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The diet and exercise changes are showing some results. The challenge for this week will be to continue to eat healthy while traveling with the whole family.

One thing ends, another begins

Yesterday was a very good day. David and I went to the apartment fitness center and did both strength and cardio workouts. Afterwards, we met Lisa for lunch and went to Tex and Shirley's for breakfast. We finished the day by going to the Greensboro Grasshoppers game at Newbridge Bank Park. The Hoppers beat the Savannah Sandgnats 5-0, Babe Ruth the bat dog and park mascot did her thing -- including running the bases after the game (strategically placed dog biscuits!) with little Yogi nipping at her heels -- and then there were fireworks. Simple, colorful, loud fireworks. It was an All-American day.

Today, I've already taken Blazer our cat to the vet for his annual checkup and boarding for several days, and David and I have gone swimming. We're heading to Charlotte in a couple of hours, to meet Gigi and Andy's flight from Chicago. They'll be here for the next week. We're all going to see my mom and dad tomorrow, and on Tuesday, we have a surprise for Gigi and Andy that David already knows about. We're going to the beach for a couple of days. We did a similar trip three years ago, which was the first time I got to take the kids on a vacation. I hope this one turns out as well.

Next Saturday, all three kids will fly back to their mom. Including the summer they moved away, this is the fifth sixth time my summer has been punctuated this way. It's no longer life period full stop for me, though. It's now life comma pause, and then go on. My children are still there, out in the world, even when I don't see them. I'm here, they are there, and we connect often. It's called growing up, and I'm glad I've done it, since my children shouldn't outstrip me in that regard.

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Now playing: Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
via FoxyTunes

What not to say at dinner

I have a PDA, a Palm Tungsten E2, that I've had for a couple of years. You'd think that in that time, especially as I like to tinker a bit with my gadgets, that I'd know all of its quirks in and out. Not so. I discovered yesterday that I can use its Bluetooth capability to connect to my Bluetooth-enabled cell phone and dial a number on the phone from the PDA.

This seemed like a really cool thing to me, and when we were eating dinner at Ruby Tuesday, I decided to tell Lisa about it. Hilarity ensued when I said, "I found out something interesting this afternoon that I can do with my Palm."

Is this Dusty Springfield I'm listening to?!

Nope, it's Duffy's debut CD Rockferry. I had heard a little bit about her, and bought the CD on an impulse at Starbuck's a couple of days ago. It sounds pretty darn good, so far. I'll have to listen a few more times to have an informed opinion, but color me impressed on first listen.

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Now playing: Duffy - Rockferry
via FoxyTunes

The Mid-Summer Classic

For the first time in several years, I watched the MLB All-Star game last night. Well, I watched most of it. When the AL tied the game in the bottom of the 8th inning on Evan Longoria's ground rule double, scoring Justin Morneau, I suspected that the NL was going down again. I really didn't have much interest in watching a glorified exhibition game go into extra innings, and I saw this morning that the game lasted 15 innings, ending after 1:30 a.m.

I'm glad for J.D. Drew that he's finally living up to his talent in Boston, although I'm certain the fans in Philadelphia and Los Angeles are none too happy with him, still.

Ryan Dempster was the most impressive pitcher I saw on the field.

Best play of the night - Ichiro throwing out Albert Pujols when he tried to stretch a single off the right field wall into a double.

Hopes for the second half of the season - that the Atlanta Braves make a real run for the postseason, and that the New York Yankees fall flatter than flat.

Never, ever, let it be said that I'm anything less than partisan and biased when it comes to my baseball.

Compare and Contrast; or, What a Difference 15 Years Makes!

September, 1993 - Andy, Gigi, and David:





June, 2008 - Andy, David, and Gigi:





I felt nostalgic and inspired yesterday, because I saw the newer picture in the slideshow on my Google Sidebar and noticed the older picture on the fridge, so today I'm sharing.

Blues

Greensboro has a summer music series that has been ongoing for over 20 years, Music for a Sunday Evening in the Park. Yesterday's offering was EMFfringe Series: Music for a Sunday Evening in the Park with Steady Rollin' Bob Margolin. Bob Margolin is a blues guitarist and preservationist, who played with Muddy Waters back in the 1970s. David enjoys the blues, and when Lisa saw this on the local events calendar a week ago, she suggested that David and I go.

