EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER
EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER
You may have noticed the quiet in these parts of late. Chalk it
up to a number of things. Among the things, mostly good things:
Projects heating up, lots of prep and development work. Meetings
and interaction with a number of groups, meet-ups, meetings relating to
ongoing projects or ongoing "day job" activity.
And then some other matters, too. Some not-so-good-things. More on that in a moment.
GUNG HOW FAT CHOY!
Happy Chinese New Year to one and all. This will be the year of
The Rooster. Perhaps, among other mystical and ancient beliefs,
for the next lunar year it will be easier to get up early. A
common celebration of the Chinese New year is to give oranges as
celebratory gifts. In some parts of China the popular custom is
to give oranges because in the language (this is one of those zillions
of different dialect things), the word Orange sounds like "Ji", which
means "good luck". And so oranges are presented to one's friends and
relatives to express respects and good wishes for the coming year.
The sign of The Rooster
indicates a person who is hard-working, confident and unwavering. This
means Roosters can really crow about their own accomplishments!
According to the Chinese astrological calendar, Rooster years are all
about strategic planning and order. Rooster years are also good for
cleaning up after past difficulties and stabilizing economies. As is
generally the case with all New Years celebrations (no matter
what the religious, geographic or social calendar), it heralds a time
for change and renewal, and a time to cast aside the bad things of the
prior year.
I will celebrate the New year by getting a new pair of glasses.
So this year I will be able to read the small print and not have to
remove my glasses, squint, or move whatever I'm reading (newspaper,
book, magazine, piece of paper, menu, etc.) back, forth, or gauge the
distance until it becomes clear.
In the Year of The Monkey (this
past year, the tail end, to be specific, all puns intended) I got my eyes examined. Now there's no more time for
monkeying around -- new glasses will be the first order of this new
year.
The Chinese year is 4702. For those keeping score, it is still 5765 on
the Jewish calendar. That leaves the mysterious 1023 years for
historians to wonder just what cuisine the Jews ate on weekends.
THOU SHALT MORPH
The Media Center has a blog, known as Morph . Last November at a Positive Media Conference meeting in Washington I met Gloria Pan,
the Communications Director at The Media Center. Gloria and I
spoke about New Tech, and the emerging opportunities that are part of
the convergence of media, enhanced communications, regular everyday
life, and all these neat gadgets and enhancements available to us
courtesy of new tech gadgets, gizmos, technologies, and the weaving of
tech stuff into everyday life. Gloria suggested that maybe I
should be a guest blogger on Morph.
Shortly thereafter my pal (and old schoomate from a gazillion years ago) Susan Mernit
became a Senior Fellow at The Media Center. This may be known as
converging convergence. Susan also suggested I do some guest
blogging over at Morph.
Suffice it to say that in short order I will be posting about NewTech
and media matters both there and here. Cross-posting, a good
thing. Take a look at Morph, to read Gloria, Susan, and a host of
guest bloggers. I am in rather august company over there.
Er, will be, as I have not yet posted.
GOOD RAGE
Life has gotten in the way of blogging for me of late. And to a
slight degree, even in the way of reading my e-mail and the
ever-expanding number of blogs I like to look at on a daily
basis.
A quick check of the mailbox this morning and what did I
see? Numerous alerts of posts appearing over at the RageBoy/Christopher Locke
sites aka Chief Blogging Officer and The EGR Weblog. And wow, do I have some reading and catching up to do!
This end of the Monkey Year and beginning of the Rooster Year has
brought about all sorts of blogductivity from the mighty pen of
RB. Do yourself a favor: drop everything and read RageBoy's two blogs. Your life will be better for it.
LIFE GETS IN THE WAY
Amidst a ton of good stuff going on (all those projects and exciting
developments) comes some somber news, as well. A very, very close
friend has been ill. Cancer, starting in one area and now
spreading. We'd been meaning to go visit, but life kept getting
in the way. The illness got worse. Another friend of ours
had recently been to visit him, coming back with a rather doleful
report.
The bottom line: we should schedule our visit sooner rather than
later. Our friend's Chemotherapy schedule: every other
week. So the plan was to schedule our visit between Chemo weeks,
as he had requested, to catch him at his strongest period in the cycle.
In the early stages of travel planning it became apparent that sooner
meant ASAP. The phone calls went from once a week to a few times
a week. Then to almost daily. Then came the onset of
Pneumonia just days after a Chemo treatment.
So last week we dropped everything and went out to Las Vegas to see our
friend (and his Significant Other and his adult children). It was
jarring, unsettling, a sobering visit. This friend is very dear
to me. He had a great deal to do with my getting together with my
Significant Other; he was there for me like few others during my period
of rough luck. Friends of this sort are very special.
Despite having seen my fair share of the ravages of Cancer and other
dread diseases, one is just never prepared for that first moment,
coming face to face with it. Seeing the weight loss, the hair
loss, the wan coloring, the lack of twinkle in his eyes, the slow
movements, the loss of strength -- it packs an emotional wallop.
