The last time I saw my father was at my graduation ceremonies from Carnegie Mellon in May of 2003. Six weeks later he died of cardiac arrest at his home. In August I moved from Pittsburgh to my new job in the San Francisco Bay area.

Last July, a year after he died, I opened up my 'life savings' jar that I hadn't looked inside since living in Pittsburgh.

click to enlarge

Inside, written on a one dollar bill, was his final message to me: "If you keep this $ you'll have $ for a lifetime. -- If you spend it you are fucked."

I miss you dad. Happy Father's Day.

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As has become our annual tradition, Rachel and I and a bunch of friends went to a nice brunch on Easter Sunday and took easter eggs to a cemetery where we did some sightseeing and photography.

The first year it was just Rachel and me wandering around the cemetery across the street from my apartment in Pittsburgh. Last year it was Karen, Crystal, Gina, and a tiny, old (150 years; that's old by California standards) cemetery in Half Moon Bay, where we dyed the eggs off the back of the car with vinegar we brought and cold water we got from the diner next door.

This year eleven of us went to a really fine brunch at Crimson then went to Oak Hills cemetery, a sprawling expanse of resting places in such a variety of ages, themes, and ostentation. Along the way we took plenty of pictures which I'm sure Rachel and I will be posting for several days.

To start things off though, I have a small gallery of portraits I shot at brunch and later. Last month I got a new lens, a fixed 50mm f/1.4. It's a really fast lens (lets in a lot of light allowing for fast shutter speeds and very narrow depths of field) and was great for indoor photography. Using spot-metering for exposure, I got a lot of nice pictures with good subject tones and completely blown out backgrounds. I really like this effect.

Mostly because they do a better job than I can, I've taken to using Flickr for most of my blog galleries for the time being. Feel free to comment on pictures there.

Enjoy!

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It's Valentine's Day (in case the V-day Google logo didn't remind you) and Rachel's put up some really nifty Valentine-themed desktop pictures to keep you in the mood for months!

If candy hearts are too impersonal a medium to express your true sentiments but you still want to say 'I love you' with sugar, then start planning for next year by reading Andrew and Kelli's new blog, Lovescool: for the love of dessert.

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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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Okay, okay, my bad. Rachel's birthday was Saturday, May first, May Day, Beltane, whatever you want to call it.

We had friends over and had a wonderful time in our backyard, our sanctuary, our hummingbird paradise. Rachel pulled off a wonderful party (I helped a little) and everyone had a great time. Rachel even went above and beyond and took some absolutely beautiful portraits of the guests as we spent hours talking, watching the hummingbirds scurry, the light fade, and the glow of food and fun continue on after bringing the party inside. Six hours never passed so quickly.

Happy birthday, Rachel! May this year be your best yet, and may you bask in the glow of all those who love you as I do. Okay, well not as I do but, you know, love you lots, too.

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So it's St. Patrick's Day again. Last night I celebrated in proper style, Irish dancing with friends at Ammy's new weekly ceili at St. Stephen's Green, in Los Altos.

Now I'm celebrating by wearin' green, eating my Lucky Charms, and checking out Google's Celtic Knot logo.

Which brings up a (very pedantic) point: What the hell's up with Lucky charms? Back in the day it had a catchy slogan, with the leprichaun touting LC's "yellow stars, blue diamonds, green clovers, and pink hearts." Today, the leprichaun has a whole mouthful to convey, with the addition of pink-yellow-blue rainbows, shooting stars, purple horseshoes, pots of gold, secret gold keys (gold marshmellows with a key-shaped core that dissolves in milk), and orange-somethings.

Forget the fact that these 'marshmellows' have as much to do with actual marshmellows as a cupcake has to do with a cup. Then there's the grey gunk at the bottom of the bowl from all the melted and re-solidified 'marshmellow detrius'.

Damn. it's all gone. I need to get another bowl.

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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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Like many San Franciscans, I was blessed with seeing dozens of Santas roaming the streets last Saturday night. For the curious, this is what all the santas were about.

Many elves died to bring you this news.

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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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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!

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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.

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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.

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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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It's the big three-oh for me! Woo-hoo! Now I'm finally old enough to be a U.S. Senator!

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My uncle, a long-time writer and storyteller, has lately been writing phenomenal accounts of his life and emailing them to the family. Inspired by his courage to speak in his 'true voice' without concern of tempering accounts for his audience, I want to share a few items from my private journal.

My good friend and former lover, Caroline, passed away in a car accident four years ago, about six months before I started keeping a weblog. After coming back from the memorial service, I wrote a eulogy in my physical journal. Re-reading it tonight for the first time in years, its so relevant to my life now that I want to put it down here, both because it's a part of me, and because maybe it will strike a chord with someone else.