It was held on the lawn at Guilford College, which is a couple of blocks from home, starting at 6:00 pm. Just before we left, the sky got really dark with clouds. Lisa checked the weather radar online, and there was a line of storm clouds just off to the west. Of course, they were headed east.

There were a lot of people already there when we arrived at 5:30, and the band was warming up. About 15 minutes later, it started raining. I'm glad we had an umbrella, along with our canvas chairs. This was a unique chance to do something with the child I lived with the shortest time, and I just didn't care that the umbrella was a little bit too small. My left leg got soaked, as did David's right one, but we were having fun.

Right about 6:00, the rain, which had slacked off a bit, picked up. The band just sat on stage, waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And...no, still waiting.

About 6:15, the guitarists unplugged their instruments and packed them away. The band's roadie walked up to one of the mics and said, "That's all folks." They didn't play a single song.

The sky really opened up as David and I walked back to the car, and it kept pouring...until we got home. I swear, it quit raining as soon as I pulled into the parking place in front of the apartment.

I wouldn't trade that hour getting soaked and waiting for live blues for anything. It was time spent with my son.

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Now playing: Kenny Chesney - Don't Blink
via FoxyTunes

In a candid moment...

I'm working from home most mornings this week, and yesterday, while I was waiting on a test of long running batch program, I caught David in a candid moment. He was reading Watchers, having a cup of coffee, and we were listening to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. He laughed from time to time, which is an appropriate response to Dean Koontz.

It more than pleases me that he has been enjoying something that gives me special pleasure.

In Odd We Trust

I'm a huge fan of neither anime nor manga. For that matter, "graphic novels" don't do much for me either. However, I am quite the fan of both Dean Koontz and Odd Thomas.

As it happens, the very latest in the Odd Thomas series is a graphic novel. It's actually a prequel to Odd Thomas. I didn't have a very good mental picture of Odd, Stormy Llewellyn, not even of their home town of Pico Mundo. Now, I'll never be able to picture them any other way than how Queenie Chan drew them.

The story is vintage Koontz: very fast paced and suspenseful, chock full of humor, hard collisions of the sweetness and the darkness of life. At about 190 pages, it was longer than I expected, but the story itself is probably 30-40 pages. It will make you smile, and if you know any of the rest of the Odd Thomas saga, it will break your heart a little bit.

I'm so proud...

Today's the day we're supposed to get my son David for his summer visit, but it's not quite happening that way. We actually got him last Monday, because he came to North Carolina from Indiana when his mom's partner came to visit her parents. Like I'm going to complain about spending extra time with my kids...

So, anyway, to the moment of pride: a couple of minutes ago, while I was reading some sports blog linked from SI.com, Lisa was over at her computer and David was playing something on the PlayStation. I thought Lisa said something -- I'm in some other world when I'm reading -- and when I asked her if she called me, she said, "No, I said 'Ummm, steak'". David chimed in with, "It's Dad's mating call."

Kung Fu Panda

Dreamworks runs a very close second to Pixar in animated movies these days. This is the studio that has brought us Shrek and its sequels, Over The Hedge, and now Kung Fu Panda. The story is charming, the animation is, like Pixar, extremely realistic, and Jack Black is far funnier when you don't actually see him.

There is the rather standard "believe in yourself and you can do anything" message, but this is not empty self-esteem BS. Our Panda hero Po actually has to work and train hard to harness his inborn talent to achieve something worthwhile, and his teacher Master Shifu manages to adjust his teaching methods to accomodate how his student learns. These are lessons that would greatly enrich our real lives.

Oh yeah, each of us in my party laughed our heads off during the entire movie. Get up and go already while it's still in theaters.

Odd Hours and The Why of it All

I finished Odd Hours, the latest novel from Dean Koontz, this morning. This is the second series from Mr. Koontz, and the protagonist is perhaps his most singular creation. Odd Thomas is 20 or 21, I'm not exactly sure which, and a fry cook on the, well, not exactly run, but more, journey towards his life's purpose. He can also see dead people.

This series seems to polarize Koontz fans more than any other of his works. The Odd Thomas novels are more overtly spiritual, and Odd is both a smartass and radical humility embodied. His point of view comes out very well in this passage, which was pointed out by one of the regular posters in Usenet group alt.books.dean-koontz:

"Grief can destroy you -- or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. Or you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life."

