He passed quietly and with relief, yesterday evening.
I miss him horribly.
He has been one of the greatest companions a Bear could ask for since 1995.
A good friend sent the following to me today, I had to share.
Author’s name witheld to preserve anonymity – but they have written other nice poems before …
Oh where oh where is the sweet Bear?
Stuck at work, I can hear him swear!
His wife and friends miss him so
He misses riding and he moans
Perhaps soon, maybe near
His schedule will be clear
His friend will be ready for a good ride
She misses the torture and the friendship besides
So patiently I will wait, wait is what I must do
‘Cause we are friends through and through
Can’t wait until May rolls around
On their bikes for Monday rides they will be found….
Good Stuff
Maria’s accepted the job in PA, if you hadn’t heard, so the Bear Cave will be relocating to points northerly. Maria will be starting up there in August and heading up there late July / Early August.
I’ll be following, probably. Starting sometime this spring/summer I’ll be doing the Real Job Search as my current employer is just not apparently setup to deal with Yet Another Remote Employee – which is a drag. Of course that’s a bittersweet thing, after crunching thrice-over on one game release after another since November I’m actually pretty burnt out.
Spring is going to be busy though. Maria needs to finish a paper submission, then she’s got conferences in both Boston and Dublin to attend. The latter will be a long vacation for her as she’ll be going on to Sweden for a few weeks to visit with family. We have to get ready to move and pack up and stuff which is always a drag.
I am cranking busy working on the latest game iteration to go out in Crash Mode. Two more weeks of Heck then maybe things will lighten up.
Har. Waiting for the next shoe to drop.
In defense of my employer it has not exactly been an easy year for anyone on any business, and they’ve managed to keep the company profitably employed the entire time and that is terrific and a great achievement.
I had a great long weekend MTB vacation in Arizona at the MTBR Arizona Spring Fling, more info and a new page to come on that sometime soon.
Tomorrow, Epic Duration Biking. Geeze I need it, so long as I can get up in time. I need sleep too as I’m fighting Sick that my co-workers brought back from the Game Developer Convention.
Is it possible that we will move to Pennsylvania? That is the current question of the hour. I just got back from an interview at a small, Catholic liberal arts college in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. I think that it went well. So we begin to comtimplate what it would mean to move there. The biggest concern in my mind … what will Bear do if we move there??
Well, word from the home front is both bad and good.
That would be home as in Mom and Pop. Seems Dad has another “episode” which landed him in the hospital. This time in a trauma center in Baltimore, and thankfully for a lot shorter time. Within a few days he was back at Brinton Woods with orders to drink 1 gallon of water a day to help his body process properly and prevent the wacky sodium levels that are giving him problems.
*phew* – that is good advice for us all, drink plenty of water.
This week has been a buster of one for me at work, I think it hit me for more than 70 hours but i’m not sure. I even got asked to go in on the day “off” I had arranged (Sat) to help out. This is okay, really, it’s part of what we sign up for with computer game development. As the president of the company (CEO? unclear on real title, think of him as The Big Cheese okay?) in an email (paraphrased): “We give people a lot of slack in the first 2/3 of a project, long lunches – easy hours – lots of slack time – on the knowing basis that the end of the project will likely require those hours be paid back.” He’s really right about that, and anyone that goes into computer game devleopment without signing up for this is doing both themselves, and their team, a huge disservice, and should look elsewhere.
Not that I’m sure it’s fundamentally different in other IT sectors, just different load levels, and different loading, at different project times.
So, basically, one more week of this craziness and I think we’ll be over the hump. I’m sure there will be some significant issues come up in the weeks after, but by need they will be addressed with a much more controlled and limited change process.
Wish me luck, eh?
Maria and I spent a long weekend back east just this past, to visit with my family.
My father has been in the hospital for about a month, he’s no spring chicken, but he’s been basted pretty well over the years (prescribed medications for issues). He’s not really in very good shape. Of course, he’s not been in good shape for quite a while by any measure – not his fault just his bad luck. The visiting with him was both good and bad, and it was good for both for my part. I just hope that he remembers that we were there and takes some pleasure from it.
My mom is incredible. Her devotion for taking care of Dad in general is fabulous, in these days of him being in the hospital – working with him, feeding him, looking out for him and his needs with the obviously understaffed facility, well it is just tremendous. Her meticulous recording of what has gone on with Dad over the years gives her a clinical view of him no doctor or nurse can have, and it’s good to see some of them listen to her. How she takes care of herself in these times I can’t imagine, she spends probably ten hours a day or more at the hospital with Dad! If anybody, and I mean ANYBODY, really gets in her way I think I’ll have to drive up to Maryland and ride my mountain bike all OVER them until they knuckle under!
My aunt has also been having her own issues, with her own time in and out of inpatient supervised care. However, last weekend at least, she was in great shape and was finding her entertainment by having her bathroom ripped up by plumbers. The “one hour” job was on it’s second day. Is this normal?
