RIP David Chow

Sad news -- a great tragedy in our family this past week.



From my cousin Linda:

Dear Friends and Family,

It is with great regret that I inform you that my husband, David Chow, passed away on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at the Toronto General Hospital. He was a wonderful man, a loving husband and an amazing father to our two beautiful children, Nicole and Matthew.

The Visitation and Service will be held at The Simple Alternative – Pickering Chapel, 1057 Brock Road, Pickering, Ontario, L1W 3T7

Visitation: Friday, July 3rd, 2009, 5pm-9pm
Service: Saturday, July 4th, 2009, 11am

In lieu of flowers, a donation box will be set up at the funeral home for either:
1) Peter Munk Cardiac Centre
2) Toronto Sick Kids Hospital

For further information, please contact David’s brother, Gary.

Thank you for being a part of David’s life.

Linda

I was on the way to a Flex user group meeting last week on June 26 when I heard about this from my cousin Wayne (Linda's brother). I have been in shock and running on autopilot ever since. Clearly, there are worse things than to be out of work.

This is so unfair -- David was so much younger than me. And he was such a great person.

On The Beach

SF readers will recognize "On The Beach" as the title of a Neville Shute novel from the 1960s about the bleak aftermath of a nuclear war. To be "on the beach" is also a euphemism used by contractors and consultants to describe being between assignments, which is my current situation. My client, a company operating in the automotive finance industry, chose not to extend my contract past May 29.

The analogy between Shute's landscape of nuclear devastation and the current economic environment is uncomfortably close. However, I have prospects -- I have had talks with potential clients that have been maddeningly elusive in terms of materializing into anything solid. Note to self - need to work on closing deals. Also a reminder -- change is good. And things could be worse -- I could have been an auto worker.

So, time to clear up and organize some things, and think about what to do next. In the meantime, find doors, and push on them.

Another Tesseracts Twelve Review

From Claude Lalumiere, a link to a new review of T12 by Michael Mirella on the Rover Montreal website.

Bottom line? he likes 5 out of the 7 stories in the collection, and concludes

Overall, Lalumière does a good job of presenting a set of stories that represent various aspects of what has come to be called “fantastic fiction.” Perhaps not to the taste of those who prefer a clearer strain of SF, but definitely a way to break open the ghetto [of science fiction].

Twins!

Big congratulations to my cousin Amy and her husband Jeff -- twin boys born on June 1!

Dylan was born around 0315 EDT and weighed in at 4.2 lbs.

Adrian was born 12 minutes later at 0327 EDT and weighed in at 4.6 lbs.

As a point of comparison, Corwin (who was a premature birth) was 4.5 lbs, and just long enough to fit on my forearm.

I had gotten the news on Monday afternoon (from Mom) via the intra-familial packet-switched occasional-sneaker net. Thanks to my cousin Cindy (Amy's sister) for providing photos and details.

Amy and Jeff don't look nearly gobsmacked enough :-) Good job, guys! And of course, a rousing welcome to Dylan and Adrian!