I'm on the side of those who really like this series. I believe that humility, courtesy, and sense of humor go a long way toward making a livable society.

Odd Hours has something that, to me, sets it apart not only from the rest of the Odd Thomas series but Mr. Koontz's entire body of work. It is a palpable sense of place. I feel that the the book is more grounded, that Magic Harbor is more tangible that his other settings, which makes both the supernatural and thriller elements of the novel more effective. Mr. Koontz has been quoted, prior to this novel, that he felt he had an open-ended series; now, he believes that it will end after seven novels. This book feels like a turning point, like the story is moving in a much darker direction than before. It reminds me a bit of another seven book series about a young man learning his place in the world, another series that took a much darker turn in book four.

It's also intriguing to find possible connections to other Koontz works: Odd's sweat shirt that says "Mystery Train" on the front; a lightning bolt on a manhole cover, signifying perhaps the resumption of a long delayed war against an ancient enemy of humanity.

I heartily recommend the Odd Thomas series, but the books should be read in publication sequence: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, and Odd Hours. There is a new graphic novel, In Odd We Trust, which is a prequel to the series, but I haven't read it yet.

RIP David Caminer

I discovered, through surfing to Boing Boing this evening, that one of the pioneers of my profession passed away earlier this month. David Caminer, in his work for British tea shop chain J. Lyons and Company, was the first "corporate electronic systems analyst".

Quoting from his NYT obituary: The result was LEO, its name derived from Lyons Electronic Office. The Economist magazine called it “the first dedicated business machine to operate on the ‘stored program principle,’ meaning that it could be quickly reconfigured to perform different tasks by loading a new program.”

“LEO’s early success owed less to its hardware than to its highly innovative systems-oriented approach to programming, devised and led by David Caminer,” Computer Weekly said last year.

LEO performed its first calculation on Nov. 17, 1951, running a program to evaluate costs, prices and margins of that week’s baked output. At that moment, Lyons was years ahead of I.B.M. and the other computer giants that eventually overtook it.

“Americans can’t believe this,” Paul Ceruzzi, a historian of computing and curator at the National Air and Space Museum, said in an interview last week. “They think you’re making it up. It really was true.”

Wall*E

Number one at the box office on its opening weekend, with a take of $62.5 million. Not one bad review. Excellent animation. A story good enough to make you forget whether it's animation or live action. A sweet love story. A totally believable environmental message. Brief homages to 2001 and Star Wars.

Pixar has done it again. This studio is the closest thing Hollywood has to "can't miss".

Three personal observations - 1) you know a movie has done something really special when it causes my wife to feel sympathy for a cockroach. 2) Wall*E is heavier on the poignancy and lighter on the laugh out loud moments than any previous Pixar feature. 3) There was a moment in the movie when I was strongly reminded of the most powerful SF story I've ever read, Flowers for Algernon.

Little Brother

This is Cory Doctorow's latest novel. It's a cross between 1984 and The Hacker Crackdown. It's being marketed to the Young Adult market. This is the bookselling segment that Orson Scott Card and John Scalzi have been singing the praises of lately, and if Little Brother is truly representative, that's the part of bookstore I should be shopping more than the adult SF section.

The book is set in San Francisco. It's protagonist is 17 year old Marcus. He and his friends resent their school's intrusive surveillance, and like many a teen from Tom Sawyer on, figure out how to get around it. They're gamers and hackers, and they skip out of school to play an ARG, an Alternative Reality Game. While they're playing, they're almost at ground zero of a terrorist attack as deadly as 9/11. They're definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting caught in a Department of Homeland Security sweep.

What happens to Marcus, how it changes him, and how he fights back makes for one of the most exciting and thought-provoking books I have read in ages. It has a smoothly written first person narrative, and the frequent info dumps do not interrupt the flow of the story. In fact, the info dumps remind me a great deal of the long bull sessions my best friend and I used to have when we were teens.

The most amazing thing, to me, is how Little Brother pushes the old "sense of wonder" button that only comes from the best of science fiction. If this book does not take the major SF awards next year, and I mean wins, not nominations, then there truly ain't no justice.

By the way, this book, like nearly everything Cory Doctorow writes, is available as a free download. Check out his website for details; then, it's worth looking at the blog he co-writes, Boing Boing. And then, help make sure Mr. Doctorow can continue writing such novels; go out and by a copy. No, buy two, one to keep and one to give to a teen in your life.

