[Fwd: In memoriam...]

A good friend and colleague wrote this e-mail while he waited in transit at DFW on his way to Europe last week. I present it here with his permission. It gave me pause to remember the true cost of our freedoms that we (increasingly) consider lightly.

But, there's hope, as demonstrated by the DFW ground crew. Thank you, DFW, for showing respect for this fallen Member of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Tim Jurgensen wrote:

Those profound events that go on all around us as we rush through our ostensibly important daily schedules.

As my flight from Austin to DFW was pulling in to Gate A11, I noticed a plane at the next gate over... a casket was being unloaded from it. The casket was coming down the loading ramp, out of the belly of the plane. It had an American flag draped on it.

At the bottom of the loading ramp was a special baggage cart; each side of the cart was a large American flag. On one side of the ramp was a soldier in dress uniform; the escort that is accompanying the casket to its home.

As the casket came down the ramp, all of the ground personnel working on the plane stopped and stood at attention. There were two security police cars flanking the ramp, each with lights flashing. The security officers stood at attention as the casket came down the ramp and was loaded into the baggage cart. They then led and followed the baggage cart as it made its way to the terminal.

As I watched, I remembered a cold January day in 1952 when my brother Doran's body was brought home from Korea to Sayre, OK. He was killed in August, but his body was interred in Korea until there was available space to ship it home. His casket arrived on a train. There was a Captain (I only remember his name as "Allen") who had accompanied the body from San Francisco. There was an honor guard from the ROTC detachment at Oklahoma A&M where Doran had graduated just a year before.

Today, here in Dallas, it seemed that the airline and the airport tried to lend some honor and dignity to a fallen soldier. Perhaps it is not always the case. But, it was today, at least for a part of his journey.

Regards,

Tim

Conflicted

I'm certain that there will be many who mis-interpret this post, but let me be clear; the loss of life on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001 must never be forgotten, nor should we ever forget the enemy which brought death to our cities that day. However, I'm a wee-bit concerned about our apparent need to memorialize everything.

When I was abroad recently on a business trip, a foreign national colleague commented, "Washington D.C.; you guys sure do have a lot of monuments in that town." My reply was, "Sure, we've live a lot of history in our first 230-some years." But what I was really thinking was, "We build monuments for nearly everything so as not to offend some group, rather than to make a historical judgement on long-term historical relevance. Meanwhile we race headlong trying to run from much of our history (such as National Park Service's removal of a display inside the Washington Monument that explained the inscription at the top of the Monument that reads Laus Deo, or "Praise Be to God").

We built a very powerful, moving, monument to those fallen and missing during the Vietnam Conflict; mainly out of shame for how our Government miserably executed that campaign. And yet, it we waited nearly two decades after that monument was built to erect the WWII Memorial; probably the single greatest event to shape the last century.

And now, we erect monuments to one day's battle in the midst of a war. That day was indeed significant - the war that has prosecuted in the shadows for decades (over 400 days of the Iran Hostage Crisis, bombings around the world for decades, leading up to the U.S.S. Cole, and then 9//11 - just to name a few) had finally "come to light". So yes, 9/11 is seared in to our memory, but I sure hope we don't go knee-jerk erecting a dozen monuments or so when the next Islamo-fascist gets through the net. I'd rather we send in a few thousand more "snake eaters" to kill the cancer.

We must not forget that this is a war - that extends well before President George W. Bush, and will last as long as Muslims permit extremists to cohabit in their religion.

And finally, what brought me to make this post, is that there will be the dedication of a 9/11 Pentagon Memorial tomorrow at the Pentagon. The ceremony will be closed, but the monument area will open to the public at 7pm.

Please go there, if you can. Remember. And think about the war we are in, globally, to defend ourselves and our allies against the cancer of Islamic Fascism.

And finally, and most importantly, I sincerely thank the members of the U.S. Armed Forces and their families, who get up every day, put on the Uniform, and go in to harms way - for you and me, and our families. May God bless them.

No really, I need to post and I know it

I had a really great "tweetup", (or "dentup", if you're an identi.ca convert like @marinamartin) last night with @dacort and @marinamartin at the Tap House Grill here in Bellevue, WA, where I am this week for some meetings hosted by Microsoft.

One of the topics that came up was something along the lines of "I haven't blogged in so long, but I have all of these things that I've wanted to blog". Well, keeping in mind that one of the people at the table is in fact @marinamartin, you'd expect that she has a list for that sort of thing, and if memory serves me correctly, she confessed to not only having a list of such things, but notes on what she would write on if said posting opportunity/motivation/priority were to materialize.

As for me, the list is in my head along with all of the other dust bunnies that accumulate there. I think the list changes, and I do recall saying to @dacort and @marinamartin that what I REALLY wanted to blog about was my long ride I took on the bike a few weeks back. I'm somewhat hopelessly in love when it comes to my bike.

And just now on Twitter, @megfowler comes to the rescue with her own post on the matter of blogging, frequency, depth, and randomness. It's a good read, which is par for course on her blog. Oh, and the Heart bit, Meg, I'm right there, too. My previous blog post pretty much establishes where I am right now. Definitively? No. But hey, like you say, "It's JUST a blog post." :)

(* See Mike! There, you wrote a blog post while the rest of your colleagues are swatting e-mail for 10 minutes. Just do it. *)

I did.

