Sorry, ever since Debconf I've been busy, ill and otherwise distracted. I'm still catching up... Stuff that's happened: Dude, you're married! For the second year running, I had to leave Debconf a day early to attend a wedding party. My good friend Matthew married Oxana last Monday. I've just put my photos of the happy event online today. After a successful Debconf where I managed to evade the normal plague, it hit hard on the Tuesday morning and I've been struggling with it ever since. Just about over it now, but I've been feeling crap for over a week. On the way to Buenos Aires to catch my flight back to England, I received a text message telling me the sad news that my uncle, John Bolton had passed away. This means that the eldest two of my mum's three brothers have died this year, in the space of just a few months, and it's been a very hard time for the family. The funeral happened earlier this week, so I was away and mostly off-line for a couple of days travelling there and back. I'm trying to get back up to speed on a whole host of different things at the moment; if you're waiting on a response from me about Debian-related stuff, please feel free to prod me via email or IRC.

While a funeral isn't my favourite reason to visit the family, we all took the opportunity today to get together to celebrate Leif's birthday together, as well as everyone getting together to be there for Henry.

Now I'm at Angie's dad and step-mom's place, about to finally settle into some homework.

We're going to do an open-house for Leif next Sunday at my sister's place. If you'd like to come along to it, email me: jbailey@raspberryginger.com and I'll give you directions.

(And hey, sib. When are you meeting at your place?)

Sorry folks if I haven't gotten ahold of you for getting together. The family plans are trumping everything right now.

Yesterday, I went to a ceremony for Junichiro "itojun" Hagino, a famous hacker. He passed away on 29 October and he was 37 years old. The formal funeral is today(7 November). Anyway I can't realize it even now...

Sarah's Mum arrived this morning. Sarah was discharged from hospital this afternoon. By some freaky coincidence, one of our friends from Australia who's been through the same thing as us happened to be nearby, and rearranged his travel plans to swing by and spend a day with us on the way home. I'm extremely grateful for that. The flowers, emails, and number of visitors we've received in the past four days has been nothing short of overwhelming. We are truly grateful for having so many wonderful friends over here (and all around the world). It's going to take some time, but we'll acknowledge all of them. This afternoon I signed the paperwork to have Joshua cremated. We've decided against having any sort of funeral service. The house looks like a bomb hit it, and then a florist moved in. I've barely been home all week, and the fridge is still overflowing with leftovers from last week's baby shower barbecue that we had. I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow... Next, we need to pack up the baby's room.

The short story: we lost the baby. "Cord accident". The long story: Sarah woke me up at about 2:30am on Tuesday morning in a panic because she'd woken up herself at about 2am, and realised that she hadn't felt the baby move since about 8am the previous day. I had a quick feel, but couldn't feel anything like his usual vigorous kicking, and eager to put her mind at rest, called Labor an Delivery at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital to see if we could come in. They said we could, so we jumped in the car and got there at about 3:25am. They hooked up Sarah to a fetal heart monitor, but after anxious minutes, they couldn't pick up anything, so they got out the ultrasound machine. It was pretty obvious from that that there was no movement. We'd lost him. So from about 4am onwards, we, well, tried to come to grips with the fact that we'd lost our baby. That we'd been robbed, 13 days from the finish line, and that we weren't going to be bringing a baby home to all the stuff we had ready for him there. The doctors briefly mulled over whether to have a C-section to deliver Joshua, as was the plan, or induce. Apparently it's psychologically better for the mother if she delivers naturally, since she doesn't have the constant reminder for 6+ weeks while she recovers from the C-section. However, the doctors decided that as nothing had really changed from a delivery point of view, and they wanted to do a C-section for reduced strain on Sarah's heart, they opted for a C-section. They managed to get a free operating room slot in the Stanford ORs, so they transferred Sarah over there, and they started performing the surgery at about 10am. Joshua was delivered sometime around 10:15am. I got to see him and hold him while we were still in the OR. He was perfect. 4 pounds 12 ounces. He didn't look that small. We were wondering if he was going to make 5 pounds or not. Maybe he would have by the 17th. I brought him around to show Sarah while she was still on the table, but it was hard to get him up to a good position that she could see him from, and she was a bit zonked out from all of the drugs. They finished up at about 10:45am, and took her to the recovery room, where they didn't really want me, so one of the nurses from Labor and Delivery took me back to Lucile Packard, to spend some time with Joshua. There she let me hold him for a while, and look at him, and take some photographs. Then she weighed him and measured him, and took some more photographs. The nurse was really compassionate about the whole thing, and it felt like we were there for a good couple of hours, which was good, because apparently Lucile Packard and Stanford don't really inter-operate very well, and whilst physically transferring a patient just involves wheeling them down a corridor, getting all the paperwork sorted out is a completely different story. So while Sarah was only supposed to spend an hour in recovery, she spent three hours there, because they were waiting on paperwork to release her, then waiting on a room to be available, then the right people weren't talking to each other, so they didn't know they didn't know that a room was available from midday. I forget what time we actually got out of recovery. The doctors, being the overcautious bunch of people that they are, wanted to keep Sarah in the Cardiac Surveillance Unit for 24-48 hours so they could check on her vitals post-delivery. They let us out of there late today. We're currently in a general ward. I thought they said it was for gynaecology patients (they didn't think it'd be terribly considerate to stick us in with all the other recovering mothers and their babies), but there's some male patients in here too, so I'm not sure what this ward is. In terms of coming to grips with things, they brought Joshua up to our room for pretty much as long as we wanted yesterday, and Sarah was more with it by then, so she could hold him, and we could take more photographs. It's been really hard. I was awake from when Sarah woke me up in the morning until about 10pm that night. Fortunately I was able to get a cot in the room with Sarah, so I could stay the night there. I'm staying here tonight as well. The obstetrician that delivered Joshua said that his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice and once around his body, and was pretty tight around his neck. They can't say for sure that that's what happened, but it's a good enough explanation for us, and we're not going to have the little guy cut up for an autopsy, which may not tell us anything anyway. So we're taking some small comfort from the fact that we're able to make a healthy looking baby, and that Sarah's heart performed fine throughout the pregnancy and delivery, and that this was just one of those so very unlucky accidents. Apparently babies get their umbilical cords wrapped around their necks all the time, and most of the time it's not a problem. So we know that he didn't have any birth defects, and it wasn't because of something Sarah ate, or because Sarah got sick or anything. It's just plain bad, rotten luck. We'll most probably try again, but the next pregnancy is going to be hell. It'll be like walking on egg shells the entire time. Clearly, your baby isn't out of the water until he's screaming in the delivery room. There's a lot more I want to write, but I also want to get this finished and get some sleep, so here's a brain dump of what's been going through my head for the last 48 hours:

