from our work/social circle of the 80's and 90's.
One of them was Dave, who hired me back in 2003 or so --
I'm lying on my couch, submitting resumes by email after getting laid off. The phone rings - it's Dave, who was a manager where I had worked years before in the ruggedized computer products division of Company A that was split off and acquired by Company B that was then absorbed by Company C* and then was one of the parts of C that were split off into the new "start-up" Company D (I jumped out the sequence at the * to a different division of Company A until their project funding ended and thus I got laid off - and the battery box fiasco had nothing to do with it).
Dave (now at Company D for those who lost track): What are you doing?
Me: Sitting on the couch.
Dave: Do you want a job?
Me: Doing what?
Dave: What you were doing before. Come see me tomorrow and we'll talk.
Me: What time?
There was also Dr. J, a 6'9" EE PhD from Illinois who was on the patent for elements of the products I worked on several years, and who therefore got royalties on every shipment of those from us and our competitors in addition to his VP salary. We had a long talk about who was still alive and what they were doing.
I took my turn at the lectern telling lovingly funny stories about the deceased after his college roommate told about the great fun they had burning lighter fluid on their dining table after they discovered that it burns at a low enough temperature so the table was not damaged.
Me: Does anyone know that K could play soccer? (one hand meekly raised two tables back) Well, he couldn't, but he joined our company indoor soccer team anyway and he got better every week until after a couple of 10-week league seasons we won the trophy (and the fact that the team who beat everybody until they took a 10-week break had nothing to do with it).
One of them was Dave, who hired me back in 2003 or so --
I'm lying on my couch, submitting resumes by email after getting laid off. The phone rings - it's Dave, who was a manager where I had worked years before in the ruggedized computer products division of Company A that was split off and acquired by Company B that was then absorbed by Company C* and then was one of the parts of C that were split off into the new "start-up" Company D (I jumped out the sequence at the * to a different division of Company A until their project funding ended and thus I got laid off - and the battery box fiasco had nothing to do with it).
Dave (now at Company D for those who lost track): What are you doing?
Me: Sitting on the couch.
Dave: Do you want a job?
Me: Doing what?
Dave: What you were doing before. Come see me tomorrow and we'll talk.
Me: What time?
There was also Dr. J, a 6'9" EE PhD from Illinois who was on the patent for elements of the products I worked on several years, and who therefore got royalties on every shipment of those from us and our competitors in addition to his VP salary. We had a long talk about who was still alive and what they were doing.
I took my turn at the lectern telling lovingly funny stories about the deceased after his college roommate told about the great fun they had burning lighter fluid on their dining table after they discovered that it burns at a low enough temperature so the table was not damaged.
Me: Does anyone know that K could play soccer? (one hand meekly raised two tables back) Well, he couldn't, but he joined our company indoor soccer team anyway and he got better every week until after a couple of 10-week league seasons we won the trophy (and the fact that the team who beat everybody until they took a 10-week break had nothing to do with it).
Took a break for the first hour of Easy Rider (specially scheduled TCM tribute to Peter Fonda) and then Ken Burns' Country Music.
To be complete in his effort to record American culture, Ken Burns should do a documentary on making Ken Burns documentaries.
To be complete in his effort to record American culture, Ken Burns should do a documentary on making Ken Burns documentaries.
After everyone had had their say and they announced they were picking up the food and drinks, I went up to share one more story --
On our overnight sailing trips to the Coronado Islands, we would pick out an anchorage based on the wind direction and the positions of other boats already anchored. Drop the hook, back down on it, and then the swim ladder would go over the stern and someone had to check out the water temperature to see if we needed to put on wetsuits. One time K jumped right in with nothing on but his swim trunks and then popped up to the surface with 2 thumbs up - "The water's great!" So I dove in dressed like him and before the water got up to my elbows I was yelling "You asshole!" When I came back up he was laughing hard at his joke. Then we climbed back onto the boat and put on our surfing shortjohns before diving to check the set of the anchor.
Then I told everyone that the widow that she was the best thing that had happened in his life.
After that, the harpist returned, and people were milling around reminiscing. A lady came to talk to me - It was Carol, one of the group of new graduates from UCSD that we hired in 1980, and thus knew K because they were both in that group. We talked about the BYOB-and-share wine-tasting parties we used to have at her condo --
Me (explaining to my wife): The point was to see how cheap a wine you could buy that people would still drink.
Carol: I looked on it as finding the best wine that we could afford to buy on a regular basis.
Me (after some thought): Well then I apologize for my submissions.
Me <reminiscing with Carol about one of our Chief Engineers>: He was one of the last male chauvinist pigs in the industry.
Carol: No he wasn't <speaking from experience, I thought>.
Me: I am embarrassed to admit that during meetings of group heads in his office he would sometimes call in his secretary <an SDSU graduate in English> and ask her to get something that he knew was in a bottom drawer of a file cabinet just so everyone could watch her bend over in her tight skirt. I confess that I didn't know what to do, so I did nothing.
Carol: <poking me in the shoulder> What you should have done was to get the file for her.
Me: Now I'm doubly embarrassed.
Carol: No he wasn't <speaking from experience, I thought>.
Me: I am embarrassed to admit that during meetings of group heads in his office he would sometimes call in his secretary <an SDSU graduate in English> and ask her to get something that he knew was in a bottom drawer of a file cabinet just so everyone could watch her bend over in her tight skirt. I confess that I didn't know what to do, so I did nothing.
Carol: <poking me in the shoulder> What you should have done was to get the file for her.
Me: Now I'm doubly embarrassed.
Hüsker Dü
DA
That looks like your brother.Me at the Broad yesterday --
"Please don't touch the exhibits!"
When he was much smaller?
I went up there to meet with my daughter, who is attending a training session required by her recent promotion, staying within walking distance of the Broad (Millenium Biltmore - classy place). After visiting the museum, we walked (and took Angels Flight) down to the Central Marketplace for dinner. She told me during dinner that she wanted to invite me to a social event at her organization's October conference in San Diego, but that I would have to dress up a little better, and she knew I would resist that. I suggested that she invite her mother - "I meant both of you". I will send her the picture taken with my brothers and sisters at my father's service in 2017 and ask her if that is good enough - I haven't been that dressed up since. Maybe Hawaiian Shirt Casual would be appropriate for an event in San Diego?
Hüsker Dü
DA
Just find your cleanest dirty shirt.
I sang that little part to her during the conversation, but I don't think she understood the reference.
Watching the Country Music series this week has inspired me to write my own lyrics for "In the Jailhouse Now" in case I need to make a public spectacle of myself at some family gathering, centered on the theme of how I harrassed my boss's admin assistant so badly that I had to marry her, ending thusly --
She lives in my house now
She lives in my house now
She told me more than twice, if I didn't cut it out I'd have to pay the price
I live in her house now
I've even been practicing my yodeling, something I haven't done since skiing days in my teens.
Border Crisis: Smugglers Notch, Vermont
This place got its name because it was one of the routes between Canada and lower New England that avoided the usual customs and border enforcement locations during Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807. Men with sacks of goods on their backs, pack horses, small wagons, and animal herds were taken in over this and other backcountry routes.
During Prohibition, this location was too far south to be of use by the more modern transportation system, but smuggling of alcohol (and other goods piggybacking on the loads) continued down back roads, along the lakes, and even by air - small airports twinned up near the border, one airport near a railroad station in Canada (totally legal there) and the other a few miles south in America (had to be further from the railroad station so as not to be so obvious).