I love my busy days though.  I love the fact that I drop at night.  I feel I haven’t wasted a single second of my precious day.   I feel I  accomplished something.  I feel strong.  But most importantly, I feel.  There have been way too many people in my life who simply don’t feel anything, and life is just one day that blurs into the next.  I do not judge these people because I have not lived their lives, but I am conscious how easy it can be to become so feelingless.   I’ve been there.

As I sit writing this, my children are peacefully sleeping.  Ruben is still sleeping too.  The house is quiet except for the brewing of my coffee.  It smells good too.  I’m avoiding the urge to crawl in bed with one of the kids and just hug and kiss them up.  I do that often in the morning, mostly on a weekend.  But I really don’t want to wake them up quite yet.  This day will be busy and exciting for them.

There’s the usual.  Turkey, dressing, leek mashed potatoes, and pies.  Of course pies. Then there’s the football games.  Ruben and I will banter and torture each other throughout the annual Thanksgiving Texas A&M and Texas game.  We’ll watch, cook, play, and watch some more.  When one of the teams finally loses, we will torture the other even more.  It’s all in fun.  But it’s tradition.  The kids will play with the wii, enjoy chowing down the food and goodies, and watch movies and junk on TV.  Not much will happen other than nothingness, something we really need to fill a day with!

I would be remiss to not say how thankful I am that I have the opportunity and means to have such a Thanksgiving.  I am acutely aware how blessed I am all the time. I look at my family, and sometimes I literally need to pinch myself because, honestly, I never thought I would have any of this.

Not me.

I learned many things from my dad. Little things, like my love for the piano and the music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin. And big things, like the value of education. To be sure, not all the lessons he taught me stuck. A devout Catholic, he wanted to teach me his faith and his love of it more than anything else. But that one lesson didn’t stick with me, any more than did his love of opera or boxing.

Like the main characters in The Lives of Others, my father was a flawed man, but deep down, he was also a very good man. There are many ways I will remember him, but the way I want to remember the most is by remembering the big lessons he taught me.

The most important lesson was simply this: Do the right thing. My dad never expected others to do right by him, but he always tried to do right by them. And doing right was not a matter of karma or good will. It was simply the right thing to do, its own reward.

Something else I learned from him was to accept what we could not control, and to do it with class. We all have to face adversity at some point in our lives, and how we do so is important.

Even more important is how we deal with success. When my dad moved to Houston, he was polishing up his resume one last time. It was typewritten, and my mom asked me to help him with it, to bring it up to the computer age. I was absolutely shocked to see what he had accomplished. I knew he was a physician, and a good one. But I didn’t realize quite how good he was until I read what he had accomplished in medicine in four different countries and two completely different specialties. But that wasn’t the sort of thing he would go on about.

And that success did not come easy. That was the last lesson I learned from my dad. I remember when he was switching specialties. He would come home from work, and he would sit in his study, surrounded by piles of thick medical books. I didn’t realize then how rare it was for an adult to do something like that. But that was my dad.

Years later, I was applying to graduate school at the University of Texas. I had been out of school for a couple of years, and I was afraid I had forgotten much. So I studied. I came home from work, and I sat in my study, surrounded by piles of thick computer science books. Others have remarked that I am a “complete” computer scientist, someone with a broad knowledge of the field. It all comes time to that time with those books, a lesson I learned from my dad.

And that’s how I want to remember him. Oh, I have other memories of him, memories of traveling to Europe, Disney World, Hershey Park; memories of Christmases and birthdays; memories of Lincoln Center; memories of him, playing Bach’s Italian Concerto on the piano; many other memories. But the one I want to hang onto more than any other is my memory of him, probably around my age right now, sitting in his study with those books and working on his second career as a physician.

But listening to McCarthy was a completely different experience. He is phenomenal, and his command of science very clear. I was so impressed that I’ve already bought his non-fiction book Hacking Matter, and I will probably give his fiction another shot as well. He also reawakened my love of “hard” SF, so Brin, Baxter, and Benford are on my short reading list, too.

We also enjoyed the masquerade and the Hugo awards ceremony. The Hugos were spectacular. I’m glad to say that my favorites won in their respective categories. I’m embarrassed to admit that I did not vote for the Hugos, but that’s just because I hadn’t seen or read all of the nominated works. I plan to do better next year!

Science fiction conventions are not just about finding new books to read. Most of the time is spent enjoying the conventions and the company of other fans, and of course, the parties. We had a good opportunity in Denvention, since many of our fannish friends from Texas made the trip. We especially enjoyed getting together with Karen Meschke, whom we had not seen in about five years. She will be the fan guest of honor at next year’s ArmadilloCon, so we’ll be making the trip out there in August to celebrate her.

The big surprise was how much the kids enjoyed the convention. Woodrow followed his sister everywhere he went and generally enjoyed the kids programming and the dealers room. Emily dressed up two of the convention days, and she got lots of compliments. Mom and I (OK, mostly just I) are worried at the attention she got from the boys at the convention. We (OK, just I) are thinking about dressing her in burlap until she graduates from college.

I was afraid the reality would come a little short for her, but it didn’t.  She loved it.  Just as we were leaving, she got to see the Cheetah Girls arriving in a limo.  That definitely made her day!  But even before that she was sold.  She could get used to showbiz!

I said I let the kids pick what they wanted to do.  There were two things on my list, but neither of them made the final plans: the Redwood National Forest, and Griffith Observatory.  I would have loved to do that, but there just wasn’t enough time.  So I figured we’d put it off until the mythical next time.  But I got lucky on one.

Visiting the observatory was a personal quest.  When I was just a kid, I took a distance course (when they were known as correspondence courses) in astronomy.  The course was distributed in video tapes, and the instructor was the director of Griffith Observatory.  I treasure the time I had with those tapes.  Even today I remember the background music, and I still hum it now and again when I’m feeling elated.  Visiting Griffith Observatory in person is a logical next step, something I had been wanting to do for 27 years.  I didn’t think I was going to get the chance, but after we left the Hollywood area, we were looking for a place where we could get a good view of the “Hollywood” sign.  We drove mostly at random, and we stumbled into Griffith Park.  I know an opportunity when I see one, so I headed right to the observatory.  And, wouldn’t you know it? the park has an excellent view of the sign!

Today, the kids and I are driving back to California to meet with Mona.  We can’t wait!  We are currently holed up at a hotel in St. George, UT, a beatiful town that belies the notion that Utah is always cold.  Tomorrow, we’ll be in Santa Barbara, CA, for our reunion with Mona!  Yeay!  It’ll be a short reunion.  She’ll get back to cycling, and the kids and I will head to Disneyland.  But it will be sweet, and we can’t wait.