• Dammit!
• Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!
• We only had 13 days to go
• We just had the baby shower on Saturday!
• We just bought the last few things at Babies 'r' Us on Monday. He was probably dead by then.
• We were so ready. We'd gotten everything. We bought a cool jogging stroller! We bought a super-awesome safety table of a high chair.
• I never thought my Tuesday would end up like this when I went to bed on Monday night
• He looked so perfect. We've been robbed. He's been robbed.
• The little bugger was too active for his own good
• We were supposed to be having our Caesarian class the next day
• Should we try again? Can I handle seeing Sarah go through all the pain and suffering of another C-section?
• It's just not fair!
• I wouldn't wish this on anyone
• This sucks
• This just isn't fair
• We'll get through this

We've been very grateful for the near endless stream of visitors, phone calls and SMSes, and flowers. It's helped us not dwell on things, especially given all of our family is so far away. Sarah's Mum, who was going to arrive in 5 weeks, is now arriving on Friday, so that'll be good for Sarah. Sarah will hopefully be discharged on Friday or Saturday. We're planning on cremating Joshua, as it just doesn't seem right to bury him over here and then someday move back to Australia and leave him all alone. Current thinking is we won't have a funeral service. Here's what I emailed to the people we were going to send the birth announcement to:

Hi everyone, It is with heavy hearts, that we have to tell you that rather than announcing Joshua's birth on the 17th of September, we have to say that yesterday, we learned that we lost him, 13 days before he was to be delivered. Sarah woke me yesterday morning at about 2:30am, because she'd woken up at about 2am, and realised that she hadn't felt Joshua moving since about 8am the previous day. She tried a few things to get him moving, but they didn't work, so we hurried into Labor & Delivery at the Lucille Packard Children's hospital. There, they confirmed the worst, no heartbeat. Yesterday morning at about 10am, Sarah had a c-section so the doctors could deliver little Joshua. He was absolutely perfect, weighing in at 4 pounds 12 ounces (2.15 kilograms) and 26.7 centimetres (10.5 inches). Yesterday was a very long day. Sarah is currently recovering in the Cardiac Surveillance Unit (CSU) of Stanford Hospital (her aorta has been absolutely fine, the doctors are just being their usual cautious selves). It's a little bit up in the air as to whether she'll spend the entirety of her recovery in the CSU, or if she'll be transferred back to the Post-Partum area of Lucille Packard after 24 hours. (We hope that she does get transferred back, as the CSU isn't really used to dealing with post-c-section patients, particularly ones that have lost the baby). The obstetrician that delivered Joshua said that his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice, fairly tightly, and once around his body. So whilst we'll never know for sure, it looks like it was a cord accident. That's a good enough explanation for us, so we're not going to have him autopsied. That's about all I can report at the moment. If you'd like to speak to Sarah, you can either call home and I'll try to keep Sarah's extension forwarding to her hospital room, or you can call my cell phone. I've got it on vibrate all of the time, and I'll answer if we're not in the middle of something. If you're calling from Australia, my extension at home will let you connect to my cell phone. If you're local, and would like to visit, we'd love to see you, just call ahead to check where we are. It's going to be hard, but we'll get through this.

About 80 years ago, a Kansas family -- the Janzens -- built this barn.

About 60 years ago, my grandparents moved onto the farm. Their cattle were kept right here. I remember Grandpa's red tractor being parked in the barn.

So many memories have this barn in the background. We had a visit from one of the Janzens that lived here as a child. He had fond memories of this building. My dad and his siblings once played in the deep snow in front of this barn.

