Bryan Strawser

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Bryan Strawser

Golf

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Two days of golf has left me with a sore shoulder and feeling fairly tired today.

On Friday, took a personal day and played at The New England Country Club and then yesterday at Poquoy Brook.

Golf has finally become a hobby. After some successful stuff at work, I treated myself to new irons from Galyan’s – went with the Big Bertha Irons in Graphite. Bit pricey, but wonderful clubs.

Looking now at fairway woods, I am pretty fond of the Great Big Bertha II line, but I need to demo them first. Perhaps a new driver in the spring.

Definately need to continue with lessons though.

PAPD – We Will Not Forget

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On the first anniversary of the attacks, Carbonera allowed himself to shed some tears at the six memorial services he attended. This year, he plans to spend the day with his colleagues at the airport command station, where a private memorial service will be held beside the two-month-old plaque just outside the front door of the building. It was paid for with $50 donations from each officer at the station.
        The granite plaque lists the names of all the Port Authority officers and one K9-unit dog killed that day, alongside the words NEVER FORGOTTEN BY THE JFK COMMAND and sits atop a rusty chunk of one of the steel beams that used to hold up the towers. Every day, Carbonera places his hand on the names before he goes through the doors to work. “It’s my way of saying I remember you.” []MSNBC]

No Myth

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So, she says it’s time she goes
but wanted to be sure I know
she hopes we can be friends
I think, yeah, I guess we can say I
but didn’t think to ask her why
she blocked her eyes and drew the curtains
with knots I’ve got yet to untie…
what if I were Romeo in black jeans
what if I was Heathcliff, it’s no myth
maybe she’s just looking for
someone to dance with
See, it was just too soon to tell
and looking for some parallel
can be an endless game
We said goodbe before hello
my secrets she will never know
and if I dig a hole to China
I’ll catch the first junk to SoHo
(chorus)
Sometime from now you’ll bow to pressure
some things in life you cannot measure by degrees
I’m between the poles and the equator
don’t send no private investigator to find me please
‘less he speaks Chinese
and can dance like Astaire overseas

Navy Relieves Newport Commander

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The Navy announced late yesterday that it had relieved Capt. Ruth A. Cooper of her command of Naval Station Newport because of alleged mismanagement at the military base.

Rear Adm. Joseph A. Walsh, commander of Navy Region Northeast, removed her “after losing confidence in Cooper’s judgment and ability to command,” according to a statement the Navy released. She has been temporarily reassigned to a position with Navy Region Northeast. [Providence Journal]

Doc Searls: Lights On

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Brought tears to my eyes…

Travel day today. Leaving shortly to fly back to California. I’ll try to answer or follow up on as many emails as I can along the way. There are hundreds of meaningful ones, including more condolances than I’m willing to count.

The memorial service for Mom was, of course, beautiful. I’ll miss her “turribly,” as she used to say. And love her bunches, as I still hear her saying.

What amazes me, in the retrospect I am now gaining on her life, is that she lived it completely both in the energy she put into every moment of it, and in the fact that she had done everything she had wanted with her ninety years.

So many lives end too soon with too much left undone; or linger far beyond the point when they cease being the complete person everybody remembers and wishes were either still here or mercifully gone. Mom’s life was like a symphony in three long movements that roughly corresponded to her roles as a young woman, a mother, and a grandmother. Last week she performed the finale of her third movement, closing with a sweet sustained chord.

How many of us will be blessed to live out a life like that? Or to be taught how to live by one of the good rare souls who does?

I’m glad the way Mom passed gave me even as painful as it was for her to struggle, almost successfully, to overcome the damage done to her body a chance to introduce the world to one of the best examples of a good life, well lived. If she had died any faster or slower, all this sharing might never have happened, simply because I would not have found the time. She made it for me, and for the rest of us.

At her memorial service I said Mom’s simple prairie philosophy was the one Garrison Keillor summarizes at the close of his daily Writer’s Almanac: Be well, do good work, and stay in touch.

Nobody did any of them better.

And now, as she so often said, it’s time to get back to work [Doc Searls Weblog]