I remember previous generations remembering where they were or what they were doing when they heard about significant national events: assassination of JFK, attack on Pearl Harbor. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were that kind of event.
When I heard the first news of the events, I listening to NPR’s Morning Edition as I was driving to work in downtown Austin. The first news broadcast was simply that an airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. In typical fashion, I immediately began to minimize what must have happened: a private airplane had somehow hit the tower, kind of like a bug hitting a windshield.
After I got to work, we listened to the radio for more news. At some point, my coworkers and I migrated from the radio to the company upstairs that had a TV in its lobby. We sat there, stunned, as the events unfolded. When it was finally clear that the events were over, we went back to our offices and worked the rest of the day. We had Hannah in private school in Austin at the time. Katie was out and about, so she went ahead over to the school. I believe she got Hannah out of school early, but I was adamant that there was no point in panicking; the chances of anything happening to us personally were astnomically low.

This morning, I called Katie from the office:
Katie: Hi honey. What’s up?
Me: Just trying to get this damn release out the door.
Katie: That’s what you always say.
Me: Well, we’ve been working on this release for a while.
Katie: No, I mean, that’s what you always say at every company where you work.

I just helped Ducks in a Row software launch their new web site. They sell home inventory software, and–soon–other software for personal risk assessment.

I’m spending the week on a business trip to San Jose. The company put me up at the very tony Valencia Hotel which is located in Santana Row. Wikipedia says that “Santana Row was intended to be Northern California’s answer to Rodeo Drive featuring the one of the highest concentration of luxury retailers in the Western United States.” Oh. My. God. I have never seen such conspicuous consumption, especially the cars. The hotel offers valet parking, but in the evenings, they park a few cars in front of the hotel, not in the garage. I’m not sure what it takes to get your car parked conspicuously on Santana Row, but tonight there was a blinged-out Rolls Royce and several other extremely expensive cars in the hotel’s valet spaces. It’s obscene, really.
UPDATE: A fellow hotel guest told me this morning that one of the other cars in front of the hotel last night was a sports car (I don’t remember which brand) that sells for $1.2MM.

I seem to be experiencing another blogging lull. Mostly, it’s caused by being more engaged in other areas of my life, especially my new job. Stay tuned; I’m sure I’ll be posting more again soon.

My conversation with Samuel on the way to school this morning:
Samuel: When I grow up, I’m going to be a little taller than you, and Hannah is going to be about the same as you.
Me: Yeah, that’s probably about right, but I’m not sure Hannah will be quite that tall.
Samuel: Well, we’re all going to tower over Takako. Even Mommy towers over Taka.
Me: Well, Mommy is a little taller than Takako, but I wouldn’t say that she ‘towers over’ her.
Samuel: Well, the midget people who used to own the earth aren’t taller than Takako.
Me: I’m afraid I’m not familiar with these midget people.
Samuel: You know, the midget people who used to own the earth.
[Pause while I try to figure this one out]

Me: Do you mean the ones from National Geographic?

Samuel: Yes, that’s what I mean.

For my new job, I’ve been re-reading Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber. In the Introduction, the author says that common sense is a critical element of the processes that he outlines.
I’m usually wary of appeals to common sense, as they are often used in conjunction with various logical fallacies. In this case, however, I really like Schwaber’s definition of common sense. He says that it “is a combination of experience, training, humility, wit and intelligence.” It really surprised me to see humility and wit in his definition, and it was a good sign that I would like the author’s point of view more generally.

Three weeks ago, I started a new job: QA engineer with Borland Software. I couldn’t be happier. The group that I’m working with is implementing a full-blown agile/scrum process. When I was interviewing with Borland, I told my interviewers that I’d used some agile methodologies in previous jobs. But now that I’ve been participating in a real agile methodology, I realize that there’s a fundamental difference between adopting some of the methodologies and adopting the philosophy of agile/scrum: it’s all about respect, truthfulness, collaboration, visibility, continual feedback, putting individual egos aside for the greater good, etc.

We had a crazy weekend. Katie’s mother and aunt had been scheduled to move on Saturday, so we had planned to go to San Antonio to help with that. However, their move got postponed until Tuesday, so we drove down to help prepare for the upcoming move.
On Saturday evening, we celebrated a belated Passover Lite with Katie’s dad’s cousin and his wife, Bob and Paulina Polunsky. Hannah spent the night at the Polunskys’, and Samuel, Katie and I stayed in a hotel (we’d planned for both kids to stay with Polunskys, but alas, that didn’t work out).
During the night, the Easter/Passover bunny visited the kids at the Polunskys, so after an Easter breakfast of fried matzah at their house, we wrapped up our work for Mawmaw and Allie and hit the road home. I have to return on Tuesday to help with the rescheduled move.

I’m happy to report that today I launched a new design for ReligiousResources.org. I’m pleased with the design, but visitors to the site will not see the biggest improvements: I’ve completely reprogrammed the admin functionality (managing listings, etc.). But that change should make life much better for Susan, and will hopefully make the site more useful.