Here's one memory from those times:



That's my grandma and grandpa on their 25th anniversary in 1970. It was a working barn back then, so they probably weren't standing right next to it for this picture, if you get my drift. But they were on the yard.

About 25 years ago, Grandma lost her battle with cancer. At some point or another, Grandpa had eased out of farming, so the barn had a lot less activity. I remember exploring his outbuildings when I got bored at family gatherings. And I used to mow the lawn next to it every summer when Grandpa went off to be a cook at a camp. I didn't mind mowing next to the barn. But I always tried to go past one corner of the house as fast as I could, because there were wasp and hornet nests right there.

About 7 years ago, it was time for Grandpa to move off the farm. It was getting to be too much to keep up the old house, the barn, the yard, and deal with things like freezing water pipes and water getting in through the windows. He moved to an independent-living duplex in town. He was always worried about what would happen to the farm. Over the next few years, the farm would sometimes be vacant, sometimes have renters. Some renters did some work on the house, but the barn sat. Grandpa would eventually move into the nursing home because of his Parkinson's.

Two and a half years ago, Grandpa passed away. I shared some memories from Grandpa's place at the funeral.

But what of the house, the farm now? Renters went, and it sat empty. Nothing was in great shape, and the house needed a lot of work. Perhaps the whole place would be leveled and turned back into the prairie that it once was, or used as farmland. Perhaps someone would have an interest someday.

A year and a half ago, Jacob was on the way. Terah and I had occasionally thought of buying Grandpa's place, but we never talked about it seriously. We figured that we better finally decide what we're doing, before we have a baby around, or a child in school. So in April 2006, we went out to the farm and checked it out. The picture at the top of this post is from that visit. Terah and I checked out the house, the barns, the granary, the pasture, and the creek. As we walked past one of the barns, a pigeon flew out. Terah jumped with a shout. I grew up around barns and didn't really notice it. In the big red barn, besides Grandpa's tractor, we found some remnants from years ago: some old bales, corn cobs that raccoons had found long ago, several generations of electric fencers, old appliances.

And we decided to go for it and buy the farm. This was right at a year after Grandpa died.

The family always liked to get together for Easter. What would happen for 2006? Well, they decided to have a picnic out at the farm. It was vacant, and a bit eerie. Yet they knew that we were working on buying the place and moving in. All but one took a last look through the house before our renovations began. The one person who didn't was my great aunt, Grandma's sister. She said, "I haven't been in this house for years. I remember how it looked back then. I don't want to remember how it looks now, run down like this. So I'm not going in. But once you have it all fixed up, THEN I'll go in!"

In June of 2006, we bought the farm.

One month later, we lost this barn, and two other buildings, to a fire at our yard. This is what the beautiful red barn looked like that sad afternoon last year:



As I wrote back then, nobody got hurt, the barn was insured, but "somehow, despite all these things, it still feels like we lost a little bit of Grandpa today."

2006 was a hot, dry summer. We had a patch of debris, then a patch of dirt, where the barn once stood.

7 months ago, Terah, Jacob, and I moved out to the farm. For the first time in 80 years, someone could stand in the farmhouse in the evening, look to the west, and see the colorful Kansas sunset over the pasture; the trees down by the creek; and even the neighbor's barn off in the distance. It was a beautiful sight, but it was also sad; that's not the view we had expected.

But then a surprise. This spring and summer, plants started coming up where none had grown for 80 years. But only where this barn stood -- not where the other two buildings were.

We watched as they grew tall. I'm sure decades of animals hanging out there were well appreciated by the plants.

As they grew, it looked like we might be seeing Terah's favorite flower: wild Kansas sunflowers.

And sure enough, they were.

Last weekend, Terah, Jacob, and I went out to the old barn. I took some pictures of its new appearance.



This one stands where Grandpa's tractor used to be parked.



And here we see a lifetime of flowers, from the old and withering, to the young just about ready to bloom.



At the edge of the sunflowers, there's an old plow next to them. Though you might think it's barn-colored.



Animals continue to be attracted to the area. Here's one of the smaller visitors.



And here's a picture of almost the whole patch, right where the barn used to stand. I still mow right up to it.

I still miss the old barn. But somehow it still seems to be full of surprises and worth exploring. I wonder what next year will bring.

And I wonder if, a few years from now, Jacob will tell his friends about mowing right up to the sunflower patch, going fast to try to avoid any trouble with the bees.

"BOWN. Walter Sydney (Wally). Passed away on Monday, August 20th, 2007, aged 74 years. He will be greatly missed by all of his family and friends. The funeral service will be held on Thursday, August 30th, 12.30pm, Weston-super-Mare Crematorium. Family flowers only, donations if desired for Weston Hospicecare, c/o The Elms Funeral Directors, 50 Baker Street, Weston-super-Mare. Telephone 01934 616006."

(From the Weston & Somerset Mercury, 23rd August 2007 issue) So I'm not blogging much just now. I think usual service should resume Friday 31 August.