270

I weighed myself yesterday morning. 270 lbs. I'm six feet tall, so this makes me obese. And this is also a reason to celebrate.

Why? Because three weeks ago I weighed 280. Lisa and I have joined SparkPeople, which is a combination weight loss and fitness site crossed with a social network. It has lots of nutrition and fitness information, even more motivational tips, and lots of community opportunities. I'm using the food diary and exercise journal pages extensively.

So far, so good. We're having more success than we did the couple of times we started South Beach, and I intend to keep a record here as we progress.

The Man with the Golden Torc

These days I read more space opera and urban fantasy than anything else. There aren't many authors who can pull off both. Meet British author Simon R. Green, author of the Deathstalker and Nightside series. Confession: I have not yet read Deathstalker, but the Nightside series is a particular delight. The Nightside is the dark, hidden heart of London, where it is always 3:00 am. The series protagonist is private eye John Taylor, who can find anything. Green takes just about every mythology you can think of and runs them through a blender with hardboiled humor, over the top violence, and just a dash of romance. There are eight volumes in this series, all around 250 pages long, and the characters are really what drive the stories. The plotting is uneven, but all of them are worth the reading.

I've just finished the first volume of Green's new series about a man whose street name is Shaman Bond. His real identity? Edwin Drood. He's an agent of the Drood family, which has been keeping us safe from supernatural threats for millenia. Yes, it's a James Bond pastiche, with all that implies. This book shares the main ingredients with the Nightside, with sharper humor, more appealing characters, a superior plot, and much better writing, at nearly 400 pages in length. Highly recommended, and I expect to pick up the second volume in the series, Daemons Are Forever, very soon.

RIP George Carlin

We've lost one of the sharpest wits ever. I did the teenage boy thing and snickered the first time I heard the Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television. In fact, I still laugh at it, even when I know that its influence had a lot to do with the coarsening of public discourse. It's a double standard I can live with.

The Last Lecture

Want an uplifting hour-and-a-quarter? Watch this. You've probably heard about it: Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon professor of computer science and expert on virtual reality, gets a diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer and gives the talk of literally a lifetime. It's really as good as has been billed.

There is now a book out, also called The Last Lecture, that expands on the speech and amplifies its theme. I bought it, have almost finished it, and recommend it highly. It's about how to live your life, which is of course a cliche. But, as Pausch says, "I love cliches. They're cliches because they're true."

One Amazon.com reviewer, a former hospital chaplain, decries the fact that Randy Pausch didn't spend the book expounding on some deep philosophical revelation brought on by his impending death. He even acknowledges that Randy says the book is about living, not dying. He missed the head fakes.

Congratulations, Andy

We're celebrating a new high school graduate. Andy, I'm proud of you. Purdue University is a excellent next step for you, a great choice for an aspiring electrical engineer. I have no doubt that you'll succeed there; indeed, that you'll thrive. I've never seen you set your mind to something and fail.

Remember where you've come from. Roots run deep in both the South and the Midwest, but those roots are never meant to hold you down. They're meant to to give you a solid launching pad.

That leads to my promise to you. The song in this video is probably meant as something a faithful lover says to one who may be leaving, but I think the chorus especially works as a message from a father to a son. Here's When You Come Back Down, by Nickel Creek.



When you're soaring through the air,
I'll be your solid ground.
Take every chance you dare,
I'll still be there,
When you come back down.

Today's self-realization

As a joke, "I've always wanted to procrastinate but keep putting it off" is kinda cute. As a way to lead your life, it sucks.

Relay 2008: Recap and Reflections

The 2008 Greensboro Relay For Life was this past Friday, and I'm finally feeling coherent enough this Sunday morning -- Saturday, like after every Relay I've taken part in, was given to sleep, wonderful sleep -- to put my thoughts on the event together.

• Fundraising:




• It was harder for our team to fund raise this year. We didn't get a corporate sponsorship that we had gotten for the past three years, and that cut our bottom line by about 50%.


• Over the past two years, Lisa and I have spent a boatload of our personal money on projects that we thought would really be big moneymakers for us. Last year we put together a cook book, which sold well at first. We still have just under half of the copies we had printed left. This year, we bought tickets to the Wachovia Championship PGA tournament to raffle off. We didn't recoup our costs here, either. I think the biggest problem is we just don't have a good grasp on how to publicize what we're doing.


