Sunday, September 26

Back Home. . . .

Sitting on the plane flying back to San Diego after a somewhat succesful trip to NJ/NY. The most significant event of the week was during our visit to a client which meant we travelled to the WTC site via PATH train for Jersey City. The station is in the center of Ground Zero. It is a really disarming feeling sitting in a train coming out of a tunnel and circling around the perimeter of what is left of the WTC. We rolled up to the platform and then I realized I was right there. As I climbed the stairs up to street level my thoughts could not deviate from the television pictures I witnessed a little over three years ago.
What really amazed me was how the area had managed to deal with the situation - most of the surrounding area had returned to normal business even though there was still considerable damage to some of the buildings in the area. Some of the poeple I spoke to this week were either in adjacent buildings or on trains as little as one stop away from the location. Wow. Having been there, I can't even begin to imagine how it must have been for those in the area at the time. The fact that buildings on the perimeter suffered minimal if not no damage at all is just unbelievable. I thought that it would have a similar effect on me that visitng Belsen did in 80s but because of the activity all around the WTC site, it felt less surreal and I felt more connected to it.
I will remember.

Tuesday, September 21

Joyzee!

I'm in New Jersey. Jersey City, NJ. Over on a trip to visit a couple of companies in the Financial District in Manhattan, so I'll probably see Ground Zero. I'm apprehensive about it, and I'm not sure why . . . .
So in the past two weeks since my last post, Helen and I have put our house up for sale and had an offer accepted on another that's less than 1/2 mile from the ocean. We're not getting our hopes up just now - the real estate market has slowed considerably lately so we may not be able to get things done. But it may happen!
In the mean time, if you know anyone who's looking for a 5 bed, 3 bath, 3-car garage house in Carlsbad . . :-)

Thursday, September 9

Scots Wha Hae

Pleasanton was a blast. It was great to see over 800 pipers and drummers play in (almost) unison and also to hear over 30 fiddlers playing together. We saw Walfstone, probably the most successful Scottish folk rock group and other bands like Mollys Revenge and Tempest. We wandered around the Gathering of the Clans, and found that Helen is a member of Clan Lindsay (even though they didn't know how to pronounce her maiden name or where it originated). I, on the other hand, am clanless as far as I can see. I'm not going to lose sleep over it :-) No pictures to post however - I took about 35 minutes of video footage though so we do have some memories recorded.
Back to the grindstone this week as I continue to ramp up my knowledge of the toolset I work with/sell and I'm also in the midst of moving my office from one room to another in tha house (back to my old haunt above the garage).
Started reading a book by the Dalai Lama about self enlightenment. We'll see how that goes and I'll update if my mindset changes.

Thursday, September 2

Hoots, man!

I'm off to Pleasanton tomorrow with Helen to attend the Highland Games up there. IT'll be grrreat!
What's really interesting for me is that the group that organizes the games has a membership of which 50% were born in Scotland. Compared to the North County Scots, of which Helen and I are approximately 50% of the Scottish born, the numbers are high. I'm looking forward to being surrounded by real Scottish accents again - one of the things I miss from 'back home'. It will be fun to watch the piping competitions and the pipe band championships, which will include a couple of bands from Scotland.
I'll hopefully be able to post pictures here or somewhere I can link to so you can see what fun we'll be having :-)
Och aye the noo!