Sam commented:

"Quality motion. This is exactly the point that I raise at just about every committee meeting I attend, but to have it formally supported by the wider membership is a good step. If things don't improve soon, we should try that line of attack in the Central and Eastern region."

One suggestion in the debate was to have a co-operatives fortnight, similar to the fairtrade fortnight, to promote the Co-operative Group (tCG) membership, other tCG businesses and other local cooperatives. Let's see whether SW can lead the way again! ;-) The question-and-answer session was pretty interesting. All of the questions were submitted in writing. Some of them were submitted in advance and others during the lunch break. No spoken questions were taken and most Insurance (CIS) and Bank questions were held back because no-one from financial services was there. The answers were grouped under a few headings.

Ethics, answersed by Catherine Staveley

1. CIS's voting record is public, but some details are buried under sustainabiliy on the group's corporate web site.
2. The panel were asked to define a few terms. By ethical, tCG means generally being "a good neighbour". Materiality is how much a business relates to tCG's aims and they think shelf penetration is how much space and promotion a product gets in the stores. The financial services profits aim to be all-ethical.
3. Members were asked to please take part in the consultations about the new food retail ethical policy.
4. tCG has a "triple bottom line" - in addition to looking at profits, we also consider our effects on our communities and sustainability.
5. tCG is leading the way on packaging minimisation: onion nets are already biodegradable, work continues on developing biodegradable fruit nets and a new light-weight (but still strong) whiskey bottle has just been launched. We'll see whether it's possible to give more dividend points for buying less packaged goods.

Food retail, answered by David Parker (regional food), Gary Metcalfe (operations), Clive Netherway (top 100 stores) and Nick Lowe (sales and support)

1. Local stores: Minehead Post Office contracts have been exchanged and planning permission granted in Budleigh Salterton - both sites should be ready in a couple of months.
2. There are new small stores at Amesbury, Ilfracombe, Perranport and Lyneham (where it's hurting Tesco Express more than anyone). tCG have also acquired 7 stores from Higgins, one from Savages and a petrol station with minimarket in Bath. Dawlish has just opened, giving a total of 14 new stores. In addition, 50 stores are being refitted in the south-west region.
3. The Falmouth store is a bit of a puzzle: whether to split the existing store or develop a nearby site.
4. tCG stores have outperformed the The Institute of Grocery Distribution index for 15 months in a row and is now seeing growth-on-growth.
5. Problems with product stocking should be taken up with store managers first.
6. Home delivery has been trialled and failed several times, but is being trialled again in the new OCO stores. (What does OCO mean? There's one at Portishead.)
7. Supply problems with RSPCA Freedom Foods meats will be investigated.
8. The Westbury-on-Trim Stoke Lane store will only be expanded if its turnover increases.
9. Suppliers are still letting some stores down on delivery times. This will be re-checked.
10. The best response to the crocodile community projects of other companies is to strengthen tCG's community project funding in areas before other supermarkets open new stores.
11. Local produce is rarely stocked because of problems with availability and meeting tCG technical standards (I could almost hear the hackles raise at this answer!). Organic is only usually stocked in areas where surveys suggest the target audience lives (which I guess is why my tatty 60s store has more sweets and sugar drinks than fresh food). Similar biases exist for other ranges.
12. Missing product complaints will get written answers: Clipper tea and sugar-free Mintoes.
13. There was a complaint about the lack of notices about the unique status of co-op milk. (In short, we own our farms so our milk had better not be getting abused.)

Corporate questions, answered by Frank Jones

1. Compensations of the merged tCG/United Co-op societies are shown on page 12 of Stronger Together.
2. There was a question about a 10% profit target which I didn't understand. The answer was on page 13 of the annual report.
3. Party politicians were in the hall.
4. The results of the merger meetings were unknown at the time.
5. The Co-operative Funerals are derecognising the GMB union, which has worried many members. The comment from the floor was "there's usually one motive for derecognising a union"!
6. There's a 16% pay increase for executives who don't join tCG's pension fund, which is what would have been paid into the fund for them. Whether it applies to all employees will be checked and a written reply given.

Strategic questions, answered by David Doyle

1. Travel offers will be promoted in the food stores. tCG wants to avoid "silo" businesses which don't cross-promote with other businesses where appropriate.
2. Leaflets of other tCG and other co-ops should be stocked, particularly at festive times.
3. Offsetting CO2 is not a complete answer to climate change, but it was the only one of five suggested actions which was approved. Is the Co-operative Travel chain underperforming because it doesn't offer enough ethical choices? Some shouting from the floor about them still not offering European rail tickets.
4. The regional view of the United merger... This was nicely controversial, as it bloody well ought to be... There's no requirement for a tCG membership vote, so there will be no tCG membership vote. There was a hierarchical vote: very few of the Cornwall area turned up at the regional meeting in Bristol, but Devon and Somerset turned out in numbers and the south-west's delegates to the national meeting voted against 5 of the 6 merger resolutions, which were passed anyway. The chair stepped in and cut short the debate, stating that everyone knows the south-west is unhappy about certain aspects, like not having a choice on the first merged chief executive, but what's done is done.

Finally, a list of questions being sent for written answers were given by Andrew North and the chair (was it Colin House? It's annoying to find one name and lose another).