• We did find that a lot of local businesses are willing to help out with donations of their goods and services. The key is asking, which in the past has never been something either of us has been eager to do. This changes, now.


• Thank you to the following Greensboro businesses for their generosity to Team Investing In A Cure: Elizabeth's Pizza at Quaker Village, Gander Mountain, Great Harvest Bread Company, Merchant's Tires, P.F. Chang, Phoenix Asian Cuisine, Red Robin, and Remington Grill.




• Setting up our campsite:




• It was a very long half-hour waiting to get the van and car unloaded at the gate to the Page High athletic complex. I don't think our logistics chair ended up with quite as much help as he was expecting.


• Once, just once, Lord, we'd be awfully grateful if the weather would be really cooperative. Still and all, rain and wind are just a couple of things to be endured; we're here to fight cancer, and there are a lot of symbolic reasons behind Relay being an outdoor overnight event. We had some inconvenience; the people we're serving through Relay are in danger of their lives.


• Lisa and I prefer Western Guilford High School as the event site to Page High School. We're in the minority, which is why we were back at Page after two years at Western Guilford. It is possible we're part of a silent majority, because the site switch happened in response to a post-Relay survey last year. Any way, put this down as a minor quibble.


• Pop-up gazebos are much easier to put up than tents, but it's harder to stay out of the mid-May wind under them. At least it wasn't cold enough this year for us to see our breath.


• It was good to be set up close to the bathrooms.


• It's always a bit lonely and a touch frustrating that, no matter how many people we have signed up on our team, Lisa and I are the only two setting up our campsite, staying all night, and cleaning up the next morning.


• We did have several team members completely new to Relay this year, and at least one family showed signs that they might become invested in it like we have. If so, future Relays will be even more rewarding.




• The Event Itself:




• After onsite registration began at 5:00, we had a brisk couple of hours getting cash donations for bread, cook books, and our restaurant gift card raffle.


• Emily Byrd did a very credible job as our M.C. for the Opening Ceremony.


• The bird feeder my dad donated for the silent auction did well.


• Page High has a fairly new rubberized track, so we couldn't use candles in the luminaries. We used a couple of glow sticks in each bag, instead. The light from the luminaries was much more diffuse than that from candles, almost ethereal. Maybe too much so. I think next year I'll recommend, in my role as part of the Event Committee, that we use three glow sticks per luminary rather than two.


• For the second straight year, I brought in about $25 in donations by taking part in the Dude Looks Like A Lady contest. I think I looked better this year. I'll have to post pictures for comparison.


• I don't often get up the nerve to sing in public, and after deciding on a lark to take part in Relay Idol this year, it may be quite a while before I do again. I usually like the sound of my singing voice, but not this time. I sounded, to myself, a bit off tune, a bit sharp on many notes. I also forgot too many of the lyrics to The River, one of my favorite Garth Brooks songs. On the other hand, no one else had the crowd raising their hands and waving in time to their song.


• The Coleman Camp Drip Coffeemaker that Gander Mountain donated works very nicely. It fits over a burner on a propane stove and then works just like your kitchen drip coffeemaker. Only a lot slower. Especially in a breeze. But it does make fine tasting coffee, and we had a nice overnight fund raiser, at a donation of $1 per cup. The chilly temperature was a plus for this.


• We actually had a Closing Ceremony this year. I like that. Our event chairwoman announced that we have so far raised almost $250,000 for 2008. We have a few more weeks before the formal close of Relay 2008, so I like our chances of meeting our $300,000 goal.




• The Future:




• Our Event Committee -- I'm part of it, as the Online Chairperson -- knows how to put together a Relay that's going to make a certain amount of money. The fund raising goal has been right around $300,000 every year Lisa and I have been part of the Greensboro Relay, and the amount raised has been within 10%, plus or minus, of that goal each year.


• It's certainly not a terrible thing for a charity like the American Cancer Society to know that it has a reliable and steady source of income, as our Relay has been.


• I can't escape the feeling that, both as a member of the Committee and as an individual, that I'm not doing enough. My wife came to Greensboro from Harrisonburg, Virginia when we married. She was part of Relay there, and that event made more money from a rather smaller population base than the Greensboro event.


• So, what's the difference between the Greensboro and Harrisonburg events? I've taken part in both, and from what I can tell, it comes down to the emphasis that the Committee places on detailed communication. Harrisonburg seems to do a more effective job of this.


