It
was January 16 2007, a typical Tuesday morning at my
Santa Monica office when I got the call from Laura in
Sacramento. Lisa had passed away the previous
evening, the night of the 15th. I thought I
was prepared for that moment, but the news still knocked
me off balance.
In the coming days and weeks I had
many moments of reflection about her struggle.
I've posted most of them are over at
http://www.LisaStarrett.com, but would like to add a few
more here.
Anyone who is unfortunate enough to have a
terminal case of cancer has the worlds best excuse to be
depressed, angry, bitter or generally upset for
the remainder of their days. No one would blame you for
a second. What made Lisa's spirit so incredible
was that she was none of those anytime I made a visit.
Of course there were a few moments - but they were few.
Each time I'd show up at her house in Sacramento, there
were smiles, laughter and hugs. The same would go for
anyone who would visit her home. She like to watch
movies, look at photo albums, plan dinner - and
you wouldn't get away with out spilling the latest dirt
on your life. She wanted her friends to live well and
succeed. Laura said it best - Lisa relished life
so much. I will miss those times, Lisa's open arms
and warm welcome.
.NET and
C# I've recently completed my 2nd .NET web developers
book from
Sitepoint. Their style of technical delivery fit's
me well. I've used my novice C# skills to create a
simple Email Blast application at work, as well as a
sortable, editable and updateable online report based on
a SQL database. I'm now experimenting with a 3rd
party chart object (Dundas Chart) to make many of the
stats viewable via Pie, Bar or Scatter charts / graphs.
I've also started an online
Intranet for the
Leading Jewelers Guild. I figured out how to
use the .NET 2.0 Memberships and Roles Manager to create
a database of authorized users to login to the site -
and based on their user level - keep them from
accessing restricted directories and pages. It works
well and once I figured out how to use it for my
particular situation - was easy to implement.
A New
Camera...Finally The Lumix by Panasonic is turning out to be a great
little camera. At 7.1 MP, the images are quite
large, but the quality is only fair. Since I'm not
printing too much and mostly using the images for web
related media, it's working out fine. Here are
some random images...
A few nice shots of the local mountains
at sundown. Taken from my back deck.
The McGroarty Cross is a favorite destination for my
morning bike ride. Taken February 23rd 2007.
Another nice view along my morning ride. The
Cresenta Valley, and Mt. Lukens (right) is the highest
point at 5000ft. This is 3 images added together.
The Lumix has a lens made by Leica which has
a nice wide angle of 28mm. Not a bad
camera for $250.
When its time to buy, you probably can't get a
better deal than
www.beachcamera.com with no sales tax and
free shipping!
January 1st 2007 - The Year Starts with Stealth MT Lukens provided the perfect spot to watch the B2B
Stealth Spirit loiter around the Crescenta Valley before
dive-bombing the Rose Parade at 8:10AM....
Click the
button below for a short video clip.
February 25th 2007 -Komen Race for the Cure 5k Run
The Rose Bowl in Pasadena is the site for this annual
event. Me, Virginia and Beth ran together in honor
of Lisa - as we've done for the last few years.
This year I made some iron-on tee shirt transfers for
Lisa. (see below). I realize now that I had her
birth date wrong - it should be 1963. Oh well, I
gave her and extra year, I don't think she'd mind!
As usual, the event is jam packed with runners, minor
celebrities, booths of food and trinkets, music and lots
of passion from those that have loved ones suffering or
lost from breast cancer.
Here's a picture of us crossing the finish line. I
stepped on a nail right at the end... (kidding!!)
March 3rd 2007 - Memorial Service for Lisa
St. Josephs Chapel, Orange CA - Many heartfelt thanks to
Laura for organizing another service for Lisa.
There was nice piano music, songs and prayers. Many her
Southern California friends and teachers were there - as
well as sister Susan and niece Ilene from Chicago.
Many of us got up to the podium and spoke of the ways
that Lisa had touched our lives. There were
memories retold, tears and laughter. There were
pictures of Lisa representing the different phases of
her life that decorated the chapel. Lots of flowers too.
It was really a wonderful service. THANK YOU
LAURA!!
Afterwards we all headed to Laura's parents house nearby
for a reception with drinks and dinner. It was
really nice to meet up with some of the others who had
helped and visited Lisa in the last few years.
Lisa's cute little dachshund was there (Oliver).
We told funny "Lisa Stories" and watched videos she had
made while teaching.
Laura had a collection of Lisa's belongings that she
gave away to her friends. We all left with a bit of her
with us.
March 4th 2007 - LA Marathon Bike Tour
It's dark, cold and it's 5:00 AM on a Sunday morning.
I should be deep in dreamland, snuggled under the
covers of my warm bed. But since I'm somewhat
crazy, I'm down at USC with 16,000
other cyclists, packed together impatiently waiting for the start of
the Los Angeles Marathon Bike tour. Fireworks are
booming in the pre-dawn darkness and everyone just wants
to GO!!!
Here's a shot of everyone going over the East LA bridge
heading back towards downtown.
Virginia and I rode with our friends Lyz (left) and Phil
(right).
Last But Not Least:
A few more pictures just for good measure....
Danielle sits up on KK. She had a really great
time learning how to ride.
button below for a short video clip.