Yesterday I went to activate phone service out at the farm. It got me to thinking a bit about how things change, and how they stay the same, too.

Before I go on, I'll have to say that every one of my history books is in storage, so if I get some details wrong, it's because I'm not remembering correctly.

Anyhow, phone service came to our community via an unusual route about 100 years ago. It wasn't Bell/AT&T or some other company that brought it there, as it was most places. I'm sure they figured that a small, scattered rural community would cost too much to support. So the community organized, built, and supported the phone system themselves.

Even today, roads around here can be impassible after a good rain. I'm sure that, in the early 1900s, before heavy road-maintaining machinery, things were worse -- and, of course, transportation was a lot slower then anyway. There were real problems: getting the word out about funerals, being able to summon a doctor when necessary, or letting people know that church was cancelled because of too much snow.

People in the community saw a phone system as a real need. So did the churches, which have left a legacy that is still reflected in phone company territories today.

Once phone service arrived, it was used for all the things that people expected, of course. But it also proved to be an important part of the social fabric of the community. Since party lines were the norm, it was possible to announce things to every listening subscriber pretty quickly. Older people remember announcements of fresh fruit arriving at the grocery store, funerals, or other news of the day.

To place a call, you would pick up your phone and turn your crank. That caused a bell to ring at the telephone office, which everyone called "Central." The operator would connect to your line and ask whom you wanted to talk to. The operator would then send the distinctive ring for your party down their party line, and patch -- manually -- your call through to them. And, if he was busy, the operator wouldn't listen in on your conversation -- but others on the party line very well might.

Central's hours were published. If you were making a call in the middle of the night, you were going to wake up someone at Central to do it -- plus everyone on the entire party line. So calls after hours were rare.

Fortunately, while some of the old Central operators were still around, some people in the community wrote down some of their stories.

There were some people in the community that were notorious for eavesdropping on other people's conversations. Two brothers one time figured that they knew somebody was listening to their conversations, so they devised a code. One called the other, and said, "I'll be going to McPherson in the morning for band practice." That meant something along the lines of going to town to buy groceries.

A few days later, their prime suspect came up to him and said, "What on earth are you going to band practice for? I didn't know you knew how to play an instrument!" Apparently she realized she was had when he burst out laughing uncontrollably.

The Central operators learned to know the habits of telephone users. Sometimes they would connect calls without even bothering to ask who people wanted to talk to -- and seemed to always get it right.

The phone system supported itself for about 50 years. But as the rest of the world moved on provide direct dialing, this proved a controversial subject in the community. People liked having their operators. The people that worked at Central were everybody's friend. They were people that were there, 24 hours a day, to assist with any emergency. They would gather volunteer firefighters to help fight a fire, or be able to spread community news quickly. This wouldn't be available with the newer phone systems. How would the community be informed of events quickly now? Who would just happen to know whose house the doctor was at when he was urgently needed?

The change was resisted for some years, but eventually the finances of the telephone cooperative turned out to be in deep trouble. Operators grew to be much more expensive than automation, and in the late 1960s, the telephone cooperative was no more -- sold to a phone company from a small town more than twice our size, and a for-profit company at that! Central no longer existed. I remember reading about this event -- it seems people were sad about that for quite some time. They felt that they had really lost an important part of the community when Central went away. Some machine locked in a cabinet doesn't care for people the way Central did. Even today, the older people in the community sound a little sad when they remember telephone modernization, and get the wistful look of somebody that has just remembered something that they miss.

The phone company that bought the system wasn't an AT&T, though. It was a small, independent phone company. To this day, that phone company serves only the two communities. And it was this company that I called yesterday to establish service out at our house.

They had already upgraded our lines -- over a mile of new copper, benefiting only us, at no charge to us -- last fall. The box was already on the outside of the house. Just need to get it activated.

So I called the phone company. They said I needed to drop by their office and sign some papers. Uh-oh, I think -- this is a bad sign. Sounds like a bunch of phone company bureaucracy.

But not so much. I went to the office and signed up. They asked the usual questions: name, address. Plus a few that bigger companies wouldn't ask: who used to have service at that address? Of course, most people would know that answer in our community. I couldn't have told you in Wichita, Dallas, or Indianapolis.

Then they asked when I'd like service to be activated. "As soon as possible," I say, figuring that this would be a couple of weeks like it is with AT&T or Sprint. "Well, we probably can't get out there for a couple of hours. Would it be OK if it's on at about 3?" Yes, that would be fine!

Now, how about DSL? "Well, we're a little backed up on that right now." Uh-oh. Sprint took several weeks when they *weren't* more backed up than usual. "So it'll probably be Monday or Tuesday before we can get out there. Should I just have the installer call you and arrange a time when it gets closer?" Yes, that would be fine, too!

Now, how about finding a phone number.

Out comes a large paper book. Yep, paper. They paged through it, and told me that my grandpa's old number would be available if I wanted it. I said yes -- after all, we've got his old address, so might as well keep the same phone number. OK, no problem. She whips out some white-out, whites out grandpa's name, and writes ours in. Done.