• I've learned that the more you ask people to help, the more they do. But, you have to keep asking. This is my key lesson from Relay 2008.
  

One Stride

We watched the Preakness Stakes yesterday, and I have never seen anything in sports like the way Big Brown accelerated in one stride, once jockey Kent Desormeaux let him run as the pack entered the home stretch. I am pulling for this horse to win the Triple Crown.

Not a commercial, but should be

Feeling swept along on life's ebb and flow? Ask your doctor if Effluvia is right for you!

The Wachovia Championship

Today, my old friend Al and I are going to the Pro Am at the Wachovia Championship golf tournament in Charlotte. Neither one of us has ever been to a PGA tournament, so I expect this is going to be fun.

We bought the tournament tickets to raffle off as a Relay For Life fundraiser. I'm glad Al won them; he's been my best friend since we were in elementary school. We worked summers on Dad's farm together, went to rival colleges 30 miles apart, and in general, have always been just a phone call away for each other.

I did hold the pot at the raffle drawing, but I had someone else pull the winning entry.

---

Some points from the day:

• You won't get an autograph from José Maria Olazabal by calling him "Sergio".
• Vijay Singh is very impressive in person.
• The golfers concentrated on signing autographs for kids, and I for one can't fault them for that. It's an investment in the future of their sport.
• I've never had a smoother time parking 15 miles away and being shuttled to the event site, finding food and drink, watching world class athletes, and getting back home. The organizers of the Wachovia Championship are truly on top of the game.

Celebrate, Remember, Fight Back

1996 was in many ways a bad year for my family. I separated from my first wife. My brother lost a job he'd had for the better part of a decade, and he and his family ended up moving in with my parents for several years. My mom had her first bout with breast cancer.

This was not my family's only encounter with cancer that year. Mom's brother-in-law Buddy had been battling, I believe, brain cancer for nearly two years. Mom had a simple lumpectomy this time around; I know she had follow up treatment, but I'm not sure if it was radiation, chemotherapy, or a combination. The bottom line is that she survived, but Uncle Buddy didn't. He passed away in mid-December. And we faced even more before he died.

Mom's other brother-in-law Carlyle fell at work right around Thanksgiving, and he didn't bounce back like we all expected him to. He went to the doctor to get checked and found out he had liver cancer. A very aggressive, pervasive form of liver cancer. He decide not to postpone the inevitable and opted for no treatment except pain management. He passed away right after Christmas.

Heavy, heavy times indeed for the White family.

Over the next three years, we had many more health concerns for my mom. She was diagnosed with lupus, or at least some form of auto-immune disease that attacks the entire body, starting with the central nervous system and working out from there. We're not totally sure if it is actually lupus, or if there's a more refined diagnosis these days; we just know it's played merry hob with Mom's health for a dozen years. For simplicity's sake, we call it lupus.

Summer, 1999. Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, again. There was no question but that she would have a radical mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. There was considerable question about what her follow up care would entail. Lupus greatly complicated things; her body couldn't tolerate radiation treatments. Fortunately, there were chemotherapies specifically for breast cancer that had much more manageable side effects than radiation; Mom's oncologist chose tamoxifen for her. It worked, and Mom has been cancer-free for almost nine years now.

Fall, 2002. I was dating Lisa, who is now my wife. Her mom Meki was diagnosed with cancer (she prefers that the type not be disclosed publicly). It required very aggressive treatment. Meki wore an infusion pump for chemo for several weeks, and she had twice weekly radiation treatments to shrink the tumor. Finally, she had surgery in January 2003 to completely remove the tumor, followed by more chemo. Our happy ending is that the cancer was caught completely, and Meki is now five years free of cancer.

Even before Meki's diagnosis, Lisa was involved with Relay For Life. A co-worker's mother had cancer, and Lisa's co-worker asked her and another fellow to join her at Relay. They did, and it's blossomed from there.

I started Relaying as a way to spend more time with Lisa. After all, we lived 200 miles apart then, so any reason to see her was great. I didn't come close to matching her commitment to and passion for Relay For Life. To be honest, I still don't, but I have found more and more reasons to deepen my involvement. I'm in my second year as the Online Chair for the Greensboro Relay for Life, which make me part of the Committee in charge of the event. I find added enjoyment in Relay each year, as well as hope and meaning.

