I got the call from my mom on Thursday evening that my grandma, who’d had Alzheimer’s for over 15 years, and who’d been in a full-care home for the last decade, had stopped swallowing (her body had forgotten how) and hadn’t had any fluids in about 48 hours. The end, according to the care workers with whom my mom had spoken, could come in a few days or in a few weeks.

That end came less than 12 hours later.

Trudged through my work day on Friday — everyone at the office was super-supportive^[1] — and made arrangements to fly out here to Clovis for the funeral.^[2]

Now, this was the third of my grandparents to pass away, but I’d been unable to make it out for the first two — I was stuck out in Ohio when the first died, and wasn’t in a position to fly out here when the second died.

This was, in fact, my first funeral. The closest I’d come before today was a ceremony of remembrance for Scott’s mom.

(Rather par for the course for me, though: The first wedding I went to was my own, in Vegas, twelve years ago tomorrow.)

So, that said, I don’t really have a frame of reference for how these things go. It was an emotional day (obviously) for all of us, but was filled with good memories and stories, and brought together some members of the extended family who haven’t been seen or heard from in nigh on a decade.

I don’t know that I have a whole lot more to say right now.

1. They even sent flowers. Cool.

I ended up renting a car and driving from Albuquerque to Clovis.

The first clip features a trio of orange robots/aliens/space chipmunks singing the traditional Happy Birthday song. [1:18]

The second is a clip from one of the times Jack Black hosted Saturday Night Live, highlighting a new alternative to the traditional ditty. [5:11]

(Oh, pardon me: I have just discovered that this isn’t just an airport — it’s Albuquerque International Sunport. No word on the next outbound flight to Alpha Centauri.)

My blogging habit has been, shall we say, a bit spotty since Thanksgiving, but it was my intent to get back in the swing of things over the past week’s trip out to Clovis to spend Xmas with my family.

Obviously, that didn’t happen.

Instead, the bulk of this trip was spent feeling absolutely horrible. Didn’t just have The Sniffle; I had some sort of nasty stomach flu that knocked me off my ass a day into the trip and sent me to the ER in the wee hours of Christmas Eve Day.

At the time, I had no idea what was afflicting me, and my symptoms at 3 in the morning had me concerned that it might have been appendicitis. My dad very graciously drove me across town to the hospital where, after a battery of blood tests and x-rays, they made the flu diagnosis, pumped me full of pain meds, and sent me on my way.

And then I got to come back to my parents’ place and do morning updates while trying to ward off the unconsciousness the meds wanted to deliver me unto. My alternative? Call Patrick or Valli and wake one of them up to do updates. That just wasn’t something I was willing to do.

By all that is holy, how I loathe doing morning updates.

Anyway, I got updates to a bare-minimum level of completion and passed out in my chair, waking just long enough in the next few hours to move over to the hide-a-bed sofa I was sleeping on. Apart from a brief trip out to fill the prescription the ER doc had given me and to do a little last-minute shopping, I slept until about 8 the next morning (Christmas Day), completely missing the big Christmas Eve get-together my mom hosted there at the house.

I managed a few hours of nominal activity on Monday for the big family Christmas day dinner before having to retreat into my cocoon of bedding again. Tuesday, I was feeling better but still sub-par; yesterday, I felt back to normal.

So, for those of you keeping score, I managed about a day and a half of normal activity over my entire week’s trip.

*sigh*

I need a vacation.

Wear a Virtual Red Ribbon

Last year, over 12,000 Virtual Red Ribbons were worn on websites and email signatures. Download one today and help mobilise people to take action on World AIDS Day.

• Busted my ass today to complete a fairly big project that got assigned to me on Monday.
• Stayed several hours late at work; got several thorny programming algorithms worked out in the process.
• Came home; had dinner.
• Logged back on and wrote up an extensive HOWTO on the new project. Answered a micromanagerial email in the middle.
• Swapped out some code on our publishing platform to point to the new project-ness.
• And… voila. Sat back and sighed contentedly.
• …’cause I’m on vacation for over a week!

Happy Anniversary, you two!

In your honor, here’s the Bangles’ “Eternal Flame.”
[audio:Bangles-Eternal_Flame.mp3]

And then I looked up to find that the clock had jumped from 11pm to just after four in the morning. Gadzooks.

