23 years ago

After having breakfast at the ferry building this morning, I walked around for a little while. I like to people watch and Saturday mornings along the Embaradero are great for this.

There is a book store on the backside of the ferry building that I've seen many times but I have never visited. So today I looked through the used books they were selling for charity on a cart outside. That's when I saw a book titled Fifteen Seconds, it's a book about the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

23 years ago, when I was 15 years old, my father was on the Bay Bridge at 5:04pm as the World Series was about to start.

As I flipped through the book, tears came to my eyes. Even though my father survived and more than 2 decades had passed, I still find the event to be very emotional.

Maybe I never, truly, dealt with my feelings at the age of 15. I don't know...

Into the Blue

Tonight, I started swimming lessons.

I am able to swim, I certainly won't drown in the pool, but I never learned how to swim 'properly' for lack of a better term.

Before my mom had her stroke, she had asked that, as a gift to her, I lose some weight and get in better shape. So, in addition to running (including running a 5K and signing up for the Chevron half marathon), I decided to take swimming lessons.

There are only 2 of us in the class, plus the instructor. It makes for a good learning experience. The class is 30 minutes, which I believe is the perfect amount of time.

The teacher asked if I biked since I apparently have a decent amount of leg power. Of course I'm not very efficient, so it was a nice way of saying that I splash a lot!

All in all I'm very happy with how tonight went. I'm looking forward to the progress I hope to make in the coming weeks.

.....and swimming is a lot more tiring when you're 37 than when you're 7.

Not sure what to write...

I don't even know what to say. My mother passed away last Tuesday (9/13). The 13th is my dad's birthday. We believe that, somehow, our mom knew what day it was.

After 8+ months of dealing with the fallout of her stroke, my mom just slowly stopped breathing and went to be with my dad again. Roseann and I were with her when she passed away. I am glad we were there together. While it obviously wasn't easy, having her there with me helped.

The words I need to write aren't coming to me, I will have to come back to this later.

I need an idea

Ok, I have an idea. The title is based on the line from The Social Network when the Mark Zuckerberg character is about to develop facemash.com.

With my mom's health in decline, I've been spending more time at the skilled nursing facility with her after work. Between that and work, I have needed time to be distracted for the sake of sanity. As such, I've been trying to find LONG audio books to listen to on my commute to and from work. On a side note, my afternoon commute is now almost 90 minutes, which is getting old.

Anyway, after listening to For The Love Of Physics and The Pixar Touch, I am now listening to In The Plex, a story about Google, how it started, operates and most importantly its corporate culture.

The audio book is almost 20 hours long, so it's been great for my commute. My commute time, while tedious, does give me time to think. And I have been thinking of looking for a job in or near San Francisco.

When I first got 'into' IT in 2000, part of the reason was to be more marketable and move to San Francisco. This was towards the tail end of the dot com boom, and we all know how that ended. I ended up not going, which I'm glad I did considering I was able to spend time with my father before he passed away in 2004 and also be with my mom before her stroke earlier this year.

There aren't many people who would not want to work for some of the larger and more notable companies in the Bay Area: Google, Facebook, etc., and listening to In The Plex has motivated me. So I started my search for job openings.

I have submitted 2 applications for information security jobs with Google. In all of my research, everything indicates that Google looks for not only a good cultural fit but also for good ideas.

Here is my idea.

With all of the login information that people have today: email, Facebook, Twitter, banking sites, shopping sites, etc., people often try using the most basic passwords (which they use for multiple sites) ultimately increasing the risk of identity theft. Because of this trend, products such as LastPass have popped up.

Why doesn't Google offer such a service? They have the resources and the built in customer base to make this a no-brainer in my opinion.

I'm no programmer, so I'm not sure how to develop a Google App for this. But I have some ideas on features. It would provide a single login based on an existing Google account. It would be accessible from any browser. It could incorporate Google's advertising if necessary. Eventually it could be built into Chrome, Android and an iPhone app would most likely be popular as well.

Features would include the account or site name (could be used for Adsense), username, password, security question information and notes about the accounts. Something that would differentiate it from existing products, and which would work well with other Google apps, such as gmail and Google Calendar, would be the ability to schedule reminders to be sent either via email or text when accounts are due.

I think I may work on a mock-up and figure out the basic layout and use existing Google products as a guide.

In the off chance I ever get a job with Google, I want to have this idea as fleshed out as possible. I guess only time will tell.

3 Months Later

My mom has yet to regain use of her right side and she's had a few other medical setbacks as well. But all things considered, she's holding up pretty well and she seems to be in good spirits. She still is not talking either, at least not a lot. And by a lot I mean more than 3 or 4 words in the last 3 months. The funny thing about her talking, is that she only does it when I'm around. She will make noises around other people, but I think I'm the only person that has heard her say any words. I hope that she will speak more as time goes on.

Her house went up for sale today. We've spent the last few weeks and weekends boxing stuff up, moving things around and putting things into storage. It's strange to walk into that house now and have it seem so empty. I wouldn't say that I grew up there. After all, we moved in when I was 16. But I did live there for more than 10 years while going to school and working. The huge collection of teddy bears has been boxed up and there are no family pictures anywhere. I know my mom wanted to sell the house anyway, but I am pretty sure she wanted it to be under different circumstance.

As a result of everything that has happened, I now have 2 cats. After BW passed away, I didn't want to rush into getting another cat. With various travel plans I had, I was going to wait until Spring to go to the shelter and find a cat that needed a home. They are overwhelmed with homeless cats since they're a no-kill shelter. I was ready to find a cat that had been there a while. One that, while not exactly like BW, was similar in that he/she simply needed someone to love it and take care of it. Well, now I have 2 that were in need of a home. Fortunately, I was still living at home with my mom and dad when we found Tigger and Schwartzie, or rather, when they found us. So it has worked out pretty well. They've both adjusted pretty well and are more relaxed. Much like the sale of my mom's house........I wanted a cat, but I wish the circumstances had been different.

Still at a loss for words

On Thursday, February 3rd, my mom had a stroke. From what I could tell, it happened sometime the night before and she had been in her bed all day. I didn't find her until 7pm that night. I initially thought she had passed away. The scene is still so vivid in my mind that it seems like it just happened.

It's now almost 2 weeks later and she's doing better. Still no speech and no movement on the right side. But she LOOKS a lot better and also seems to have more expression in her face. Last night she even made a small 'gasp' sound when I read how many grams of sugar were in her bottle of Ensure (she doesn't like Ensure specifically for this reason).

If anyone can prove a doctor or statistics wrong, it's my mom. She's SO stubborn (in a good way) that I know she will work hard to recover.

Times like this remind me of how lucky I am to have such a wonderful family. Yes, we have our differences, but when events like this occur, we put our differences aside and take care of business. I usually don't think much of it, I am just so used to things being like this. But my girlfriend Erika was able to visit for the weekend and see firsthand what my family is like. Her perspective from the outside was interesting and she was impressed with how we handled everything.

I look forward to my visits with my mom and I hope and pray that she remains strong during this difficult time.

New year, new job!

Ok, I guess that I'm technically starting the new job BEFORE the end of the year, but it's pretty close.

After passing my CISSP and being patient, I will be working for my old boss from Maersk Data who is now CISO at another company. So tomorrow I will have my first day working in information security.

Am I excited? Yes. Am I nervous? Definitely.