For 2008, the slogan for Relay for Life is Celebrate, Remember, Fight Back. Celebrate the survivors, share their joy in living. Remember those who did not survive, shed a tear in the sorrow of their absence, smile at the memory of their lives. Fight Back against cancer, spit in its eye and shout defiance.

Cancer is no respecter of person or station. Anyone can be stricken. Join us, give what you are willing to of your money and your time. You may help save a stranger. A random acquaintance. A friend. A family member. Yourself.

Only three...

Here's an exercise. Let's say you've got children. Let's say further that you want to leave them something. Something that will guide them, make them think, provoke them a little, perhaps. Here's your final requirement, your final refinement -- your bequeathment must contain only three parts, no more, no less. Here's mine.

• Humility...just enough to realize that "I might be wrong about this" is a pretty good organizing principle for your life.
• Curiosity...sincerely question everything, with the intent to learn from the answers you get, but remember the first point in this short list.
• Compassion...always, always, always be ready to say, and mean, "Let me help."

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Huston turns 76 today. He worked in his shop today for the first time since he had surgery last December to repair an aneurysm on his aorta. He's built bird houses and feeders since he retired from farming, and while I'm definitely prejudiced in his favor, he does a mighty fine job at his craft.

I hope you have many more years to do this, Dad. I'd love to see you be able to give your great-grandchildren a bird feeder, directly from your hands to his or hers.

The Golden Age of Science Fiction

The golden age of science fiction is twelve. - Peter Graham

I was actually thirteen when I became aware that my favorite genre of fiction was, and still is, science fiction. The author I was reading when I made this discovery was one of the giants of the days when SF first became popular, its "Golden Age". The author? Arthur C. Clarke. The novel? Childhood's End.

Clarke passed away earlier this month at the age of 90. He was not only a justly celebrated writer but also a visionary scientist. He wrote a paper in 1945 that postulated communications satellites in geosynchronous orbits (now called Clarke orbits).

His writing is marked by a boundless optimism, by vast vistas of time and space, and by that old fashioned hallmark of science fiction, sense of wonder. You don't read Clarke for character development or emotional depth; you read him for ideas and plot. Don't get me wrong, he was a competent wordsmith. He just wasn't elegant.

He was one of the first three giants of science fiction, along with Asimov and Heinlein. He was the last of the three to pass away. Those of us who enjoy SF were enriched by his presence in the world.

Another trip to the airport

My daughter Gigi and her boyfriend Chris came to visit us for their spring break a couple of weeks ago. It says a lot to me that they not only chose to spend their vacation time in North Carolina, but that they paid for their airfare.

Chris, like Gigi, is a child of divorce. He is close to his brothers, in fact lives with one of them, if I'm correct. Still, I wonder how he feels when he visits here and he get thrown into the extended family. He appears to handle it well, and even to enjoy it.

Gigi now no longer disappears into herself when we visit my family. It is good, not only that she interacts with her grandparents, aunts, and cousins, more, but that she put herself front and center more. She is studying elementary education with the intent of becoming a teacher, after all.

Gigi and Chris aren't engaged, but they are thinking about marriage. I'm happy that my daughter's first truly serious relationship is with a young man who respects her, and who is working to put himself into our family. That's better than I had in the past.

They flew home out of Charlotte, a week ago yesterday. I always try to get to the airport well more than an hour before domestic flights these days, but we got out of Greensboro 30 minutes later than I wanted -- I guess the stop at Bojangles for breakfast was worth it as a last bit of Southern cuisine for our Midwestern bound pair -- and we got to Douglas airport about 50 minutes before their flight was due to leave. Gigi asked us just to drop them off curbside at the terminal, instead of parking and walking them in. For once, there weren't tears at departure, just hugs and promises to see each other again as soon as we could arrange it. That will be at Andy's high school graduation in June.

As we drove away from the terminal, Lisa saw that the hourly parking deck was just across the street from the terminal. We could have parked and gone in with them through check-in and up to security. Live and learn.

We stopped at a nearby Wendy's, got a couple of sodas, and simply waited with our phones on, until after their departure time. Just in case, you know.

Our soundtrack for the ride home was Simon "We play everything" 98.7 FM out of Greensboro. Back to everyday life, with an interlude of a phone call from Gigi, just before we reached Greensboro, to let us know that their flight had landed in Chicago.