| RIP Richard Christopher Smith |
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| 10:37pm 15/07/2011 |
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About an hour ago, surrounded by his wife of nearly fifty years, and two of his oldest and dearest friends, my father's prayers to Mary mother of Christ were finally answered, and he was liberated from his diseased body, and taken to his eternal rest.
A loving man his entire life, he grew up on the magical motto: "Of all things immortal, courage is the greatest." He dropped out of college to join the Army in the 101st Airborne, and did his duty in the Vietnam War. He returned to the United States after the war, working multiple jobs to put himself and his wife through college, later fulfilling his dream of becoming a teacher.
When he was 35, his wife, my mother, gave birth to me. He loved his son fiercely, able to play and smile as well as teach and guide. It was his tales of the dreaded Foofeifengleifus where I learned my own love of storytelling and laughter, just as he had learned it from his father. Always a proud father, he taught his son to be independent in thought and in action, and to always continue striving for greater things.
At the age of fifty, his physical condition forced him to retire from teaching. He spent his days accumulating the necessary points to become a Life Master of Bridge, fulfilling an old dream and joy from his youth, and taking care of his little brother, whose affliction was much greater. At no point in the last nineteen years of my father's life did I once hear a word of complaint or self-pity about his situation. When asked, he would simply remark that his case was mild, and that there were children dying or permanently immobilized by the same disease, and that he had no right to feel self-pity in such a blessed life.
It is difficult to imagine someone with such a terrible disease as being brave, much less being a hero. All my life, my dad fought with everything he could, right up until his last breath, to honor the things he held sacred, and to give what he could to those he loved.
I am proud to be his son. |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| Even at the end of such darkness... |
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| 01:27am 21/12/2010 |
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The longest night passes in stillness here. The eclipse. The long dark illuminated by the bright moon, and even that, stolen for a moment by a trick of the sun. Perhaps a prank, perhaps a coincidence, perhaps an accent on such a dark year.
Even now, the light returns. Even now, new life and new hope await.
May your heart and soul, if even for a moment, be filled with unbreakable knowledge and the utterly transcendent understanding that today, this year, or across ten thousand lifetimes, all that you seek, known and unknown, will be yours.
"What would you do, my brothers and sisters, if I told you that I know beyond any doubt that one day we will all be free." - Unknown |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| I am very sorry |
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| 09:01pm 12/07/2008 |
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To end my long silence with this, of all things, but... it... well, you'll see. It's one of those things that can't wait, since it won't be around long.
The current Wikipedia page on the MPAA.
No, I didn't do it. I just happened to browse there tonight and noticed, and had to share.
**EDIT**: The page appears to have been fixed - and unfixed, and refixed. No guarantees on the offensiveness/inoffensiveness (it *is* a wikipedia page, after all!). |
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Read 9 - Post |
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| Ack! |
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| 01:54pm 17/06/2008 |
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I'm drowning in phone calls from recruiters and HR people!
A nice problem to have, except it's just making me more late on my freelance work. Feh.
Well, at least I'm getting lots of phone calls from places willing to pay. |
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Read 23 - Post |
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| Free will versus fate |
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| 11:04am 08/01/2008 |
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An LJ friend of mine just asked a question that got me wanting to rant about fate and free will. Like many of my rants, I get a bit wander-y.
I would also like to point out that these views are mine alone, and I neither ask nor suggest that anybody else adopt them in whole or in part. My intent is solely to share my fascination.
( One computer scientist's view. ) |
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Read 12 - Post |
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| Cheeky spam buggers |
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| 10:08am 19/04/2007 |
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I got slammed this morning with about 15 spam messages sitting in my gmail inbox. That never happens. What troubles me is that they were all there as automatic replies from spam bots and daemons asking for confirmation of sending or the like. Basically, it looks like somebody is making it out to look like I'm sending out spam like crazy. It started just this morning, and for the 15 that made it to my inbox, there are about 500 in my spam filter - all seeming to originate from the same address, jowcodejitsunos@codejitsu.com.
Has anybody heard of anything like this, or have similar experiences? |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| Lent or something like it |
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| 10:28pm 21/02/2007 |
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Every year for the last few years, despite my heathen ways, I've given up something during the Catholic season of Lent, because a month and a half-ish of disciplined life improvement is generally a positive thing, and it's nice to have something to connect me to my Christian friends.
Last year (and I think the year before) I gave up video games. Tentatively, that's what I'm sticking with, but I can tell already that it's not going to last.
So, instead of grinding away at something futile until I fail at it and drown in a profound sense of guilt, I'm switching it up and taking a different approach. I want to find a new habit to get into for the Lent season - improvement via addition, instead of removal. Seems more natural, more positive.
The trouble is that nothing really leaps to mind, since I'm currently up to my ears in new daily practices. So, I put it to you, good people - what suggestions do you have on things I can do to positively impact myself and my community that doesn't come in the form of simply removing something? |
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Read 8 - Post |
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| Creativity is a very good thing |
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| 09:15am 05/10/2006 |
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The first five people to respond to this post, will get some form of art, by me, about [or tailored to] them. I make no guarantees about quality or type, but I will assure that I will give it good effort and that the art will be individual to you.
The only catch, of course; as with most memes, if you sign up, you have to put this in your own journal as well. Don't be afraid. :) |
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Read 17 - Post |
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| Unleash the hounds. |
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| 12:40pm 21/08/2006 |
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Beneath the following cut lies a picture of what I found in my Quizno's today.
( Not for the faint of heart )
I'll be back to Quizno's maybe today on the way home from work, maybe tomorrow, to discuss this with the manager. I'm seeing a few free meals out of this one. We'll start the bidding at 30. Yes, this might cost somebody their job. I don't care. There are consequences to people shedding in my food, and I'd be happy to know that whoever used to own this vile glob isn't there anymore to accidentally leave presents for anybody else.
Meanwhile, collecting franchise information to prepare a copy of what I'll send to corporate and the local health department (right down the street from the restaurant, conveniently).
Retreat weekend of claiming my power seems to have done interesting things. Time to go be enemies with someone. |
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Read 4 - Post |
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| User-generated content |
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| 02:01pm 16/08/2006 |
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Japanese sword polishing falls into a category of painstaking that neither you nor I can truly fathom. A master polisher, fingering one dime-sized, paper-thin stone at a time, rubs away enough metal from the entire surface of the blade to return its thickness to perfect uniformity, thereby physically removing the blade's scratches.
Of course, the smoothing stones shatter easily with use, and thus must be continuously crafted. This arthritic task is generally given to the master's apprentice. Because the stones must be thin enough for the master to feel the imperfections in the metal through it, and because an imbalanced stone can actually ruin a blade, this art alone takes a long time to get right. Some apprentices create smoothing stones for ten years before they're even allowed to touch a blade.
Contemplate, if you like, the difference between this and Myspace. Discuss. |
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onecrane's journal