Dr Bruce Dalton

On Thursday Sept 13, 2012 my next door neighbor and his friend were killed in a plane crash in Colorado.  They were on their way to the Reno Air show to fullfill a bucket list item.

The neighborhood looks out for each other, is friendly when out and about, and is supportive in any needs but most of use live in the county for the privacy so even after more than 5 years, I never really got to know Dr Dalton all that well. 

Dr Dalton (I never got comfortable calling him Bruce since I am the same as his kids and I refuse to grow up enough to address my parent's peers with anything other than titles) was a fun guy.  He always had a smile and big wave.  Even after several years I was always amazed and inspired each time I went out in the morning and saw his canes leaning against the mounting block and realized he was out riding with his wife.

It only takes a few minutes of interaction to realize the spirit and strength he had.  Nine years ago - a few years before I met him - he crashed his ultralight MONI-1 and crushed both ankles among other injuries which eventually resulted in amputation at the knee on one leg. [Based on another conversation we had, I think a partial hip replacement on the other leg was also related to injuries from that accident and also occurred before I met him.]  I remember one of the first times I talked to him he was so excited about finally being able to walk - with his new prosthetic and a pair of walking sticks - all the way to the mailbox. He had a cell phone in his pocket in case he needed a ride home.  The mailbox is 0.8 miles downhill from the house and after the accident he was told he may not ever walk again.  He had been gradually walking further and further and now he could finally turn that exercise into a an errand of getting the mail. He also returned to horseback riding and snow skiing and of course flying.

Just a couple of weeks before he died, we had a long conversation.  He had just returned from a trip to Switzerland and I asked how the trip went.  They had wonderful weather and he got to go in a glider over the alps.  I learned that through family connections they had a regular place they went to and I was encouraged to come see pictures some time.  Somehow the conversation moved from summer activities to skiing and I heard the the story of when he first went skiing after the hip replacement (this is also when I learned about the hip replacement that was a partial instead of a full so he could get back to riding sooner).  On the first attempt his right leg went right and his left leg went straight and he fell.  This was repeated a few times.  The person with him was a physical therapist and looked at him and said "Wow, your doctor is good.  Those falls should have dislocated that hip by now."  Apparently with a hip replacement they rotate the leg out a bit to help keep it in the socket. Not to be deterred, Dr Dalton took the skis down to the shop and had them adjust the bindings askew so that with his new "natural" position that ski stayed straight.

An abbreviated version of that story made its way into the memorial service. Along with a few other stories of similar determination and character.  I learned that he taught his wife to ski when they were dating and laughed since I grew up hearing about my Dad teaching my Mom to ski when they were dating.  I learned that he snores - particularly when camping under a plane wing at Oshkosh. I heard stories of his life as a retired Army colonel, a pediatrician and occupational health consultant, a Joint Master with Red Mountain Hounds, and a volunteer with Angel Flight. He was very active with his family, friends, church, and community.

His wife walks a lot and we pass each other in opposite directions regularly but in the past three weeks we have walked together and talked more (about horses mostly) than all the years since I moved to the neighborhood.

Love and appreciate your friends and family.  You never know when your life will suddenly change and someone will be gone.

Here are a couple of the articles about the accident:
Daily Tar Heel, Sept 20, 2012
Durham Herald Sun Sept 2012

Photo from Red Mountain Hounds site.

-SML

Living in Nature

I have finally gotten back to going for a regular walk.  Along the way I keep running into fun or interesting critters.

I would love to take some nature shots with my SLR but if I carry that looking for critters I wont get the heart rate exercise I am looking for and when I go for an exercise walk I do not want to carry the SLR. 

Meanwhile, here are some shots from my phone. Click on each for a larger version.

July 4th: Family of skunks - I did not want to get too close but zoom in on the white spot in the middle and you might pick them out:

Aug 4th: Neighborhood turtle:

Sept 13th: Turtle in the Eno:

Sept 25th: Snake in the road:

-SML

The Return

Has it really been almost two years since I posted?  Wow!  I guess it is time to return to storytelling.

For starters: My Fedora upgrade from F15 to F17 using preupgrade was easy, fast, and as far as I can tell flawless. To all the teams involved: Nice job and thank you!

