warrin with an i

  Kris & Me: The Early Days Ready for the Consilium Holiday Party O ur relationship started on September 30 th , 1986 and from that point on Kris and I did pretty much everything together. We saw each other all the time outside of work and we also worked for the same start-up company, Consilium, doing the same job, Software Engineer. K ris and I were two young, OK not me so much as at 37 I was on the older side for Silicon Valley, Bay Area residents both working in the Hi-Tech industry. Being Computer Programmers we were making good money. Neither of us had much debt, Kris had a modest car payment and I had none. Neither of us had a mortgage and we both had reasonable rents. We had ample discretionary income. Being young, or youngish we engaged in multiple activities. We were out multiple evenings during the week and generally Friday and Saturday nights too. We did tend to stay in on Sunday evenings. We started sort of a tradition where Kris would steam some artic...

My  Mom 2 M y Mom passed away on October 9th.  She, like the rest of my family was living on the East Coast.  At the time I was suffering from a pretty severe case of Sciatica and was pretty much bed ridden but I was on the mend.  Since I live in California, it was going to be a long plane ride back to New York where her celebration of life was going to be held.  My sister and brother, to accommodate me, pushed her celebration of life off until the beginning of November.  Thanks to her desire to be cremated, with the caveat that we make sure she was in fact all the way dead, made the delay possible.  I was so focused on getting better that I don't think her passing fully hit me until I returned to California.  The thought that this world no longer includes my mother, a person who so completely loved and supported me my entire life, is a sobering one.  My Dad passed away 15 years ago and I no longer had any cover as I am patriarch of the famil...

  A Trip to Sacramento Kris and me at Bill's townhouse I t was the fall of 1986 and Kris's calendar was now filled with me! We were both working at Consilium in Mountain View. We held the same position, Software Development Engineer. We were in the same building with our offices just down the hall from each other. As a result we saw each other multiple times a day at work and we were spending most of our time away from the office together. O ne of our first getaways was a weekend trip to a place near Mendocino called the Little River Inn. I had been there a time or two in the past. As it turned out this was also a place Kris's dad Bill knew of. I decided to try to make it a more scenic, romantic drive by driving up Highway One. It would be longer, more of a 4 plus hour drive but we had time. Big mistake! Kris is someone who gets carsick easily and before long she was turning green. I had to drive slow as well as stop a couple of times. It didn't take ...

Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive T he above title is a Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer song. Johnny recorded it with the Pied Pipers and released it in 1944. If you are familiar with the song maybe you know it through the Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters version that was recorded and released a few months later. Unless you like Jazz vocals, pop 40's music, you may not know this song at all. However, this story is not about the song but rather more the message of the song. M y mom, who is 98 and still with us as of this writing, is a positive person. My mom is an encourager (is that a word?). She is always finding ways to compliment those she comes across. While she tries to like everyone, she struggles with people who are negative and she doesn't like hearing gossip. Like her, and from her, I became someone who will frequently tell people who are helpful when waiting or assisting me, like at the store or an office of some kind, that they are doing a good job. I was ...

 Love, a Many-Splendored Thing Kris - 1986 D riving back to my apartment in San Francisco from the softball game all I could think about was the dinner with Kris. Kris is one month and one week shy of being 12 years younger than me. At the time she was just 25 where as I was 37. Not only that, I'd been around the block a few times. I mean I'd already been married twice not to mention that I also had a few other live-in girlfriends. Although quite mature in most ways, Kris was still young, a church goer, and clearly had high values. Still there was no doubt that a strong connection happened between us. The question in my mind was, given those differences, would she seriously be considering me as more than just a friend? O nce home I was still a little keyed-up so I put on the TV. At this time I generally did not watch much TV and I hardly ever put it on in the evening. But I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep for awhile so I turned it on and found a mo...

Something's Coming * I was now working at Consilium, a software company in Mountain View, and living in San Francisco. Heidi and I were still living together but we were in the midst of breaking up. Heidi had decided to move out and was looking for a small studio and as such we started going our own way. Heidi was spending more time at her Mom's or at friends and I was spending more time down the peninsula as well as getting more involved with my co-workers at Consilium. T here seemed to be a sort of core group at Consilium. We, me and others who were hired around the same time, used to joke that they were the inner circle. It was more of a function of them having been at the company longer and had a common history of working and socializing together that we didn't share. My initial friends were Rama, Clem and Ismet who all started about the same time as I did, but soon I was engaging with others. As I started to participate in company activities I started to be...

  After Europe and Finally Letting Go Heidi and me - about to go river rafting down the American River H eidi and I had decided to move forward now that she was back from her big trip to Europe. Heidi returned to work at the Recreation Center for the Handicapped (The Rec Center). While Heidi was gone, I had found a full time position down in Silicon Valley at a start-up company called Consilium. Everything was going along pretty much like it was before. We were living in an apartment on the corner of 28 th Avenue and Cabrillo in San Francisco, just one block from Golden Gate Park. Like all my IT jobs, Consilium was located down the peninsula. They were in Santa Clara County, about a 40 minute or so commute away. It was not unusual for me to work long hours. I rarely got home before 6:00 where as Heidi got off at 4:00 and was home about 15 minutes after that. Given that I wouldn't be home for a couple of hours, Heidi started stopping by her mother's, who lived close t...

  Heidi Goes to Europe Heidi at the Airport H eidi and I were living together in a large one bedroom apartment on 28 th Avenue in San Francisco. The building bordered on Clement Street and was one block from Golden Gate Park. We weren't far from the Polo Field around which we regularly jogged. We were on the Richmond District side of the park. The other side, the south side of the park, was the Sunset District where Heidi grew up and where her mother, Jenny, still resided. The Sunset District extended out to Ocean Beach on the west side of the city but even though the sun sets in the west, there were few occasions to view sunsets there as that area was generally foggy when the sun went down. I think whoever gave that district the name of Sunset either had never been there or did so mockingly. H eidi had been planning a long trip to Europe for a few years with her girlfriends Maureen and Sue, who were cousins,. Maureen grew up in the house next to Heidi's famil...

Baseball, You Done Me Wrong - The Rise and Fall of a Baseball Fan B aseball has always been my favorite sport and with the exception of the years between 1968 and 1973, I have followed the sport closely, filling my head with largely useless baseball trivia. I grew up a New York Yankee fan. As a result, I was about as spoiled a baseball fan as one could be. The Yankees won the World Series the first 5 years of my life. While one might argue, and have a very good case, that both the Brooklyn Dodgers and Cleveland Indians looked to have superior rosters, it was the Yankees who dominated the baseball world in the 50's. They won 9 American League (AL) pennants and 7 World Series in the 10 year period between 1949 and 1958, the first 10 years of my life. They played 154 games in those days and the Yankees averaged 96 victories. The 2 World Series they lost went the full 7 games. The year they failed to win the pennant, 1954, they still won 103 games only to come in second to Clev...