It is rare to find someone who is who he is. That was my friend. In a setting where most are looking to position themselves to be in the right place for advancement or are positioning their social life to sync with their careers, he was just himself. Real, genuine, loving and living life fully.

I visited him today at hospice. He wasn’t awake. He is fading away physically as his spirit prepares to move on. Even so, I could see the person I knew. Comfort care now…I imagine he has stories floating around in his head that are helping to keep himself amused as his soul awaits the moment of passage.

His sister-in-law said it wont be long. Yes, that was clear.

I will miss you my friend. Until we meet again… when you will have eternity to tell your stories and laugh and make others laugh. Tell my brother hello for me OK?

My experience so far (1 week as of this writing) is that this phine does everything the Bold and the Storm does and is combined in one convenient package. I had a Storm2 and liked the larger screen. But I much preferred the Bold for ease of use with the keyboard. The Storm2 has a clumsy feeling on screen keyboard and I found it difficult to use. The Torch on screen keyboard is tactile and much easier for me to use.

So Why am I sitting here today staring at 3 devices that I carry around???

I’m looking at a Blackberry Storm, an iPod Touch, and a Garmin nüvi. Admittedly, I could consolidate all three. But not easily. And depending which hardware I choose I may lose one or more important featrures that I do not want to give up. I suspect I am not so different than others in 1- preferring something other than the iPhone and 2- still wanting iTunes to manage my music and therefore needing to have an iPod. While I haven’t tried it I suspect I could use either the iPod Touch or the Storm for GPS navigation but I doubt the experience would be lass than using the standalone Garmin plus it is a smaller screen on the handhelds. So my suspicion is that I will always be stuck with at least 2 handheld devices for the time being. That is until Google or Palm (they still in the game?) or some other vendor create a viable music manager/player combo. It seems unlikely that Microsoft can get into the mobile handheld market at this point. But you never know.

So, yes, I am indeed better off but I keep raising my expectations.

The fact that important votes always split along party lines sounds statistically improbable to me. Something else is going on and it doesn’t seem to be based what things are in the best interest of the the people who
elected them. Way too quickly politicians seem to become wrapped up in ensuring their own longevity in office. I find to all disturbing and most unfortunate.

Well, last night I finally found an answer in one of the Dell forums. It seems American Megatrends who manufactures the motherboard has a deal with ATI where they have set the BIOS to not recognize Nvidia cards. As I mentioned above, the BIOS on my machine was A09 but on Dell’s site I only saw A07. I downloaded and installed the A07 BIOS and voila! it all works now. Apparently, any machine that ships after June 1, 2009 has the new A09 BIOS that causes Nvidia cards not to function.

This is soooooo annoying. I cannot believe ATI would make this kind of a request AND American Megatrends would do it AND Dell would then sell this crap to the public. The only redeeming thing in this is that Dell did have the A07 BIOS on their web site. I will NEVER NEVER NEVER (did I say NEVER?) buy an ATI product. It is incredible that they would intentionally cripple the BIOS to not recognize a competitor’s product. I don’t know how much they paid AMI for this “deal” but they have certainly shot themselves in the foot on this one. In my opinion AMI and Dell are also at fault.

My mother-in-law recently passed away. I loved her very much. I was given the honor of delivering the eulogy. Through some research on the web I put together the words below. I also sang one verse of a song in Swahili that I believe holds out hope for us all. I miss her.

For Helen
When tomorrow starts without me
And I am not there to see if the sun should rise
and find your eyes filled with tears for me
I wish so much you wouldn’t cry the way you did today
While thinking of the things we did and didn’t say
I know how much you love me; as much as I love you
And each time you think of me I know you’ll miss me too
For me there is no tomorrow because today will always last
Each day I will think of you but I will not long for the past
When tomorrow starts without me
Don’t think we’re far apart
Because every time you think of me
I’ll be right there in your heart

I will watch over you all
Until your time will finally come
Live honest and truthful lives
Until our hearts shall beat as one
Be patient
Show compassion
Help others to ease someone’s pain
Be content
Love each other
Until we are together again

Ok. So, I’m going to do it. My new year resolutions. Committing them to blog will give me the ability to review them periodically rather than “conveniently” forgetting them. In no special order.

1. Finish the MS degree program. (Only one course remaining. I’ve procrastinated long enough!) ¡Result: Done! :D
2. Finish the tool shed. Result: Not Done :(
3. Finish the bookcase in the sun room/study. Result: Not Done :(
4. Begin remodeling my home office. Result: Not Done :(
5. Use Linux as my primary OS. Result: Partially there :)
6. Refine photography skills. Result: Ongoing :|
7. Work on and strengthen relationships. Result: Still working at it :|
8. Be serious and intentional about my faith. Result: Still working at it :|

I’ll try to do a quarterly update Result: Not Done :(

Well…not so good.