Bed.

Woke up late on Saturday. Tried to coordinate plans with Jamie, but ended up pushing them to Sunday. (She was in a weekend credentialing class longer than she’d expected; I was moving in super-slo-mo.)

Saw Borat. Let me tell you right now: It is as good as everyone is saying. Star/producer/writer Sacha Baron Cohen really took Faulkner’s advice to “kill your darlings” to heart: All the excess in the movie has been capably trimmed away, leaving it a lean, 84-minute comedic gem. (Are you listening, SNL?)

Oh, and I love the flick’s full title: Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Saturday night, I attended the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco‘s performance of their fall concert, “Turn the World Around,” an eclectic mix of music from around the globe, most of which was sung in languages other than English.

The show was fantastic. I highly encourage anyone who has not yet done so to take in one of their performances; the next one listed on their website is at the “17th Annual Home for the Holidays” concert hosted by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus on Christmas Eve.

(Oh, and my friend Remy had a killer solo! W00t!)

Got together with Jamie on Sunday and had a blast. Movie (Marie Antionette; more on that later), browsing through shops (Cost Plus and a nice secondhand book store), and dinner (Olive Garden).

Definitely one of the better weekends I’ve had recently.

Tom Bender is getting deployed to Iraq for four months.

From: Tom Bender
Date: Nov 6, 2006 9:43 AM
Subject: Off I Go…
To: [a bunch of people]

Everyone,

Some of you already know, but for those of you who don’t know, I am leaving this afternoon to head over to Baghdad, Iraq. I will be there for 4 months. I greatly appreciate the well wishes people have expressed to me and to Sarah regarding my trip. I am not going over there to be on the front line, and I will be within a secure compound the entire time. I expect Sarah will call on several people for assistance over the next few months, but if anyone is concerned, please don’t hesitate to give her a ring.

I will have internet access in my room, and will have a bed and indoor plumbing. In fact, I will be at Camp Slayer. Camp Slayer is the coalition name for Saddam’s former primary personal residence. Located right next to Saddam International Airport, our living facility is the former guest houses located along one of three man-made lakes. I will have full use of a Post Exchange, workout center, a Burger King, Pizza Hut, and, like I said, wireless internet from my room. It’s practically club med only in camoflauge.

I barely escaped being over there on my birthday, but will be there on Mom’s birthday, Thanksgiving, Dad’s birthday, Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s Day, and Rhys’ 4th birthday. If anyone wants to send me care packages (or care packages for any other deployed soldier, sailor, airman, or marine…I can get lists of names of those most in need) my address will be:

Morris Bender (do not put rank)
MNFI C2, CSG
APO AE 09342

Take care,
Tom

You may recall that Tom received his commission from the Navy three years ago next week.

So, if y’all find yourselves in possession of an empty slot on your Christmas card list this year, you might consider sending something Tom’s way. Heck, like he says, there will be many servicemen and servicewomen who would, I’m sure, love to get something over the holidays.

My best wishes to Tom and Sarah and their families.

For those who aren’t sure where they need to go to vote, and who haven’t already voted absentee, Amelia G points us to a nationwide polling place locator site.

And in that spirit, here’s the Lascivious Biddies with “Cast That Ballot”:
[audio:Lascivious_Biddies-Cast_That_Ballot.mp3]

It’s amazing that “new” footage of the World Trade Center disaster should emerge five years later but some has. A couple who lived 500 yards from Ground Zero shot home video that day and has now released their footage on the Internet. It runs about fifteen minutes and is very chilling because…well, because you hear a family watching the tragedy, wondering what’s happening and commenting as they see it unfold before their eyes, practically in their back yard.

Here’s the clip: September 11, 2001: What We Saw

Josh Wagner arrived today at 8:42 a.m. EDT via Cesarean.

Scott tells me that everybody is doing very well.

“Jenn’s in recovery now,” he said during a phone call minutes ago. “She’s already feeling a hundred times better than when [Josh's brother] Kyle was born.”

Josh’s arrival came several hours earlier than Scott and Jenn had anticipated.

