(This post is about Elena. Shes not doing very well. I invite you to read this, but I don’t want you to have to.)
I am sitting on a couch. In the center of the room, my wife and her parents are gathered around Elena’s bed. Home and Garden television has been droning on for hours at one end of the room; we are all interior design experts now and we barely notice anymore. The sun outside is bright, but the breeze is surprisingly cold. Elena has been burning up for days, but today it is cool enough that we don’t need to run the AC in her window.
After giving the whole thing some serious consideration, I am ending my career with Brix Networks. I have had a tremendous seven years there, and will miss working along side some of the smartest engineers I could ever hope to meet; chief among them, my long-time friend and mentor Mr. Bennett. I have accepted the position of Director of Technology at Mark Altman & Associates, a small and successful publishing agency that is looking to add technical leadership as part of their plan for business growth. Many thanks to K. for bringing this opportunity to my attention. Most importantly, thanks to my wife for supporting me in this decision–even as we prepare to bring kid #2 (!) into the world. Obvious symbolisms aside, this is a great opportunity for me and I look forward to the new challenge.
Elena is out of surgery now. The surgeon said that the procedure went very smoothly, and that the tumor was very easy to identify and remove. She’ll spend 24 hours in ICU, and another day or two in the hospital; after that, it’s her call as to when she leaves. I saw her briefly in ICU and she looked pretty good for someone whod just had her brain operated on. Thanks to everyone for the kind words of support!
I have been lax in spreading this news, probably because the fac’t hasnt sunken in for me yet. But to tarry further would be a great disservice to this insanely complex phenomenon that, if all goes well, will be our second child.
She (if you ask Linnea) or he (if you ask Annika) is due on or about the 13th of June. We are planning on bringing this new child into the world at a birthing center affiliated with Cambridge Hospital. This will afford Linnea the opportunity to be present at the birth (just as Annika was present at the births of her siblings). So many things have changed since Linnea was born (as much because of her as not) that this second journey feels like a completely new and different experience. Annika and I both are in better places in our lives. My gut feeling about fatherhood is still apprehension, but there have been so many indescribably great moments in the past three years that I can put the hard stuff aside and enjoy a little slice of optimism. Sadly for Annika, this means a glögg-free Christmas. On the up side, she was not eager to repeat a pregnancy through the summer months. At this rate, the child will be with us in time for Midsommar (like another young fellow we know). So–the adventure continues!
Last weekend I had the privilege of DJing at the wedding of some friends. I’ve unofficially DJed a few parties, but never something as involved (and DJ-dependant) as a life-changing ceremony followed by several hours of dancing. Annika will tell you that I spent a lot of the preceeding week in a heightened state of, well, being nervous as hell.
Before I go much further, let me say that the DJing went well. The ceremony went smoothly, no worries with the random playlist through cocktail hour, and once we got into the post-dinner dancing portion of the evening, I really started to have a lot of fun. The bride and groom seemed happy, no one threatened me. Some of the other wedding guests, themselves veterans of many a sound check, helped me move audio equipment around as events dictated.
Jane Immelheim leaned against the wall of the situation room, her face a picture of zen-like calm. Her hands were wrapped around a coffee mug, and the mug in turn was wrapped around a viscous, day-old sludge. She sipped absent mindedly as she watched the semi-organized chaos around her. After a few minutes more of the buzz of people and machinery, one man glanced up from his computer screen. “Got him. ST-7, near the midtown line.” Jane smiled.
When you publish something! And let me tell you, its a page-turner. Oh well; you gotta start somewhere :-)
Without going into too many details, I started Sunday with two computers and finished with none. Hardware problems were the order of the day, and so I am ditching my miserable SFF case (I’m looking at you, Soltek) and going with a comparitively gigantic microATX case and motherboard. With the investment of a mere $140, I’ll be able to cram the best parts of the two dead machines into something that is quiet and, ideally functional.
After some consideration (and paranoia about the direction things seem to be going on the web), I decided to reign in control over my own ideas (unoriginal as they are). So thats why I’m blogging under my own steam now, despite the excellent tools afforded to me by the likes of LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, and Blogger. I’m also syndicating my blog via RSS so that folks with aggregators can read me without actually coming to my website.