Now, do we want any optional services? Caller ID, call waiting, voicemail? How much is caller ID, I ask. $5 a month. We'll try it for now. "OK". A box was checked on the form and that was that. No high-pressure sales pitch on taking "the works" for some poorly-disclosed price, providing a ton of services I'll never use and don't want. No confusing "discounts" for having The Works and DSL at the same time.

Then I ask about an unlisted number, or at least an unlisted address. We figure that anybody that we really want to be able to reach us will figure out how without using a phone book, and these things get in so many databases these days. Sprint charged almost $10/mo for a fully unlisted number, but only a few dollars a month to just keep our address off the directories.

Our new company charged 50 cents a month for a fully unlisted number. Done.

Now it's time to pay for the first month's fees and the setup. Oops, I've forgotten my checkbook in the car. No problem, the secretary says, I'll watch your baby while you go get it! Jacob was with me, but had fallen asleep, so I brought him inside in his car seat. I went to get the checkbook -- just out the door and close by. I was back in a few seconds later, and the secretary was already on the other side of her desk talking and playing with Jacob. "My baby's 12 now," she said, and for a second, looked like a person that was remembering Central.

In the first two posts about Christmas, I remembered Christmas at home and with my dad's family. Today I'm remembering Christmas with my mom's family, and tomorrow -- the last post on this subject, I promise -- more recent Christmases.

The first thing that comes to mind about Christmas with mom's family is Grandma's peppernuts (pfeffernuesse to any Germans reading this). Grandma made wonderful peppernuts. And she made huge batches of them for Christmas. I remember gallon jugs being passed around.

Peppernuts are a small sweet dough, rolled out, and cut into pieces about the size of a peanut M&M, then baked. My mom has been making them, and they look like this:



In fact, I can't really remember what sort of main dishes we used to have. Guess I had a one-track mind. I suspect that we also had some of Grandma's famous cherry moos (rhymes with "close").

Us kids usually were the only ones to get gifts there, but that was fine with me. It was also great to spend time with my uncles and aunts, none of which lived in the area. They were always good for some jokes, or maybe a math puzzle.

I seem to recall that Grandma and Grandpa also joined our family for our Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve some years. Here's my Grandma reading from the Bible to my brother one of those Christmases:



Grandma has always loved being around her grandchildren, and she always seemed to have plenty of time for each one of us.

Thinking of my Grandpa Klassen reminds of first of the German hymn Nun Ist Sie Erschienen (MP3 and PDF in the comments at that link). It's still sung, in German and English, at Christmas in our church.

Grandpa was great with the harmonica. And the song I best remember him playing at is Nun Ist Sie Erschienen. I remember sitting on his lap many times listening to him play it. And I'm pretty sure it was a year-round song for him. Terah and I even had it sung at our October wedding -- if it was year-round for Grandpa, that was good enough for us. It's always special to sing the song in church.

I was going to have a picture of Grandpa with his harmonica here, but I didn't get it ready in time. So I'll have to describe it. Imagine a black and white picture of a gentle man, dressed conservatively, holding a harmonica in his hands. He's looking towards it tenderly -- it seems to be something important, and maybe it represented fond memories for him, too. I'll post the photo as soon as I get a copy of it.

Back on December 1, 1990, just at the start of Christmas season, I remember the phone ringing. Dad answered, and I knew quickly that something was wrong. Grandpa had died earlier that day, while doing something he loved -- visiting his children and grandchildren in western Kansas.

His funeral followed shortly. At 11, I was starting to become interested in photography, and I set up my tripod and took this picture of the church on the day of his funeral.



So many people still remember the church that day and commented that having the sanctuary all decorated for Christmas was the perfect way to remember Grandpa.

Grandma still talks about it, too. My mom and I played a piano duet arrangement of Nearer, My God, To Thee. After we finished, Pastor Epp said, "If the music in heaven is anything like that, it will be a wonderful place indeed." He passed away not long after that, too, but Grandma still remembers that comment verbatim (and I'm sure would gently correct me if I made the tiniest of mistakes recalling it here).

In a few days, we'll be celebrating Christmas with Grandma -- and also her 92nd birthday. I bet there will be some peppernuts there.

Just a few weeks ago, the world heard the news of the tragic school shooting at an Amish school in rural Pennsylvania. A deranged man entered the schoolhouse, bound and gagged female hostages, brought along torture equipment, and shot 10 of them. 5 died, and the remaining 5 are believed to still be hospitalized.

Back in 1990, a deranged man committed a series of murders near the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. The story mentions 5 people that were killed.

Both were tragic situations. Both men killed people that had their whole lives in front of them. Both shook an entire community.

But look at how the communities responded. The Amish responded like this:

CNN reported a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls said of the killer on the day of the murder: "We must not think evil of this man."

Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained: "I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts," he told CNN.

The Amish have reached out to Roberts' family. Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.

An article in a Canadian newspaper the National Post stated that the Amish have set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter. (Wikipedia)

In addition, the Amish invited the Roberts family to attend the funerals for the Amish girls he killed.

