The part after forever

My last trip

A year ago I was flying from Cleveland to Cluj in Romania through Washington DC and Munich.

I had a great visit that included speaking and giving a workshop at an iOS conference, taking a walking tour of the city, and meeting up for coffee and wonderful meals with friends.

I flew back, threw my clothes in the washer and drier, kept an appointment with a sleep doctor, and flew to Phoenix to teach at USAA.

A friend had encouraged me to fly in early enough on Sunday to attend a Spring training game of Cleveland vs Kansas City. I'm so glad I did.

I taught for three days, flew back to Cleveland, and I've been here ever since.

It was completely crazy to travel the way I had been. Romania on Thursday. Phoenix on Sunday.

But I haven't wandered far from my house in nearly a year.

I haven't seen friends in what seems like forever.

Holidays

This weekend was both the Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day.

It's funny. Kim and I always celebrated the former and almost never celebrated the latter.

There was a year that we joined our friends Lori and Marshall for dinner, but he had some deal at a club and they wanted to share good food with people who would appreciate it. Lori wasn't sick yet - at least not outwardly. It's the last meal I remember sharing with her where she really enjoyed every bite.

There was also the year that I proposed to Kim on Valentine's Day.

It wasn't because it was a trite or romantic thing to do.

Kim was terrible with dates. It took her years to remember our wedding anniversary. And even longer to remember my birthday.

On second thought, it's not that she was terrible with all dates. She remembered the dog's birthday.

It turns out, there wasn't a lesson in that.

Anyway, Kim had known since before we dated that if we dated we'd get married. I figured it out along the way. And so, on the eve of Valentine's Day 1993 I took her to work with me.

As a radio DJ I often worked on holidays. That year I was hosting a special party for our listeners at a late night comedy show at the Cleveland Improv. Kim often came with me and chatted with the listeners while I disappeared backstage to prepare for a quick intro of the evening's performers.

I could never see much from the stage with the lights in my eyes but I always felt better when I knew Kim was out there.

I always wanted her to be out there.

And so I proposed.

Not from the stage. Not even at the club. But the next morning - and in our own way.

The Proposal

Kim loved sign language. So I had found a finger spelling font and enlisted a friend to print out my sign which spelled out "Will you marry me".

I'd taped it to her bathroom mirror before leaving her apartment after the show.

In the morning I met a friend at the gym and Kim went to church. After, we met for breakfast at Big Als.

She came in, sat down, and signed, "yes".

That was it.

Forever starts just like that.

She ordered her usual pecan waffles. I ordered my usual corned beef hash.

In some ways forever isn't much different than it was last week when we met for breakfast.

Except now we were engaged.

Forever

One of the things that has made this last year feel like forever is that there is no end in sight.

If people had just done what they were asked to do, this could have been over months ago.

If our government had just done what they were elected to do, half a million lives could have been saved.

We see no end in sight and so we lose hope.

That's certainly one side of forever.

Being married to Kim was the other side of forever.

But when you get married they often say to you "forever and ever".

After this pandemic is over and this forever comes to an end, how will you live the rest of your life?

And Ever

After Kim was killed I had to answer that question before I was able.

When that forever comes to an end, how will you live the rest of your life?

That's the "and ever" part.

This Valentine's Day I didn't do anything special.

Kim and I almost never did.

But I thought of her.

And I thought of her sitting across from me signing "yes" and then taking my hand in hers as we turned to the waitress and ordered a pecan waffle and corned beef hash.

And as short as forever is and can be, "and ever" never ends.

---

Link to the Podcast episode from March 15, 2024.

---

A year ago enjoying a Cactus League game.

---

Committed

This video made me laugh at first - but stay with it. The skater's determination is quite something.

Staying upright

The physics behind why we fall on the ice and what we can learn from penguins.

Choosing Democracy

I meant to link to this last week. It's an opinion piece by Dan Moulthrop.

This weekend I was so angry and disappointed with weak senators such as Ohio's own Rob Portman who says clearly that the president committed a crime while voting not to convict.

Those who said the house managers should have brought witnesses are missing the point - the house managers successfully convinced enough senators of the president's guilt - the senators just lacked the strength of character to vote what they knew to be true.

Cut and paste

Many of us reuse our code but cutting it from one location and pasting it in another and adapting it. Here's a tweet with clips showing the same is true in Disney animation.

Bread Book

The whole "end to our democracy" thing really took more out of me than I thought. I'm finally actively writing the bread book - re-testing recipes and ready to send the first chapter to reviewers. If you'd like to be a reviewer (you need to bake along), reply to this newsletter and give me the email you'd like me to use.

Maggie's link

This week Maggie provides a too-familiar view of your brain when you're lazy by Daniel Thrasher. I don't know that lazy is the right word but this hits close to home.

Some of the language is NSFW and the ad at the end includes a balloon shark.

Other people's stuff

Sadly, Swift for TensorFlow has been end-of-lifed. This was a cool project with some really smart engineers involved and committed to it.

It's end reminded me of questions I would ask engineers when I was working as a journalist. My favorite answer was that a decision was not made for technical reasons.

It would seem, that is the case here as well.