We went to New Jersey last weekend to spend Thanksgiving with Amy’s family, and to witness the baptism of her brother Bob. Continue reading Thanksgiving Weekend 2011
Last of the Litter
Sad news: Jasper the Cat has died, at the venerable old age of 20. You may remember Jasper from my time living in Baltimore — he was my old housemate’s cat, and Pandora’s brother. An active and affectionate gray tabby with a roguish penchant for the outdoors, Jasper was excitable opposite to his quieter, more reserved indoor sister. With both cats born from a litter of four, of whom the other two had died previously, Jasper’s passing leaves Pandora as last survivor of the litter.
As for Pandora, 20 years old is impressive for a cat, but the age is not without attendant health and behavior issues, among them feline hyperthyroidism, renal dysfunction, litterbox aversion, and frequent regurgitation. Regular vet checkups are a must, and with regular medication she’s doing fairly well for such an advanced age. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it; hopefully she lives for years longer still.
On the Passing of Computer Luminaries
Steve Jobs died on October 5th, shortly after the iPhone 4S was announced. Jobs’ reserved seat sat empty at the event, and as new Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered the keynote he almost certainly knew the time was near. I half-expected that he would demo the new iPhone’s FaceTime app with a call to to Jobs in his sickbed, but that would probably have been a bit crass, with Jobs in no condition to deal with a video call.
Jobs didn’t invent the personal computer, laptop, graphical user interface, portable music player, smartphone, or DVR; but he did bring to all these a distinct mix of discovered design talent and business/operations acumen that transformed average consumer electronics into accessible life-changing devices, defying expectations and thinking so future-forward that sometimes it seemed crazy. From a $666.66 DIY motherboard kit, to touchscreen communications devices made from tiny logic boards strapped to giant batteries, Apple under Jobs managed to take existing ideas, introduce to them a magical sense of aesthetically rewarding utility, and sell them on a Reality Distortion Field-powered cloud of overwhelming cultural desirability. I was not immune.
Some final notes: His sister’s eulogy, the Apple memorial page, and the naturopathic folly Jobs held to that allowed his cancer to progress past the threshold of survivability.
Steve Jobs’ death was shortly followed by the deaths of Dennis Ritchie and John McCarthy, arguably even greater computer giants for their own seminal contributions. Ritchie created C and helped create UNIX, while McCarthy created Lisp and influenced the development of artificial intelligence. Their deaths made less of a public splash than Steve Jobs’, but their technological legacies deserve as much memorialization and reflection.
There have been analogies to Edison, but I like to rank Jobs and Ritchie and McCarthy more along the lines of Babbage, Lovelace, Morse, Turing, and other past luminaries upon whose shoulders the current computer age stands.
Chip
Last Sunday First Baptist DC held a memorial service for Chip Hailey, long-time church member and A/V engineer, and a fixture in the Falls Church public access TV community. I briefly trained under Chip while the church was searching for new talent to manage the sanctuary A/V system. (Though I never became A/V tech, as my church time is mostly taken by choir duties — and it’s logistically difficult to juggle singing with sound room.)
During the memorial I was especially struck by this story from Chip’s childhood:
Chip was born with cerebral palsy. As one of the first poster children for the ailment, Chip attended a special event at the White House where he sat on Margaret Truman’s lap. His newly polished shoes left stains on Miss Truman’s dress; Chip made his “mark on the Truman Administration,” as he later joked with friends.
It was a very DC story. (The Trumans attended at First Baptist DC through the course of Harry Truman’s presidency, and Rev. Dr. Edward Pruden delivered the invocation at the Truman inauguration.)
More obituaries for Chip from Falls Church City TV, Falls Church News press, and Falls Church Times; and a memorial page on Facebook.
Pallbearing
Amy’s grandma passed away. We went up to New Jersey for the funeral.
Never been a pallbearer before. First time for everything. Most of the pallbearer duty consists of just placing a hand atop the casket as it rolls on a wheeled stand from funeral home to church, but some lifting is needed needed when it comes to the curb. As I struggle with the handle and wrestle the casket those few vertical inches, my mind tries to form some metaphor about the weight of mortality, but it’s just a heavy casket.
Back in the funeral home, a praying mantis hangs out — literally — from a floor lamp, and an array of casket selections can be viewed in the office. After the funeral mass and burial ceremony, I spy an oblique cube headstone. It is, to say the least, unique. We then retire to a nearby diner for brunch. The pickles are amazing.
New York, the next day. We look at Asian art at The Met and eat sushi at Kiku. The waiter says they have a shipment of some excellent Toro in the sashimi selection. I order a piece. It’s $4, but is the most amazing fatty melt-in-your-mouth chunk of tuna I have ever eaten. Along with a few pieces of salmon it is one of those sashimi meals where I am sad to come to the end. Outside, a view of Midtown Manhattan.
It all feels so material and bodily. I feel like I should be grieving more, not touring about New York and absorbing classical art and raw fish. But I’ve always had this numb matter-of-factness about death, and a hope from tenets of my faith regarding the afterlife. A heavy casket, but lighter at least by the weight of a soul redeemed.
Eulogy for an iPad
I lost my iPad last month: stuck it in the seat pocket on the plane coming back from NASA Tweetup and forgot it there, only realizing the loss well after we had disembarked. It’s gone now.
NASA Tweetup: Juno
In early August 2011 I attended a NASA Tweetup at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for the launch of Juno, JPL’s new probe to Jupiter.
Upstate NY Adventures
We went up to the Albany, NY area at the end of July to see Amy’s cousin Jason get married, and also visit her grandma. Along the way we saw some exotic northern destinations like Schenectady, Niskayuna, Guilderland, and Rensselaer. Continue reading Upstate NY Adventures
Fourth of July 2011
We had a lazy, lazy Fourth of July and simply viewed fireworks from the condo parking garage rooftop. There was a lot going on, though, and I was able to get a decent timelapse of this show going on just a couple of miles away:
Set to tinny 1913 Sousa, as always.
Car
We got a car. Having a car is probably normal for a lot of you but it hasn’t always been for me. Continue reading Car