Next up on my travel schedule is Red Hat Summit.  My agenda includes:

• Attend some "in depth" and "security" sessions.
• Get current on storage and filesystem topics such as GlusterFS
• Spend time at the Fedora booth
• Party with the RHCPs
• Tour Fenway Park

So that is what woke me up....

Something rattled doors and windows and and woke me. I looked at the clock and it was about 5am. My first thought was that it was too much noise to be the truck coming to empty the dumpster. Besides, I had not heard that truck all week since I am on the far side of the buildings from it this trip. My second thought was that I was too far away from where they are digging the new subway tunnel for something there to shake things. Then I was asleep again. I never thought of an earthquake. The morning news enlightened me.

D.C. Earthquake Shakes White House Windows
Minor Quake, Still Largest in 35 Years, Rumbles Through Capital

-SML

New Look to Fedora Docs!

Have you seen the new Fedora Docs (docs.fedoraproject.org) site?

A lot of awesome work went into the transformation.

Some it is a look an feel for the users. You can choose your language then the release and guide that interests you. The translation teams have been very busy getting many of the guides for F13 translated over the past few weeks.

What is the most exiting for those responsible for pushing content to the site though is the streamlined procedures. It all uses Publican now! This is just the latest in a series of steps making life for the docs team easier. Rudi even wrote up basic instructions for the publishing portion.

Many people from the docs team have written about the great work of the publican and translation teams. John specifically has a whole series centered about the great talent. The new procedures are SO much easier than they were in the past. I know I will someone or some team if I try to list anyone so I will just add my thanks to ALL and encourage others to look for all of John's posts as well as those from Eric, Paul, and others.

Behind the scenes there has also been a streamlining of the docs membership accounts. In the past we had to apply for a group and receive sponsorship for each guide we wanted to work on and there was frequently only one or two people with sponsor privileges. Anytime we had a bug stomping party or a group effort to bring a guide up to date for a new release we would have to hunt down access for a number of people.

Over the past week, nb has been handling the tedious job of moving all the guides under a few central groups. The "docs" group gets you started, "docs-writers" gives permission to write directly to the git/svn/cvs repositories where guides are eventually made available to translation teams and can built into different formats, and "docs-publishers" gives permission to make the built guides available on the docs.fedoraproject.org website. Such simplicity! Each guide owner and contributor can now back each other up without having to wait for additional group sponsorship. We also upgraded a number of the currently active contributors to be sponsors and admins of these groups in hopes that it will be easier to get new contributors the access they need without delay.

Come join the fun!

-SML

A Good Burger

A couple of weeks ago when visiting with friends in the Boston area on one end or the other of a work assignment, I got taken to a new-to-me restaurant in Lexington.

Nourish uses local ingredients and organic when possible. I figured I could find something to eat even if it required pulling the bread off a sandwich. It turned out that they have a special diets menu. It is a one pager that has a column of gluten free menu items and a column of vegan menu items. It had some very basic descriptions on it but I turned back to the regular menu for more details.

I had a burger, no bun, and a salad. Being a good meat, it was tasty. Way too often a burger out is over cooked and a bland. I usually order medium rare. At home, where I trust the meat and the handling completely, that is what I like. Since MR is the least that any restaurant is supposed to cook burgers, I find most of the time even when I ask for that I get closer to medium. At Nourish, I got closer to rare. It was still good but I may ask a few more questions next time.

The pot of tea was also very good.

-SML

Heartbreaking

It was a very sad day among my friends today.

The lower barn at Foxwood Farm where I used to board my horse burned to the ground last night killing 13 horses. They were able to save the 9 horses in the other barn.

Orange County barn fire kills 13 horses
http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/7380558/

I will particularly miss Tess, a horse I got to ride in a few lessons. I also knew Cricket, Abby, Beau, Farrah, and Maggie. The others all arrived after I had left that farm, including the mare of my friend Cheryl. Max was safe in the other barn and Kyrie was safe in the pasture.

I am very thankful that my horse is on pasture board (no barn, only a 3 sided run-in) and very sad for his former pasture mates and my friends who have lost their beloved pets.

• Maggie
• Farrah
• Magic
• Lilly
• Ace
• Levi
• Abby
• Beau
• Cricket
• Mystery
• Tess
• Bella
• Summer

-SML