Category Archives: Friends, Family, Life

Steve Olson: “love is the shell’s kryptonite”

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Steve Olson, who recently stopped by to post a comment wrote about “the top causes that make my palms sweat, my heart bleed, and sends tears rolling down my cheeks” for the Caring, Compassion, Charity project.

It’s subject matter I can relate to on many levels – “Why You Should Never Give Up on a Troubled Youth”:

…When I was young, many people who claimed to be helping me, lied to me, abused me, marginalized me, and wrote me off as another statistic. I don’t claim to be special or unique in any way, I am one of millions.

I did not expect to live past 18. I lived through events that should have killed me. The fact that I am here writing this – alive and free – is a miracle. Some of my friends didn’t make it. And some that did are the walking wounded. Ghosts of what could have been.

I owe my life to a couple of inexplicable events and to those few people – and there were very few of them – who accepted me as I was.

As my mind’s eye gazes into the reflection of my past, I clearly see that every moment of every day is a priceless gift.

But the most valuable thing I’ve learned along the way is that there is only one cure for what is wrong with people and the cure is unconditional love and acceptance. It starts with unconditionally loving and accepting yourself as you are right now.

Sound hokey? Cliche? Is unconditional love and acceptance a tall order? Yes, but it’s worth the effort.

Read the whole post.

He finishes with asking me to do the same here. That’s a scary request. It’s one I got to think about. I’m not sure I have guts to let it all hang out out here. There are reasons why I start my online personal history in my late teens.

But for now, let me just say again how much I can relate to his post. I had thought at one time I was going to die by the time I was 18. Then I had thought it would be 25. Then 30. Like so many I was written off by some and let down by others who thought I never could amount to much.

I’m blessed to have found folks along the way who believed in me.

It’s Cancer

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On Friday the results of Mom’s second biopsy came back and confirmed the worst – that Mom had lung cancer – specifically, small cell lung cancer – a particularly nasty form of cancer that spreads unpredictably and fast.

They immediately scheduled a deep body scan to see how far it has spread while Mom agreed to undergo Chemotherapy which started on Saturday, just in case there was a chance to get ahead of this thing.

I should be hearing from her oncologist today about the results of the deep body scan. Mom told me the results were good on Sunday, that the cancer has not spread past her left lung. But what that actually means I don’t know until I speak with him.

Mom is in this place mentally that is hard to comprehend – she’s both clear headed and serene. In her own words she’s “ready to fight, because I have to – but if God is ready to take me – I’m am ready to go”. And I believe her.

Maybe she just isn’t facing the reality of this so far.

Maybe she’s just ready to die.

Or maybe her belief in what-will-be-will-be is stronger than I had ever imagined.

I hope I’ve picked some of that up from her. My core belief that you have no control of the hand you are dealt – and that it’s best not to to get caught up in the contents of that hand – how fair the cards are – or how often you’ve been given a set of cards that have low odds of success – because you do have control over how you play your hand. It’s how you play your hand, no matter how good or bad, that counts.

At least that’s what I tell myself when times are good.

Right now I don’t feel that way at all.

And I’m afraid that she might be playing ‘strong’ for me and Dante’s benefit.

Yesterday I told her that if she is, she should stop. That we can handle this together. She swore she wasn’t. I tried to discern the truth, but her eyes have such a child like innocence about them (an innocence that makes NO SENSE in the face of what she’s seen in her life) that I couldn’t.

Following the deep body scan results and talk with the oncologist will come difficult discussions.

My Mom *Might* Have Cancer

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My Mom has had a few bouts of ICU worthy pneumonia over the past year. Last week she felt some chest pain, thinking it was a possible heart attack she went to the emergency room.

Turns out they found two large masses in her left lung and her lymph nodes are swollen. The doctors gave me an 85% chance that it’s cancer and in an advanced state. Her first bronchial biopsy was inconclusive so they are proceeding with a second today and then another test if necessary. So far her symptoms are no different than those she’s been experiencing with her COPD for the last few years.