Sunday, March 28, 1999

Caroline K. O'Brien was killed in a car accident on Wednesday.

In the short time that I knew her, caroline taught me so much about the human condition, and how wonderful life could be. Only now, with her passing, am I beginning to realize the true scope of her gift.

Caroline was fearless. she would never hesitate to make the dangerous choice, and she had the self-reliance to drive forward where most would balk at fear of failure or fear of reprisal. What makes her truly beautiful is that this rare drive was joined by an equally rare love of those around her. She realized the true nature of happiness and strove to bring it out in others.

She was very smart, but she never held it against you. In love, Caroline followed the middle path: Never fear love; embrace it. Don't let it blind you, but let it fill you and those around you with joy.

I learned so much about love and life from Caroline. I've spent far more time over the last two years absorbing that knowledge into my own life than the time I was gifted with her presence.

Ben and I spent several hours talking on the road yesterday to and from the service. Talking with him helped me remember many of the lessons I forgot over time.

We all have a responsibility to embrace life. It's vital to steer clear of the empty side every day, however comfortable it may be. the life best lived is one filled with chances, experiences, glowing successes and poignant defeats. It's the self-reliance that allows a person to take a thousand chances a day, to be warmed by the successes and learn from the failures.

Nice is different than good, and both are essential. Live for yourself by living for others.

Consuetude should never be confused with contentment, and when routine and habit drive our actions we all die a little.

Life is a series of relations and intersections, and we grow wiser, stronger, and hopefully happier with every one.

Beware the feedback loop. Love and happiness can't survive in a sealed environment. If love is to lead your life, then it must always be fed with new experiences, risks, successes and failures brought to the table by both parties. Most importantly, never lose hold of the qualities that inspired love once love is achieved, because love is not a gateway or a finish line. It's a constant achievement to be won each day.

Do great things and small. Never be afraid of the extra mile. You'll find looking back that the outcome is always worth more than the opportunity cost, whether it's driving two hours to see a friend for dinner or leaving a job to follow a dream.

Thank you Caroline for all your teachings. I pray that I can live up to them in my own life every day, and inspire others as you inspire me.

I love you,
Kevin

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So it's only two days until I turn 30, but nature's present came early. I walked outside tonight at about 9:30 to go see a free showing of Goldmember in the park. Stepping off my porch, I stopped in my tracks. Between one warm evening and the next, the fireflies had come out in force.

From my first visit to Pittsburgh over a year ago, I was clear on the concept that I wasn't in California anymore: Bright sunny 80-degree days are no guarantee against a quick thundershower before sunset. When I came here to live last August, I learned about the cacophonous cicada and their 22 year cycle. Fall introduced me to the colors of which Pennsylvanian nature is capable, followed unusually quickly by Winter's blankets of snow, applied again and again. With the Spring came the rain, lush green grass right outside my window, and an ocean of dandelions. Approaching the end of the full circle, I thought that I knew all of Gaia's gifts to Pittsburg, but stumbling upon thousands of glowstick-green fireflies softly lighting and fading while weaving in front of, behind, and around tombstones in the twilight struck me dumb in a way I suddenly realized I had feared I was becoming incapable of as I enter my fourth decade.

I've often used the cemetery as my emotional soundstage over the last year, whether surreptitiously placing easter eggs on the statues with Rachel, picnicking on the grass, following foot-deep foot-holes in the snow on the way to the bus or striding hom, weaving through the headstones beneath the midnight moon with 'Rest in Peace' blaring in my iPod's earbuds. This felt totally different though. Tonight the graveyard was alive.

...

It was exactly 20 years ago today that I had last seen the faerie. A half a world away, in a vineyard an hour north of Florence, I was just two days away from my 10th birthday, travelling through Europe with my mom and sister. The fireflies were everywhere around the trees and the vines, flicking on and off, talking to each other, and speaking to me as well. It was a magical night outdoors, eating a fine dinner, feeling the Summer warmth, and walking a path under a waterfall reputed to take a decade off the ambler's age (a completely different prospect to someone not quite ten yet).

As we waited for the tour busses to take us back to reality, I urgently found a jar and caught a few of the fireflies. I was so proud. Mom told me that I could keep them if I wanted to, but I should know that they'd die within a day, and they would never glow again. I let them go just before I climbed the steps onto the motor coach. Mom smiled.

...

The faerie have changed in the intervening decades, but then so have I. In 1983 I was spastic with youth, and the fireflies reflected this with their fast binary blinks. Somewhere on their abdomen they were flittering their shutters open and closed, sending precise signals through the dusk.

Nature, digitized.

