In my typical style of holding everything in until it can no longer be contained and comes bursting out all at once, I hereby break my blog silence with several recent news items. I'll start with the sad ones.
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| "Granny" with Cate and Emma | |
In April of this year, my last living grandparent, Irma Bourdier (my paternal grandmother--"Granny," as she was known to us grandkids), died at age 92. She had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage (something similar to a stroke) a few weeks prior and was essentially bedbound thereafter, but from what I'm told, generally comfortable and in good spirits. I'm very grateful that she got to meet my children before she passed away.
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| Magnum Bourdier (1999 - 2016) He lived; he loved; he lapped up lots of leche. |
More recently (mid-July), my last living pet, Magnum, died after a long battle with what started as IBD and developed into lymphoma. He appeared to have IBD for at least a few years before it developed into lymphoma, and it was kept relatively stable with minimal medication, but over the last several months, he suffered a fairly rapid decline during which he lost his appetite (and consequently, a lot of weight), desisted using the litter box consistently, and spent most of his time in hiding. At last count, he was on seven medications, most of which didn't seem to be having any measurable effect on his condition. He was affectionate and energetic (such as he could be) unto the last, which didn't make parting with him any easier, but at least now he suffers no more.
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| Le nouveau château Bourdier |
Rewind about a year... We finally made the inevitable move out to the suburbs last summer (July 2015), for probably the typical reasons: bigger house and yard (but lower house note), less crime, better schools, etc. Our particular suburb of choice was the master planned community of Riverstone in Sugar Land, mostly because of its proximity to Sara's family. While the house hunting experience alone may warrant its own blog post, I'll sum it up by saying that the house we chose (out of the twenty or so that we looked at) was the only one with which Sara and I were both impressed from the beginning. In addition to the mutually agreeable floor plan, amenities, and upgrades, we noticed a TV stand, some couch cushions, and a vase of fake flowers--all identical to items in our own home. In other words, it came about as close to calling our name as an inanimate object can. How could we resist?
Finally, in a somewhat related development, in March of this year, I began a new job with Frontier Communications. A big selling point of this job (and one of the biggest differences from previous jobs) was that it is 100% remote--I work from home pretty much all the time. This job change engendered a number of other vicissitudes in addition to this, most of which will probably be of interest only to my geekier readers. It represents a departure from the pipeline industry (after more than nine years), a shift back towards hardcore software development (which my last job had noticeably drifted away from), and a focusing in on what have essentially become my core technologies of expertise: C# and PL/SQL. It also represents a departure from ESRI--ArcObjects, in particular--which is rare for a GIS developer these days. (At Frontier, such functionality is mostly supplanted by Oracle Spatial.) So far, it's a very promising and enjoyable gig, with which I look forward to at least a comparable streak of longevity.
