Roots and branches

Sincere thanks to those who directed kind thoughts my way. My grandfather lived a long and interesting life. After growing increasingly weak these past few months, he died at home. I am grateful that he lived as long as he did, that he was of sound mind until the end, and that he did not suffer a long period of great pain.

I had often thought about interviewing my grandparents to record their memories on audiotape or equivalent. A couple summers ago I even went so far as to order a minidisc recorder loaned from StoryCorps, but I ended up not taking it. Thinking about this as I was packing to fly up for the funeral, I realized that what I was really trying to do was to know my grandparents better and to find some way for my future children to know them. Even if I could have somehow gotten an entire Ken Burns documentary of their lives and history, it could never substitute for times from my childhood that we didn't get to spend together, and it was unrealistic to hope for my children to be able to meet them. So I content myself with the stories they've already told me and the stories my relatives and I will be able to share later.

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On a completely unrelated note, we are still unable to share use of the cable modem from aristeros' computer to mine. The Ethernet cords are plugged in and everything looks arranged properly, but I have no web connectivity, and my antivirus program can't update either. Only Trillian works. Quite frustrating. I wonder if it's a DNS problem.