Today's gift was so different that at first I didn't even recognize it. A sine-wave of brightness in the corner of my eye, another floating above my car. I literally rubbed my eyes to clear these errant embers floating senselessly. After one travelled right in front of me, I realized what they were, so different from what I expected. Focusing out beyond the grass and to the headstones beyond I could see hundreds of them, brightening, peaking, and dimming to invisibility, seemingly constant lights drifting between this dimension and another. Seeing headstones literally lit by their passing glow, I thought to myself, 'Buffy can't touch this.'

Reality, smoothed.

I had to share, so I called Rachel to tell her that she was right and the fireflies had indeed come. "Of course, silly!" 'Will they stay? or is it a one-night deal?' "They'll be around all month! It's what they do."

Feeling the magic lift me, I got in my car and drove to the movie, seeing only one or two fireflies the whole way. Apparently the dead get first dibs. Well, them and their neighbors.

Tomorrow I'll see how well the video camera can handle this unique low-light setting. For tonight, I'm cherishing my first birthday present.

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And so the great rush of June and July birthdays begins, matched only by the October/November rush.

Happy Birthday Emily! I hope the day finds you well, and that the coming year is filled with wonder (the good kind)!

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Going to the other side of Pennsylvania for a few days for a wedding. We're going to go on an Amish Buggy Ride along the way.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Uncaptioned as of yet, I wanted to post my gallery of pics from today's graduation. So much fun!

Click to see the rest

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Walking to the bus yesterday, I found that the recent rain had yielded tens of thousands of dandelions across the street. Later in the day I got to take a few pictures.

(See the others)

Let me know if any of these particularly strike you and I can make up some desktop pictures and post them.

So many potential wishes out there, and I really only need one.

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Happy Beltane, everyone! Would that I had the time and opportunity to dance up the sun this year.

Would that I had the opportunity to sleep. Well, I'm going to try, before coming back to my slavedriving powerbook.

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Hurt neck (no, it's not 'call Kevin and make sure he's alive' bad, but it's more than 'oh a good five-minute massage and he's right as rain'). It's amazing that two pillows when you're used to one can cause such annoyance.

On the brighter side, I also seem to have accomplished the impossible by convincing UPS to attempt a fourth delivery after coming home to their 'Final Delivery Attempt Failed' post-it on my front door. The new TiVo will be mine. Oh yes; it will be mine.

Oh, right! Happy Valentine's Day! I hope your day is filled with joy and wonder, or at least chocolates.

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...I am done.

Granted I haven't slept since yesterday morning, and I have two hours to pack for four weeks away, including a little housecleaning so I don't feel it nagging me in the back (2700 miles back) part of my mind.

There's a little story about Christmases and my own personal holiday tradition, but it'll have to wait until after I sleep, because it's about all I can do to type this, and I shouldn't even be doing that in the face of folding, packing, forgetting, remembering, forgetting again, cleaning, and oh the lugging.

But it doesn't matter, because the semester's done.

yay

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"Ooh, honey, is this diamond engagement ring your Grandmother's?"

"No, it's my Grandmother."

Eew.

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Here are some of the sites I've noticed that have gone fishy today:

• Met4filter
• ebay
• Google (Check out the 'secret behind our pageranking' link)
• Fucked Company (check out the recent fuck, the buyout of pk interactive by idealab)
• Slashdot (everything you read is a lie)

Got any good April Fools sites? Share and Comment away! (oh, and be sure to put a target=new in your link tags in comments, or else the site will load in the teensy comment window...)

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Hope everyone had a good weekend and is up for a day of web shenanigans! Not that you'd ever see any of that stuff here at Fury. Heck no.

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So I've expressed in the past how I feel about resolutions, but I've got a few ready for 2002 anyhow:

1. Use people's names. I don't use peoples names when I talk to them. I have a latent fear of accidentally getting the name wrong, and thereby invalidating whatever respect that person thinks I have for them. I'm bad with names. Good with people and who-knows-who and who-does-what, but the actual nombre descriptors often don't get recorded well in my head, so much that even wehn talking to people who I've known for years and *of course* know who they are, the habit remains, and I don't use their name when I talk to them. The worst and most common example is the passing-in-the-hall: "Hey Kevin." "Hi." I never trust my fifth-of-a-second name recall and the risk of embarassment doesn't make it worth it.

   So, flash cards for linking faces and names, and take the risk of making a mistake.