Late last night the hospital called and moved the time of Jenn’s surgery up by several hours, Scott said. That meant they had to head out in the 5 a.m. hour.

Please join me in offering congratulations to Scott and Jenn!

• I was offered a chance to make it into Club 33 this weekend (thanks, Sara!), but had to decline ’cause it would’ve cost a bundle to jam down to Anaheim.
• That’s okay, as it happens, because I got violently ill late Thursday night. Whatever it was, it kicked my ass six ways to Sunday; I only started to feel somewhat human yesterday.
• Comic-Con starts Thursday. For the first time in seven years, I’m not going.

For those of you going to SDCC, or for those who are merely curious about the impact of the con on downtown San Diego, here’s an article on locals’ reactions to the invasion of “Nerd Prom.”

“It’s huge business for us,” said Dan Flores, marketing manager for the Gaslamp Quarter Association.

He hesitated, then broached the sensitive part: “The attendees are … ”

Different?

“Different. But they don’t all come in costume.”

And you want to be like Ford, dontcha?

That’s right. You know you do. And tomorrow, you can.

(If I’ve just written a bunch of words that you can read but which appear to be just this side of gibberish, see the Wikipedia entries for towels and, particularly, for Towel Day.)

[via]

Since I’m entirely the wrong gender to present (Curse you, Y chromosome; you win again!), I asked if I could repost this far and wide. Lindsey checked with the contact she’d named in the email, who gave us a thumbs up.

Here then, in its entirety, is Lindsey’s email.

Sorry to send out such a blast email, but this is a really good cause. I’m working with the Sally Ride Science Fair through my job at Carnegie Mellon. Basically, there is going to be a science fair held here on the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field on May 21 (it’s a Sunday), for 5th-8th grade girls, trying to get them more interested in the fields of Science, Technology (all forms, inc. Computing), Engineering and Math, since they are so underrepresented in those fields at a professional level. Even though I am utterly incapable in those fields myself, I think its a good thing to get more girls interested!

The festival consists of a street fair, a keynote speech by Astronaut Janice Voss, and workshops.

This is where hopefully some of you can come in:

They still need presenters. They have quite a few, but more are always needed. They are expecting about 1,700 people, including parents — who do not go to the same workshops as the girls.

The workshops for the girls are 20-25 participants max, as they are very hands-on, so you can see how they need a lot of workshops! I was thinking that some of you might know of someone who would be willing to present.

• Hands on presentation that the girls (5-8 graders) can get involved in.
• 45 minutes, twice during the day (2:15-3:00pm, then again at 3:15-4:00)
• It’s voluntary, but it’s a great cause, and good exposure for a company name – companies like NASA, Glaxo, Sun Microsystems, IBM, etc., are sponsoring it and will be present (networking possibilities…?). Plus, of course, we here at Carnegie Mellon West are giving them free use of our building and utilities.
• Presenters must be female, and prominent in their field, so fairly high level within their company, or working on/completed a Master’s. If they want to have a male helper, that’s cool, but they need women to lead as good role models.
• Present on topics related to Science, Technology, Engineering or Math

If you know of anyone, the contact I have there is Jennifer Kremer, 650.604.4052, jkremer@mail.arc.nasa.gov.

It’s also possible to have a stall outside at the street fair, and I’m pretty sure thats free, so if your company is working on something cool, like robotics or sound engineering or whatever you guys are all involved in, you could exhibit like that, and there are no gender restrictions on who mans the stall either, though of course, at least a few women would be best. So if you think this is something your company might like to support, please let your PR/Marketing teams know about it.

Thanks for reading. If you know of any girls who may be interested in attending, its $18, including lunch, street fair, workshops and keynote speech. Their website is at www.sallyridefestivals.com, or you can get information for the NASA location specifically.

Feel free to repost this information as you see fit, and let’s see if we can’t make a difference in some girls’ lives.

Update: Thanks to Jan Kabili for reposting the call to arms in her blog!

• First time head pooped on by bird:
  Tuesday 28 March 2006 @ 17:47 PST

To those with whom I’ve been mildly incoherent, or to those owed an email response, please know that the long, long struggle is nearing its end, and I shall soon be able to poke my head out more fully than I have been for some time now.

(He played G’Kar on Babylon 5.)