Nothing and everything

I'm pretty sure I don't have the guts to write this blog post. I mean, it's been over two months. That should tell you something, eh? But well, here goes...

Since April 27th, I've:

• been served divorce papers, twice
• moved
• started my own company (relax, it's just me)
  
• not lost faith in marriage, just the one I was married to
• found more encouragement from "you people" than I'd ever imagined possible
• been insanely lonely
• been insanely busy (work)
• cried
• smiled, because He hasn't given up on me, and He won't

I could write about work, but that would bore you. For example, last night. "What do you do?" "I work with smart card technology." "Those are the coolest little cars!" (* shakes head *) I'm going to stick with "I'm a spy" from now on. Seriously. I'm not even kidding about that. If I say "I work for the government", that wouldn't be entirely un-true. I'm a consultant to NIST at the moment. I'm also an editor for GlobalPlatform. Great people to work with, all the way around. And no, I'm not just saying this because Google is watching.

That's about all for now. Difficult to write more.

Befriending Passion

What's your passion? Right now, mine is riding on the back of Lady Thunder. Anywhere. At any time. It's just my thing.

What if your passion was a little more defining? What if you had a talent for it and you felt it in your blood. You found others who believed in your capabilities and passion (sorry, overused word), and they've invested in you. But like any passion, there's a certain amount of blood, sweat, and tears, oh, and MONEY, that you need to put in to make it go.

Consider our dear friend Erica Ortiz, known by her handle @HorsepowerHeels on Twitter. She's proven that she can drive in a straight line at 200mph or better in her very own drag racer. Check her out over at Horsepower and Heels.

Back in November, her car was coming together for the 2008 season (it's 2008 now, people), or was it? Things didn't quite line up, literally. Since then, Erica has been scraping together support a five-spot at a time.

Her dream is to race Top Fuel. Those are the long, skinny, land rockets that blast down the track at over 300mph. Did you catch ESPN2 today? Yeah, those cars. She can get there, IF... IF... IF!!!! she can get her current car on the track and meet her sponsor commitments this race year. Realistically, she's up against it. What she needs is about $5k to get the car in running order. ASAP. Now. Today.

In my opinion, it's time for her friends to really stand up and help. You don't have to break your bank. Sheesh - just throw a few latte's at her (figuratively, of course), or skip that trip to the spa this month (week?).

So pppppplease, drop by her website and hit the tip jar, as it were, and let's watch her Tweet her way around the circuit this Summer and Fall.

C'mon, help this Lady make her dreams. It's going to be a blast to watch her go. You KNOW she'll Tweet it. :)

-- Mike

P.S. Erica has shared her widget with me, and I've attached it to my blog (>>> over there). Please do help!

Lady Thunder rolls again

It's about time that I wrote something about how Lady Thunder is doing. Fact is, I picked her up from the shop nearly as good as new on April 5. Well, I guess I'm the only one who is noticing the lime dust that is still stuck in various crevasses, of well, everywhere on the bike. She rides great. She has the right tank now.

Of course, nearly as soon as I had her back, I had to hop on a plane. I've been on the road nearly three weeks straight now. First hop was to San Francisco for the RSA Conference. I had a little speaking bit on Monday, then cruised the floor on Tuesday morning, a meeting in the afternoon, then flights to LAX then on to Sydney (International Standards work). Nine nights later, I began to unwind the trip... SYD/LAX/SFO/LAX/AUS. Don't ask.

Monday this week was laundry and get-as-much-junk-mail-shredded-as-possible day, then on the plane to Columbus, OH for the National Standards meetings today and tomorrow. I'm going to hang with my brother tomorrow night - Ohio is where I grew up, and then fly home to Austin tomorrow night.

(* deep breath *)

But then I can ride my bike on Saturday - maybe. A little.

Lady Thunder - Update #1

As you may recall, I didn't do Lady Thunder any favors a few weeks back by taking her down Lime Creek and exiting the road in a non-standard way. :(
View Larger Map

Ok, that's cool. I didn't know I could embed a Google map into my blog. Color me impressed. Well, now you know where we went down. So here's the brief update...

Lady Thunder's parts arrived on Friday the 21st and the guys (psst..., let's not say anything about Ty's Glamor Shots(TM) photo there. He's bigger than me) have nearly completed the work on her, except for one thing; the fuel tank.

They ordered a Victory Vegas tank from Victory Parts HQ, but what they received was a correctly colored, but differently styled tank. Two problems with that. Lady Thunder is all about the "White". This Victory Vegas Kingpin tank is 2/3 gray instead of 2/3 White, as the straight-up Victory Vegas should be. The other problem is that the Vegas tank has a very nice 'spine' on her the runs down the dorsal line of the tanks. That's cooler that you may think. The Kingpin tank does not have that.

Sooo, back goes the tank and we all can cross our fingers that a proper Victory Vegas (spined) tank can be found, in the right colors, in the right proportions. If not, then I'll probably settle for an unpainted Vegas tank and have the paint genius match it, and stripe it. This painter is AWESOME. I'll link him someday when I find out who he is.

Until then, my withdrawal deepens. Trying not to twitch.

-- Mike