Gainesville reacted this way:

Dianna Hoyt, Christa Hoyt's stepmother, said Rolling's execution has been eagerly awaited by the victims' families. Some will be inside the prison to witness it. . .

Sadie Darnell, who was the police department's media spokeswoman at the time and developed enduring friendships with the victims' families, said Rolling's execution still matters, even if it also provides him more of the notoriety he sought.

"Retribution . . . is important because it represents that our society is holding that person accountable," said Darnell, now a candidate for Alachua County sheriff. (CNN)

We've all heard of murders that have taken place lately. Usually they are accompanied by calls by politicians, victim's family, and sometimes even clergy to kill the perpetrator. In the days after 9/11, there were reports of anybody that looked Middle Eastern being attacked in several different places around the country.

I have never understood this great desire for revenge. How does that help anyone?

What the Amish did was right religiously and morally. They truly followed the New Testament call to love your enemies and forgive. It is not easy to follow all of Jesus' teachings, and nobody said it would be. But they are doing it, and they have already begun healing. Reports are that the Roberts family has become friends with several of the Amish in the area, and they are working to help each other out after this horrible tragedy.

Even putting religion aside for a moment, the Amish actions are quite simply the right thing to do. By spreading love instead of hate, and friendship instead of revenge, they have succeeded in making sure that no cycle of violence starts there.

In contrast, 16 years later, the families of the victims in Florida still aren't healing. They are still angry and bitter. They are still seeking revenge. They hope that their lives will get back to normal after the murderer is killed. But after 16 years of stewing about it, will they really? And what about the family of the murderer, whose lives certainly must have been a mess for the past 16 years? They will now lose a family member. Does anyone care about them, or will they now turn angry at society and possibly spread the pain more?

Imagine what would happen if so many more people around the world took the Amish perspective -- to forgive those that wronged us. How long must it be before we can forgive? How far back do we spread our hate? Do we still hate those that were involved in 9/11, or can we forgive them? Do we still hate the Germans for what their ancestors did in World War II, or can we forgive them? Do we hate politicians with whom we strongly disagree, or think are liars? Do we still hate all those that have wronged us personally -- someone that stole something from us or the sadistic boss?

Knives, electric chairs, and bombs do not buy reconciliation. They can not "win over" the hearts of others. They do not make our lives easier. Hate brings more hate, and more resentment.

Forgiveness is not easy. We all hope that we will never be involved in such a tragedies as these. But let us follow the example the Amish have shown -- forgive for all things, big or small, important or not, painful or not.

Only then will we be at peace with ourselves, and only then will we have the chance to be at peace with our neighbors.

Today, I've been quite busy with "real life". First of all, I retrieved keys for my new room (see below), and was busy half of the day with packing stuff. Around noon, I had to go to a funeral. A friend of mine has died, most likely from cancer (maybe smoking-related, I don't know). He was very active for a NPO helping people with the internet. We'll really miss him there, too. In the afternoon I packed more of my stuff together, bought some new things; then took a break to go dancing - I started taking a Balboa class today - and finally took most of my stuff to my new room. Until around midnight I was cleaning the room, fighting the "malfunctioning" doors of the huge wardrobe and moving stuff in. Tomorrow I'll probably spend my first night in the new room. This is a shot of the new room. I don't have a wide angle lense, so that is the best I could do (I have the lens on my Amazon Wishlist, but it's horribly expensive...). It's the plain room, nothing of my stuff in there yet. The first thing I did was putting up some nice yellow curtains, to add some color. The flash makes some funny light effects with the mirrors of the wardrobe on this picture. ;-) The room isn't huge, but it's well done. The bed fits in behind the door, a desk will fit next to the bed, and there is this huge wardrobe. The mirrors on it make the room appear larger and brighter. Now with some sunny colors this will be a room I can enjoy. I'll probably post another picture when I've added some more color to the room. I have a couple of nice computer artworks printed out to hang to the walls. Oh, and the linux sourcecode poster. ;-) (No, I probably won't put that one up. It's mostly gray. It wouldn't match the room. It will be interesting how my life will change the next months. I'll be doing a lot more dancing - I intend to join a Boogie sports club, learn Balboa and Boogie and train Lindy Hop - and since I'll be living closer to the city, I expect to go out more. And I hope the people I'll live with in that house are fun, so we'll be spending some time together. We have a pool table and a dart board in the living room, and a perfect spot for placing a projector. Also since I've passed my final exams, I'll now focus on my final thesis. My topic is about semantic wikis [wikipedia.org], at my university and a research institute. The last months, I had been rather bored with university life; the thesis will likely set the course for the next few years of my life: research, entrepreneurship or just working at some larger company.