2. Learn how to say goodbye. When I say goodbye to someone, after lunch, at the end of an evening, maybe even a phone conversation, I can't let go. I close it up with this weird need to know when I'll see or talk to the person again. Dirk Gently says every time he leaves someone's company he assumes they're dead, and when he sees them it's a time of surprise and rejoicing. I'm not that bad, but I've got to learn that out of sight doesn't mean out of mind, or out of existence. Maybe it's my frightfully short attention span; If I don't make a little link for the next contact, I might just forget and never talk to them again. Anyhow, once again, small insecurity blossomed into lifelong habit that it's high time I break. I mean, it's silly when, out of habit, you end phone calls with a Southwest Airlines operator or person from the phone company with "'k, I'll talk to you later. Bye!" High time, definitely.

I'm sure I'll think of a few more of these things. Less overt than losing 20 pounds, but even more unshackling.

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If 'august' is defined as 'marked by majestic dignity or grandeur' is that why it seems to go by so slowly?

I think December should be called August, since it seems far more majestic than people romping around in shorts, throwing frisbees and generally having a good time.

Oh wait. That's how I spend Christmas anyhow... Besides, Having December as the eighth month only makes slightly less sense than having it as the twelfth.

Calendars are so messed up. What kind of a number is 7 anyhow? It has no place in a structured sequence. I think we should work on days that end with the number 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Then we get 'nosday, firstday, and twosday' off. For holidays we'd have a 'thirday weekend' or we'd get ninthday off.

Actually, I'd rather take of sixthday off for errands, and have a real weekend...

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What did I do this weekend? Well, last week all Yahoo! got an email that there's a 25% off sale, above and beyond any other sales or markdowns, at Linens 'n' Things for all Yahoo! employees and their guests this weekend only. Friday I got my first Yahoo! paycheck.

You can see where this goes...

Sunday morning Emily, Ali, and I ventured to Pleasanton for a little binge shopping. Like any bachelor, I find that there are certain kinds of things that follow the binge-purge cycle: build up the laundry 'till you're stuck for clothes you'd dare to be seen in, then spend a whole day at the laundramat, washing everything but the clothes you'd never wear, but can't seem to bring to throw or give away, grocery shopping (and all the people reading this who really know me can shut up now. It's a generalization. <grin>), and of course shopping of all other kinds that don't fall under the 'impulse buy' or the banal needs of the id.

Shopping for the bedroom falls squarely in the realm of the bulimic. I don't do it often, but when I do, I revel in it, and I'm glad that I had two friends with me with a better sense of decorating than me. So three hours, 750 dollars, and a couple cartloads of comforter, chenelle, pillows,and varied assortments later we were done.

Ali and Emily each came away with respectable hauls as well. I'm sure Ali already put her ensemble together to greet her husband returning that evening from Los Angeles. Emily's probably putting hers together as I write this, and I'm putting my new bedroom together as soon as I get home and post this.

I have a houseguest coming in tomorrow, and so I have another bed to make up as well as my own, and more dauntingly, a living room that has seen the brunt of my long hours at work and little time to straighten up these past few weeks.

Assembling furniture and cleaning a room is a lot like taking a bath when I was little: you kick and scream against it, but once you're in the thick it's actually pretty great.

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I got my cap and gown today. Only a few more days 'till I walk (it feels like that should apply in more than one sense of the word).

It's a funny thing. I hadn't applied it to graduation ceremonies before, but color, or more specifically, the transition from black to white or vice-versa, has a uniform, yet often contradictory, significance across several cultures and disciplines.

Take the martial arts for example: Though the different forms (and in some cases, different schools) have different progressions through belt colors, they do, almost without exception, progress from the neophyte white belt to the expert black belt. The symbolic significance here is that the beginner, without knowledge, is innocent, and is as impressionable and changable as the pure white belt. As the student progresses, learning more and more, they approach black, an aggregation of the knowledge, wisdom, and experience they have gathered on their path.

Conversely, in Medieval Europe, anyone could wear a black or brown belt, but the knighthood was identified by a white belt, symbolizing the acquired purity of spirit and nobility of purpose.

Now that I'm thinking about it in broader terms, it makes sense that the cap and gown are black, signifying the end of a journey. In the same vein, the white wedding dress indicates the beginning of one.

Funerals: black, end of journey.

Baby showers: white, or pastel blue or pink, beginning.

Okay, I'll break down and admit that I don't know if the knight's white belt is an abberation because black and brown were already common before the knighthood and they had to distinguish themselves, or if the whole white-belt thing isn't actually true and is just one more thing I took from the SCA to be a historical carryover instead of a new invention.

At any rate, it's interesting (read: fun for a geek like me) to take a look at traditions and pick apart the symbolism and see if there's a common root for the symbolsim across seemingly unrelated traditions.

I need to do a little research on the mortarboard and tassle symbolism, but I'll wait until my finals are over, as I don't think that information will be particularly useful on the exams...

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