Alkahest

Drafting out a few words for grandpa’s funeral tomorrow…  feel free to ignore.
I never felt that I knew Dick very well.  Of course, growing up, we didn’t call him that.  We always called him Grandpa S.  We saw him once every few years, but with a thousand miles between Baton Rouge and Des Moines, I [...]

I heard from my mom today that my grandfather died this afternoon.  It wasn’t a complete shock.  He never fully recovered from a stroke a few years ago, was recently suffering bouts of ventricular tachycardia, had just this week been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (which recently claimed Randy Pausch – go watch his “last lecture“), [...]

May 24: Memorial day weekend is in full swing and there are idiots everywhere.  I swear that the older I get, the more I sympathize with my father’s dislike of crowds.  We braved a bit of the crowd (keeping in mind that we’re already in the least crowded part of the park) and went up [...]

May 20: In the morning, we saw a small herd of bighorn sheep near the Yellowstone Picnic Area.  Later on, we saw a grizzly bear hanging out in the Lamar Valley: sleeping, grazing and hanging out.  Heading back into the cabin for dinner, we talk to our host.  He’s going through a nasty divorce which [...]

As mentioned previously, K and I have been out on vacation for the past two weeks – no phone (okay, there was voicemail), no email, and really very little in the way of computers.  I did take some notes, because, unfortunately, my memory is exactly what it used to be: bad.

May 16: An inauspicious start [...]