With the advent of Uncle Steve's Barbie, I was reminded of DebConf, and the fact that I was intending to setup a blog, if for no other reason than so that I could make this post, so here goes: Some of you will be aware that my father died on May 16th this year, which was during Debconf6. Given that I was in Mexico, while the rest of my family were dealing with the fact of his death in the UK, I'd have expected to feel somewhat lonely or isolated. I'd just like to say that, the fact that during the rest of the week people kept coming up to me and offering their sympathies was really amazingly supportive, and is deeply appreciated -- thank you all. Being surrounded by friends and knowing that we were engaged in doing something productive helped offset the loss to some extent. It also helped to know that my father had chosen the optimal time to die, having survived until the moment when his quality of life was about to evaporate, but not beyond. Since so many of you offered your condolences about my father, I thought you might like to have at least a flavour of the man, and anyway I'd like to publish the eulogy written by Steve McCullagh, which he recited at the funeral, because it sums up my father brilliantly. So, thanks to all of you that offered your support, also thanks to the organisers of Debconf6, and thanks very much to Steve McCullagh for his permission to publish the eulogy.

Last year, I wrote about a small town funeral home.

Today it's time to write about small town banks.

So last Saturday, Terah and I went to the bank in the town we're going to be closest to (population 590, compared population 3500 town we live close to now). We were discussing financing for the house and renovations.

The loan officer at the bank is also the city mayor. She's lived in the area for years. I don't know her well, but I know of her and she has heard of me too.

So some of the questions we got were:

"Are you still working the same place I heard about awhile ago?"

"Now should the seller's copy of this example contract go to your aunt or your dad?"

"So the place you're buying -- just a couple of miles from your great uncle then, right?"

Unlike the large nationwide bank we talked to, we were NOT asked:

• Are you farmers? Because we aren't set up to work with farmers. (There's no way a small-town bank could survive with an attitude like that)


• Are you SURE you're not farmers? Because that's a lot of land for someone that's not a farmer, and some of it is a pasture!
  (I hate to break it to him, but 17 acres is not nearly enough land for most farmers around here)


• Hmm, so there's a well on the property? That's cause for concern, but hopefully it will be OK since rural water is hooked up there.


• Could you just tell me who you are and what you're doing again? (I got this EVERY TIME I talked to or e-mailed them, even though it was always the same person)

The person at the small-town bank also actually returned my calls, answered my e-mails, and kept appointments. She also provided all sorts of help for us along the way. It's as if the bank would actually like to have our business and would work to get it.

Guess which bank we're going to use.

If anyone asks you what the difference is between Christmas and Chanukah, you will know what and how to answer!

1. Christmas is one day, same day every year, December 25. Jews also love December 25th. It's another paid day off work. We go to movies and out for Chinese food and Israeli dancing. Chanukah is 8 days. It starts the evening of the 24th of Kislev, whenever that falls. No one is ever sure.
Jews never know until a non-Jewish friend asks when Chanukah starts, forcing us to consult a calendar so we don't look like idiots. We all have the same calendar, provided free with a donation from the World Jewish Congress, the kosher butcher, or the local Sinai Memorial Chapel(especially in Florida) or other Jewish funeral home.

2. Christmas is a major holiday. Chanukah is a minor holiday with the same theme as most Jewish holidays. They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat

3. Christians get wonderful presents such as jewelry, perfume, stereos... Jews get practical presents such as underwear, socks, or the collected works of the Rambam, which looks impressive on the bookshelf.

4. There is only one way to spell Christmas. No one can decide how to spell Chanukah, Chanukkah, Chanukka, Channukah, Hanukah, Hannukah, etc.

5. Christmas is a time of great pressure for husbands and boyfriends. Their partners expect special gifts. Jewish men are relieved of that burden. No one expects a diamond ring on Chanukah.

6. Christmas brings enormous electric bills. Candles are used for Chanukah. Not only are we spared enormous electric bills, but we get to feel good about not contributing to the energy crisis.

7. Christmas carols are beautiful...Silent Night, Come All Ye Faithful.... Chanukah songs are about dreidels made from clay or having a party and dancing the hora. Of course, we are secretly pleased that many of the beautiful carols are composed and written by our tribal brethren.

And don't Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond sing them beautifully?

8. A home preparing for Christmas smells wonderful. The sweet smell of cookies and cakes baking. Happy people are gathered around in festive moods. A home preparing for Chanukah smells of oil, potatoes, and onions. The home, as always, is full of loud people all talking at once.

9. Women have fun baking Christmas cookies. Jewish women burn their eyes and cut their hands grating potatoes and onions for latkas on Chanukah. Another reminder of our suffering through the ages.

10. Parents deliver to their children during Christmas. Jewish parents have no qualms about withholding a gift on any of the eight nights.

11. The players in the Christmas story have easy to pronounce names such as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. The players in the Chanukah story are Antiochus Judah Maccabee, and Matta whatever. No one can spell it or pronounce it. On the plus side, we can tell our friends anything and they believe we are wonderfully versed in our history.

12. Many Christians believe in the virgin birth. Jews think, "Joseph,you shmuck, snap out of it. Your woman is pregnant, you didn't sleep with her, and now you want to blame G-d. Here's the number of my shrink".

13. In recent years, Christmas has become more and more commercialized. The same holds true for Chanukah, even though it is a minor holiday. It makes sense. How could we market a major holiday such as Yom Kippur? .....

Forget about celebrating. Think observing. Come to synagogue, starve yourself for 27 hours, become one with your dehydrated soul, beat your chest, confess your sins, a guaranteed good time for you and your family.
Tickets a mere $200 per person.

[Stolen from $unknown]