She’s in amazing spirits. She’s 74 and has seen much hardship in her life. Recently she told me that these past few years have been her best. I’m proud of her.

I’m not doing so well. But that’s to be expected I guess. There’s still a chance that this is nothing more than a bad infection. A false positive. But the doctors seem to think that’s not likely.

I’m always trying to look for the bright side of things, that sliver of light down the tunnel, and there are a few – Emma has grown into an awesome toddler, she’s almost two! My herniated disk hasn’t troubled me as much since my last injection (over a week now of decreased pain). beta.comcast.net is rolling along, the feedback has been great. And Richelle has been supportive dealing with it all.

I know this is just part of the cycle of life. I can rationalize it a million ways. I know on an intellectual level I’m not alone. Especially with two brothers. But still, it’s hard not to be sad that a small dream of mine, that Emma get to really know Mom, is looking less and less likely. And when Mom goes, so goes the last of our ancestors. A door closes on our roots and our own origins. I hope I’ve been a good son.

Why I’ve kinda disappeared as of late – the new comcast.net

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Take a gander at the new Comcast.net (we’re still in beta) home page 🙂

As some of you know, I’m part of the development group that builds the systems that drive and support comcast.net.

I’m excited about this latest release – it’s been my pleasure to be part of an awesomely talented team and on this project, I’ve been a primary contributor to the architecture as well as code. In a way, it’s a return to my previous role at Knight Ridder Digital.

I think we’ve built a platform that will enable our product teams to rapidly get new, working features and functionality to customers, where previously, doing so was a chore. This system really sets our UI team free – no longer requiring server side developers to create new functionality or even present new content.

Hopefully I’ll get the chance to to post about the technologies and techniques we’ve employed in its development, like Arpit has about The Fan.

I think it’s safe for me to mention the Web tier using Spring MVC and FreeMarker, with a back-end that resembles something akin to CouchDb, and feeding it all is a very modular, extensible CMS. Each tier is usable in different projects, together or independently. It always comes down to implementation details and I hope to share a few sometime, either here, or on a team blog someday.

You can visit our community blog to track changes to the site and get a short summary here.

tony pierce: “IS EVERYONE OUT OF THEIR MINDS?”

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Poetry. Read the whole thing.

“the rex grossman miss teenage south carolina george bushing of america”:

….we allow the lamest people to be the man.

repeatedly.

all of us.

and matt good sings
youre gonna get what you deserve
and not a penny less

bible says its easier for a camel to get thru the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven.

because we are attached to the wrong things.

and we’re such liars. saying we’re a christian nation
we dont read the bible and we ignore everything in it when its read to us.
then bitch when someone tells us that we’re not going to heaven.

youre not going to heaven because you hate everything pure on earth
youre not going to heaven because you reject good right here
youre not going to heaven because you dont value love

and heaven is love incarnate. so fuck your whines and fuck your earthly goals.

money is not the way. pretty boy quarterbacks arent the way
dumb blonde beauty queens are not the way.

george bush ryan seacrest maroon five dave matthews

those are your gods

you are the doomed generation

dying to repeat the failures of your parents.

Hack Yourself

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An oldie but a goodie: Bloodletters: “Hack Yourself”:

…You know whose fault it is that your life isn’t perfect. Your boss. Your teachers. Your ex-lovers. The ones who hurt you, the ones who abused you, the ones who left you bleeding. Or even yourself. You know whose fault it is – you’ve been telling yourself your whole life. Knowing whose fault it is that your life sucks is an excellent way to absolve yourself of any reponsibility for taking your life into your own hands.

Forget about it. Let it go. The past isn’t real. “That was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.” If we’re not talking about something that is real and present and in your life right now, then it doesn’t matter. Nothing can be done about it. If nothing can be done about it, then don’t spend your energy dwelling on it — you have other things to do.

I may sound cruel, I may sound simplistic, I may sound like I’m saying you should just “get over it,” by suggesting that you should let go of your past. I’m sorry for that. But life won’t hold still and wait for you to lick your wounds. The race is still being run. Get up and keep moving. You can’t do anything about yesterday.