The best bit I guess, is that while the Mrs. is wounded (knee damage, surgery coming) her post-PhD prognosis is looking up with some potential job interviews real soon. Huzzah!
I’m actually really spent at this point. Emotionally. Mentally. Frustration wise. Still processing. Don’t know where I’ll end up.
UT Official Regalia
Well … it has been a long road. One that began even before I joined the University of Texas but today, after 8 1/2 years, I completed my degree requirements. As many of you know, back in October I had my oral exam and was thrilled to get all my signatures. It has taken some more work but today I walked across campus with my paperwork and made it all official. It took about 20 minutes and I only forgot one form (fortunately they had extras). Got the email confirmation. Now … let’s see how long it will take to sink in.
So graduation is in May. I will definitely be doing the walk. Graduation weekend is May 21-24, with the University-wide graduation on the Saturday. Further details are not yet know. The picture shows UT’s official regalia … we’ll have to see if I want to buy the regalia or rent (rentals are black).
Does anybody know what the staff is for?
p.s. … no that’s not me in the picture 
On Sunday January 11th 2009 I got the opportunity to take a 2009 Firebird on an extended demo ride – thanks to the guys from Pivot Cycles and to Alex at Cycle Progression. Secondary thanks to Dave Weagle for the DW-Link!
My demo ride duration was about 3 hours (maybe closer to 3:30 elapsed because of two flats), and covered a bit over 16 miles of trail of varying types in the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, TX.
I’ve already said it on the Bikemojo forum, but the upshot of my demo ride was Firebird:1, Quasi-Moto:1. But where did I squirrel away that 3000 bucks I’m going to need this spring?
Yeah, much as I hate to admit it, and I can’t afford it, and I don’t want to, really, Bear wants a new bike. Now to fight the UGI demon as long as I can.
If you’re looking for a long legged all-mountain all-day bike the Firebird will cheerfully take you down the trail. Pivot designed it this way, and they succeeded. With the right component specification and tire choice you could very easily have a sub-32-pound bike with nearly 7″ of rear wheel travel and 6.x” of front wheel travel. Pivot quotes an XTR-based build of a small-size Firebird coming in at 29 pounds on their web site in the Firebird Story!
Alternatively you could build it up a bit more burly and match the rear end with a RockShox Totem or Marzocchi 66 (possibly voiding the Pivot warranty – while they support dual-crown forks they do not seem to support longer than 170mm travel forks) and have a 7/7 travel bike and go knock yourself out at your local bike park.
I’m betting the machine does fabulously well at big mountain riding, but can’t test that myself sadly.
I’m not sure that the bike will hold up to this kind of riding multiple days a week all year long since it does not appear to be the design target, but it is certainly possible. I wonder “how big” Pivot is supporting the bike to “go” – anybody know?
I experienced, and have heard a similar comment from a few other Firebird demo riders locally, that they bike feels suspiciously slack. Yet it works great. But it feels slack. After a fair amount of miles on the bike, and two days of intermittently obsessing and thinking about it, I have come to the consclusion that this is owed more to the short handlebar stem on the demo bikes than actual bike geometry. IF there had been put onto the bike a more reasonable (from my point of view) stem – something closer to 90- or 100-mm then I think maybe this feel would have gone away. For comparison, my Quasi has a 110mm stem and the same length top-tube (23″).
For my own sanity I wanted it to be at best a draw which is a better bike. I have been having a very public six year love affair with my Quasi-Moto so this should be no surprise. What is the surprise is that while both bikes have advantages and drawbacks when directly compared, the Firebird is clearly a better machine which “loses” in only minor ways to the Quasi – and only to my Quasi – and probably only because I didn’t bring a spare handlebar stem and different saddle to put on the Firebird. A current Quasi-Moto rider SHOULD feel very at home on the Firebird, very quickly.
If I could ride blind folded (har har har) and the bikes were configured/tuned to an equivalent degree to my personal tastes, there would be many situations where it would be difficult to tell them apart, from the cockpit. But you don’t ride blind folded, and it was clearly a very cool and awesome ride. As it was, I was extremely comfortable on the demo bike very quickly. After about 45 minutes I was not holding back on technical trail features at all regardless of where I was – other than the fact that I was starting to get tired in the third hour and I was riding alone.
The fact that I felt so immediately comfortable on the Firebird really implies that Mr. Cocalis was significantly involved in both machines, and that both machines were designed, engineered, and tested in rocky desert terrain (e.g. Arizona trails, South Mountain Park, etc.). The Firebird Story talks some about the development of the bike, if you are curious.
For a LOT more comments, descriptions, and some pictures please zoom over to this link.
Apartment View
Adjusting to change can be difficult but sometimes it’s just good. I say this because we are starting to get settled into our new digs and are enjoying the view. I thought I would share with you the view I had on Friday. This picture was taken around lunchtime.
I can’t believe that 2009 is here already. While it didn’t start with a bang, it’s going to be interesting none-the-less. I wanted to start the new year with a new entry that wishes everybody a Happy New Year! Hope your year is as amazing as I expect ours to be.