A wallop of such force, the kind for which one simply cannot prepare.
He'd been discharged from the hospital the day we arrived.
Visiting nurses came to his home twice a day to tend to his medications and to
monitor his condition. We managed to spent quality time with him
out there. He was glad to see us, and at the end of the visit
told us he was happy we'd come, and asked us to come back. We've
decided to do just that, to schedule another visit as soon as we can
work out the time. And it won't be too far off, either.
I'd held my emotions in check throughout the visit. On the last
evening of our visit, after telling him goodbye and promising to get
back as soon as possible, when I left the room and was out of earshot
and visibility I began to sob. His significant other (she who has
been a rock during this woeful period) gave me a hug, and she, too,
was in tears.
The next day we traveled back to NY. We flew JetBlue, and the great benefit of the airline having Directv for each seat allowed us to watch the Super Bowl, to occupy the travel time with the game and the McCartney halftime show.
GOOD NEWS BAD NEWS
Travel can be very fatiguing. Emotional trips even more so.
Despite having stayed at lodging with high speed net access, there was
a ton of e-mail to answer and work awaiting after the weekend.
Not much business related fare had been accomplished while on the road,
other than replying to a few notes, and deleting a ton of spam from the
server. That was just a way to while away the late-night hours in
the hotel, and to keep from reliving or reviewing the events of the
day. It may have cut down on sleep time, but it seems best to
consider it a safe haven, a protective respite.
We also took one morning during the visit to briefly see another friend
in Vegas. I hadn't seen him for nine years. It was
wonderful to catch up, but time was at a premium. The main
purpose was to visit our sick friend. My other friend, also quite
familiar with grave illness, understood our priorities. Perhaps
another visit, maybe longer by a few more days, and we could spend a
little more time with him, too.
Yesterday, back at home, there were all sorts of errands to run.
And my computers and my net connections were all acting up. A
virus or worm e-mail snuck past the protection (yep, the updated
protection) and bombed out a bunch of e-mail. This was so
frustrating that last night I gave up, and decided to concentrate on it
today (Tuesday). I also had some writing and project work that
needed to be done, which was more pressing than the repair work.
As fate would have it both my kids called me Monday night. One's
in college, the other is a Senior in High School. Hearing from
both of them on one night (and they called me!) is a treat. Each
needed some advice or assistance on one thing or another, so this was
refreshing. It was also wonderful just to hear their voices, to
spend some time with them.
It was a bell-curve sort of day. Roller-coastering, with good
things and bad things seeming to collide as the hours unfolded.
We were unable to connect with our sick friend via telephone all day
yesterday. No answer on the home phone, his ever-by-his-side cell
phone, or his Significant Other's phone. Concern gripped me, but
some sense of calm also prevailed. Concern, yes.
Fear? No.
I also had a sense that something else was brewing, but couldn't put my
finger on it. Mysterious. Unsettling. The feeling just
wouldn't go away.
VIBES, YIN AND YANG
Tuesday began and I attacked the e-mail and virus problem. It was
worse than I'd anticipated. A great deal of restoring from
backups, reloading, and trying to determine how to overlay a backed up
Thunderbird file onto an existing one, rather than overwriting it.
The phone rang and rang and rang, all day. Business contacts,
friends, associates. Always nice to have the phone ringing off
the hook. But each call, it seemed, was cut short by another one
coming in or some other pressing event happening on one side or the
other.
Then came the call that wasn't interrupted. The mystery, that
unsettling feeling, it turns out, was all precognitive. Suffice it to
say that there is more illness, this time hitting even closer to home.
After that call I felt compelled to keep working on the computer
recovery project. The need to complete it was overwhelming, to
accomplish something, to remain on track. Better judgment might
have prevailed, if I had taken a moment to consider just how upset I
had become. Instead, I logged back on to my server, and managed
to wipe out all the data I meant to save. As in all the data I'd
lost from the PC, and needed to download to complete the return to the
way it had been before the problem. Oops.
Megafuckup. Not the sort of thing I do when I am thinking
straight.
At that point I stopped working. Left the PC. Left the office.
Stopped and took a deep breath (or ten), and realized just how very
upset I was. Made a few calls to family members but couldn't
reach anyone. Did get a call, from the friend who had visited our
mutual buddy in Vegas. Brought him up to date; we compared notes,
and I told him about this other bombshell.
The Brighter Side
All this will pass. Life goes on. Wednesday brings the Year
of The Rooster. The Super Bowl is over, and Spring Training
begins in a matter of days. Baseball will soon be here.
Valentine's Day is usually a hoot. My daughter will have her 20th
birthday at the end of the month. The weather will get better as
Spring approaches.
The illnesses of loved ones (and the current technical glitches of the
machines) will temper the joys of these events. But they will not
overshadow them. With the good comes the bad. If time or
age have been able to teach me anything, it is that Newton's Law is not
immediate, nor often too very apparent, yet it is full and grand. Action, reaction, all events
somehow intermeshed, inter-related.
A sense of balance will occur.