You can do something about tomorrow. And about the next day. Focus your energies there.

“I don’t have time to write.” “I can’t dance.” “I can’t talk to new people.” “I’m not attractive.”

I hear this all the time. I always hear the people around me sabotaging themselves, drawing lines and borders and boxes around themselves.

To which I say, make the time; dance; just talk to people; be attractive!

Yes, again, it’s simplistic of me to say that. But it’s simplistic of you to so easily say what you cannot do!

We’re excellent pattern-matchers. That’s what the human mind does – it’s a pattern-matching engine. So we look at ourselves, at our history, at our behaviors, and we draw straight lines between the points – we assume that just because we’ve done things a certain way in the past, we’ll always do them that way in the future. If we’ve failed before, we’ll always fail.

Screw that.

From my stuff tagged “texts” at del.icio.us…

I’m 35 As Of Yesterday

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My mom thinks it funny how my birthday falls so close to Labor Day. I actually think it’s kinda great because it gives me time off of work to reflect.

While I certainly have challenges in my life, I have a lot to be thankful for, including some great friends, colleagues, and family.

Love ya Richelle, Emma and Xena 🙂

Lead in Baby Bibs!!!!!!!!

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Ya know, I’m sure this is a bit of fear mongering, but yesterday I cursed out loud “holy fuck” when I saw this headline in the New York Times: Some Baby Bibs Said to Contain Levels of Lead.

It would appear, every day a new story pops up to remind us that the infrastructure we rely on, to provide us the capacity to do seemingly ordinary things in our lives – from brushing our teeth, to crossing a bridge, to hanging out on a corner with friends in safety – isn’t all that reliable anymore.

We’re No Better Informed About Our World Than In 1989

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Despite the information and communication revolutionary time we live in, Americans remain in the dark about our world.

Pew released a survey back in April detailing Americans knowledge of current affairs, comparing the status quo to that of 1989.

We’ve had a literal explosion of new media and communications services and tools come into being these past 15 years. They have completely reshaped how we get our news and how we connect with our communities.

Social Networks, Blogs, RSS, News Aggregators, Email, Email Lists, Message Boards, Websites, News portals, the Web, the Internet, Cable network 24/hr. news, talk radio, online magazines, collaborative news filters, algorithmic news filters, the list goes on and on.

You would think with so many choices, so many avenues to get informed, we’d actually be better informed.

You’d be wrong.

On average, today’s citizens are about as able to name their leaders, and are about as aware of major news events, as was the public nearly 20 years ago. The new survey includes nine questions that are either identical or roughly comparable to questions asked in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2007, somewhat fewer were able to name their governor, the vice president, and the president of Russia, but more respondents than in the earlier era gave correct answers to questions pertaining to national politics.

In 1989, for example, 74% could come up with Dan Quayle’s name when asked who the vice president is. Today, somewhat fewer (69%) are able to recall Dick Cheney. However, more Americans now know that the chief justice of the Supreme Court is generally considered a conservative and that Democrats control Congress than knew these things in 1989. Some of the largest knowledge differences between the two time periods may reflect differences in the amount of press coverage of a particular issue or public figure at the time the surveys were taken. But taken as a whole the findings suggest little change in overall levels of public knowledge.

The survey provides further evidence that changing news formats are not having a great deal of impact on how much the public knows about national and international affairs.

I’m among a bunch of folks who tend to trumpet online services as a cure-all for our past lack of information awareness and communications access.

On the opposite side of the bench have been those who have sounded alarm after alarm about how our ever growing media-and-communications-scape will fragment us ever further and result in ever tightening echo chambers, making us less informed about subject matter as a whole.

Turns out both perspectives are wrong.

Here we are, with so much new technology, so much new media, transforming the way we live our lives, and yet we are as informed, as ill informed, as we were in 1989.

Related:

Newsweek: Dunce-Cap Nation

Wired: Infoporn: Despite the Web, Americans Remain Woefully Ill-Informed