This summer sucked. R.I.P Blaire Newton

August is over and we are into September. What was a great Spring rapidly turned into a really crappy Summer. The entire month of July was cold, and I spent it looking forward to the trip on Israel for Wade's Bar Mitzvah at the end of August. We got to Israel with only a minor bit of butt pain from sitting so long, dropped the bags off in the one of our 2 hotel rooms that was ready at the Inbal in Jerusalem, did some walking and shopping, bought my kids their first Felafel, met up with my in-laws at the pool, went upstairs to get ready for dinner and to meet up with the tour group when it all came crashing down - my brother-in-law Blaire had died suddenly during our flight over.

We re-booked our flights home, but none were available for abut 36 hours. While Blaire's death is tragic and what it has done to the family, and especially my sister-in-law is sad beyond description, what I will remember for the rest of my life is my son Wade lying on his bed and the look on his face. When we were shopping he bought a kippah that fit him nicely and he truly seemed to feel at home there, seemly as I felt the first time I was there. Now to have it all taken away, along with his Uncle just a few hours after it started.

I myself fell into quite a depression for a couple of weeks. Taking a trip to a water park with my kids, my nephew, his cousin, my cousin's sone and assorted friends, friend's kids the and kids' friends really helped pick up my spirits though. The renaissance faire helped a bit too, although a cannot go there without remembering Blaire and his costume those few years ago when we all used to go camping together for the weekend and go the to the faire for two days, falling asleep in front of the fire at the campground.

To my kids that seems so long ago, but as accumulated memories invariably accelerate subjective time, it seems relatively recent to me.

I was sent a list of concerts that a friend had seen on Facebook recently. That got me thinking about all of the concerts I have seen. I thought that perhaps I would put a similar list into place on here, where I could come back and edit it more easily from time to time. If you were ever at a concert with me and it is not on this list, please feel free to let me know so I can add it.

Alice In Chains
Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe
Bad Company
Beach Boys
Billy Joel
Billy Squier
Black Sabbath
Blue Oyster Cult (many)
Chicago
CSN (with and without Y)
Candlebox
Cindy Lauper
Creed
David Johanssen (as himself and as Buster Poindexter)
Def Leppard
Dream Theater
Earth Wind & Fire
Elton John
Emerson Lake & Palmer
Eric Clapton
Fish
Fleetwood Mac
Foreigner
Genesis
Godsmack
Good Charlotte
Grand Funk Railroad
Harry Chapin
Hootie & The Blowfish
James Taylor
Jethro Tull
Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes
Joe Perry Project
John Paul Jones
Kansas
King Crimson
Kiss
Limp Bizkit
Lyle Lovett and his large band
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Marillion (many)
Miles Davis
Moody Blues
Neil Innes
Ozzy Osbourne
Pat Benatar
Paul McCartney
Paul Simon
Pearl Jam
Pete Best
Peter & Gordon
Peter Gabriel
Phil Collins
Pink Floyd
Porcupine Tree
Quiet Riot
REM
Rick Wakeman
Rikki Lee Jones
Ringo Starr
Robert Plant
Roger Waters
Rush (many)
Sevendust
Smash Mouth
Smithereens
Spyrogyra
Squeeze
Steely Dan
Steve Hackett
Steven Stills
Stevey-Ray Vaughn
Stone Temple Pilots
Styx
The Clash
The Tubes
The Who
Third Eye Blind
Triumph
Twisted Sister ( / Bad Brother)
UFO
Van Halen
Velvet Revolver
Yes (many)
Zebra (many)

* Note that (many) means so many times I cannot remember, not like Genesis, Robert Plant, Pearl Jam or Peter Gabriel which I have seen around three-four times each 3 times

Wow - am I thriving

I was told this mornign that I thrive I stress. My response was that I must really be thriving!

So the company that I work for is now owned by a private firm. That is both good and bad. The medical coverage sucks, but there is a lot of room to help guide things I am interested in.

Most recently I went through training in Agile development with the whole group here: business, developers, and everyone else you could think about. I cannot tell you how great this is. I do not know that it is for everyone, but so far I love it, and it seems to be working well for us.

If I was only working on that it would be great, however I seem to have fallen into the lead position from the applications standpoint of the move of our system over to a new facility with new hardware. Do you know how people tell you to make lemonade when you are given lemons? I am drowning in the lemonade at this point. But on the bright side, it does all seem to be turning into lemonade.

While all of this is going on at work, this recession is turning out to be a huge boon on the consulting side. This weekend is the big convention for one of our clients that we get stuck attending, so I am prepping computers and my 42" plasma screen for the weekend there, all the while setting up a bunch of virtual servers on a high-end Dell 2850 running VMWare ESX. Good stuff. When linux natively has virtualization like this with KVM or whatever they actuallly end up with, I will be happy to go over to it, but until then this is great!

Child #1 is fencing away, doing trwo days per week in the city now, while taking an SAT prep course alkl on top of all of the AP classes she is taking. Now too much stress there either. Maybe she could actually make the bus one morning?

As for the "little" one, the countdown to the Bar Mitzvah is down in double digits now. I suppose I should start studying my torah portion at some point soon, but why put off to tomorrow what can be put off to next week!

The Programming VP post at the shul is almost done. Shabbat Across America is coming along nicely and attendance is far more than I expected. I hope this goes well!

Then there is the planning for the big trip to Israel this summer. That's sort of my holy grail right now. It has been 25 years since I was there and I cannot wait to get back. Everyone hasd cameras now and we are all practicing with them. Documenting a trip in this day and age is going to be far different than it was in 1980. I write an adventure game for the TRS-80 on the flight home back then. Look it up some time - it is called Jerusalem Adventure and can still be found in the TRS-80 archives.

At the end of the month is fest. I will be tweeting live during the fest as well as doing the webcast. Should be interesting, especially after 7 or 8 drinks in on Saturday night.

Should I ever complain that life is boring, just point me to this post. As for now, am I thriving!