Goodbye, My Friend
I got a phone call today that I wish I didn't. The wife of my friend Chris, who was one of my closest friends when I lived in California, called me to let me know that he passed away. He was traveling for business, told to her that he wasn't feeling well and was going to take a walk. She didn't hear from him for several hours and had the hotel look for him, where they found him in the room. He was already gone.
The cause of his death isn't known yet. They ruled out seizure (he was epileptic), aneurysm, heart attack, and several other things. I just hope for the family's sake that they figure out what happened.
The worst part? They were expecting their first child in a couple of months. Life can just be so unbelievably cruel sometimes.
I'm clear on the other side of the country, so it's hard for me to process. I'm heartbroken and shocked nevertheless.
Where ever you are, my friend, I hope you are at peace. I love you, buddy.Labels: friends, happenings
Ugh...
I'm sick for the second time in a month, this go-round worse than the last time. It's tracking just like my last trip through flu-ville, so I at least know what to expect. This hacking cough is just a bit much, though... and my nose is chapped from blowing it so much (TMI, anyone?).
There's not much I can do... loads of people have had this thing twice, even The Boy. Thank goodness that he is so good at taking care of me.Labels: happenings, the girl
Happy Birthday Bobo!
Can you believe it? Our little Bobo is a year old today (ish, he was about 10 weeks old when we got him, so we counted backwards to the day).
He was little and really sick with kennel cough the day we picked him up:
Since then, he's thrived and has even done some travelling:
Like
Logan, he's picked up
some nicknames over the past year:
- The Bobo
- Beep Beep
- The Great Googly Moogly
- Smudge (for reasons I'd prefer not sharing, and yes, it's exactly what you're thinking)
- The Silver Fox
- Senor Poopin' in the House (yes, what you're thinking here, too)
- Little Brother (in contrast to Logan, his Big Brother)
Logan has even adjusted pretty well. He won't cuddle with him, but doesn't get as offended when Bobo walks over him, either. We can't imagine our life without him, although we recall that it was really peaceful once upon a time. We admit it... we love the chaos that Bobo brings us.
Labels: bobo, the fam
Bad, Bad, Blogger
Bless me interweb, for I have sinned. It's been months since my last blog, Christmas to be specific.
The last few months have been out of control busy, even for my out of control, busy life. A rundown:
- I took the week between Christmas and New Years off to have some quality time with The Boy before the craziness geared up. That was the last time I saw any peace.
- All, I mean all of my clients decided that the first two weeks of 2008 were the best time to start approving projects. I delivered a bunch of projects, and travelled to Indianapolis for a client meeting.
- One word: thesis. Once I get this bad boy done, I'll finally be done with my masters. More importantly, I'll be able to cross one major thing off my list.
- I also have to finish up a paper for publication. So, essentially, I polish of a 40ish page paper and then immediately jump into another one to deliver by June. The upside is that I will be published in my field, which rocks.
- I'm teaching again this semester. Same as before, two sections of the same course. I've made some great enhancements to the class, which I'm really proud of. I love it, but it sure is time consuming!
- All of this work and stress has left me extremely burnt out, and with that burnout comes lack of motivation and less than ideal productivity. Something had to give, and in the short term, that has been Sasstastic.
- I've been fighting a miserable cold and lingering cough for the past month or so, a direct result of all this stress.
- This summer, I hope to have some time to dedicate to working on this site. I've disliked the new design pretty much since I launched it, so I really want to put together a much cooler site. Plus, I'll be teaching a course next semester that deals more with internet technologies, so I need to brush up on my web/Dreamweaver skills. This site is the perfect playground for that.
I'll do my best to keep up with my posting, but quite honestly, I may not see the light of day for the next couple of months. You're all invited to my graduation come May, though!Labels: biz, blogging, the boy, the fam, the girl
Merry Christmas from the Sasstastic Gang!
Labels: bobo, moose, randomness, the fam
Why I've been combing Goodwill for old socks.
I got this cool kit for making sock creatures for my birthday back in April. Ever since, I've been wanting to do stuff with it, but have been bogged down with work, teaching, and school. Finally, I finished my teaching gig and handed in my independent study paper. Burned out... I was dying for something to unwind.
And I found it. Meet my first creation:
I'm stuck for a name, so feel free to offer your suggestions. :)
Oh, and now I'm obsessed, so I expect to have bunch of them hanging around before too long.
Labels: randomness, the girl
A new place to gather
Like we didn't have enough to do this fall, we will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. We'll have the fam over, a total of 14 people and as many as 4 dogs... a full house to say the least. We're excited to have everyone over, but were concerned about where everyone was going to sit for dinner. We have a table that was generously given to us by The Danza's before they moved into the city, but it's not nearly big enough and also pretty wobbly with the leaves in place. What to do, what to do...
Enter our good friend Mike, who makes custom furniture and promised us a table as a wedding gift. We talked styles and he went out and got the materials for the job. The Boy and I generally let the experts drive a lot of the creative process in situations like this, because they're the experts and usually come up with way cooler ideas than we ever could. We basically showed him a picture in a magazine that we liked, told him we'd like to bring the outside in, and cut him loose.
We went to visit him and the shop this weekend to check out the process, and were amazed by what we saw... speechless, actually He went out and bought a single slab of wood, essentially a cross-section of a tree. His design was inspired by a designer named George Nakashima, who was an amazing furniture designer and a generally interesting guy. My favorite quote that I read by him:
A tree is perhaps our most intimate contact with nature. Each tree, each part of each tree, has its own particular destiny, its own special yearning to be filled.
But I digress... we saw the nearly finished tabletop, and it is badass. It'll be done for Thanksgiving (in truth, we were told to expect it "late Wednesday night"), and I can't think of a better way to break it in than having a meal with our family. Did I mention that it's about 9 feet long?
Check out the tabletop as it was on Saturday night. If you look closely, you can see Mike and even Bobo:
Thanks, Mike. You (of course)rock and we love you!!
Labels: happenings, randomness, the fam
