daverea.com

February 1st, 2003 was a Saturday. Here in Rochester, it was a snow-covered day illuminated by bright sunshine – I woke up after a late night of collegiate something-or-other to the glare of the sunlit snow out my apartment window, and a muffled newscast from the living room.

I tossed on a bathrobe and wandered, blinking off sleep, out of my room. The first thing I saw was a shaky news-camera shot of a fireball streaking across a blue sky. And the first thing I heard was the anchor announcing that the space shuttle Colombia had been lost.

While the national tragedy of the Colombia disaster affected a lot of people throughout the country, I think engineers were hit especially hard. I believe the world’s engineers that day grieved the loss of Colombia with the same magnitude of emotion that engineers the world over felt when that same orbiter thundered to life and lifted off the pad for the first time in 1981. They felt inspiring joy, and twenty two years later, we watched the newscasts and were washed over by a corresponding sorrow.

In all honesty, when I learned that a few hours ago, the countdown to STS-114′s launch began, my skin prickled with goosebumps and my eyes filled with tears. Despite my absolute non-involvement, I’m overwhelmed by fraternal pride for the dedicated men and women of my profession that have brought the space shuttle Discovery back to the launch pad – and with patriotism for the amazing nation that backed them up.

On Wednesday afternoon, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be watching as the brave crew of Discovery remind me why I love being an engineer, why I’m grateful to be able to witness this history being made, and why I love being an American.

The smiling photo of Kelly and me, with the metallic blue frame, was the last thing to go in. It topped off a box of drawings, 3-ring notebooks, trade journals and other sundry contents of [what was until today] my desk. I carted the box out to the car, then headed back into the office for the last time as an employee of DICE America.

I looked around. At first I kidded myself that I was checking to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. But I was really just letting my senses absorb the feel of the place where I’ve spent about a quarter of my life over the last two years. A few handshakes later, I stepped out into the rainy afternoon and headed for my car.

While there were a few aspects of working for DICE that I’m happy to leave in the past, I’ll certainly miss plenty of things about my job there, chief among them being the engineers I worked with and learned from. All the same, I’m looking forward to seeing Dad and my creation succeed – whether it’s in the hands of Lifetouch, behind lenses aboard Carnival Cruise Lines or on the hips of photographers at Walt Disney World.

For now, though, I’m on a collision course with a full week (gasp!) of actual rest and relaxation before I start in my new position at General Motors. Time to fire up the grill!

With regard to yesterday’s post…

I guess not.

Perhaps, now that terrorists have disrupted the G8 summit by bombing busses and subway trains in London, the whiny celebrities at Live 8 will learn to see terrorists for what (rather than who) they are. Maybe, now that their precious but ultimately misguided summit has been splintered by Al-Qaida, they’ll be a little less inclined to bad-mouth those who seek to battle terrorists on their own turf, rather than in the streets of London.

My prayers go out for the victims of what is now being called “The 7/7 attacks” – and for those who respond in uniform, those who guide the nation’s response, and those who grieve over their lost loved ones. I’m thankful that – so far – the emergency responders haven’t encountered any secondary devices targeting them. And most of all, I’m thankful that my brother Andy returned from London to the US yesterday, and that he’s home safe.

I just spent a solid five minutes trying to compile a belated “Independence Day by the numbers” post, listing such things as “number of hours of sleeping-in”, “number of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ at fireworks show”, and the like. But in attempting to do so, I realized that this year’s Independence day was pretty milquetoast!

After enjoying a few extra hours in bed, I started the day off right: at the mercy of a clipper-wielding Kelly. She removed most of my hair – in part in the interest of saving the $13 it would normally cost me at Supercuts – but mostly because it must be really fun to watch me wriggle every time she jokingly says “oops!”

We hit up my massive 16-pound wholesale-club-size box of Cheerios for breakfast, then headed out to see War of the Worlds. Take our advice on this one: save your $7 and stay home. While the special effects were nothing less than we’d expect from Spielberg, and the acting was reasonably good, the plot was simply too terrible to stomach. I don’t mean terrible in a snotty, critical way. I mean that the things being depicted were so terrible we both contemplated leaving multiple times. In the end, we stuck it out because we wanted to see how the awfulness would finally be resolved…

We were planning to head over to the range after the movie, to polish off a few boxes of ammo in honor of the day, but hunger temporarily supplanted patriotism and we opted for dinner instead. Well-fed, we headed down to the ambulance base to enjoy an uneventful night on-duty as the rest of the East coast headed out for fireworks displays.

I suppose it’s nice knowing that – for that night – we were among the protectors for which the revelers were silently thankful as they enjoyed the fireworks displays and thought about the freedom we all enjoy.

At least once or twice every day, I pass by my dusty Yamaha pf85 keyboard. It sits at the bottom of the stairs that lead down to my office. Since I moved into this apartment, I’ve only played it a few times.

My parents bought the seven-octave, weighted-key monster for me when I was in grade-school. Between them and my Aunt Kathy, I took lessons for seven years. Finally, as seemingly more-important things crept into my schedule late in high school, the lessons ended.

With all the changes in my life recently, I’ve been trying to revive a few important things. Exercise, for one, has been reintroduced to my daily schedule. But I miss playing the piano. I don’t exactly miss practicing, or lesson books, but I do miss hearing music as I create it. I miss playing with the windows open, wondering if my notes – whatever form they take, mistakes and all – are helping shape the sound of someone’s evening as they walk by. And I miss the emotional outlet that the piano has been for me – whether it helps me express joy in C-major or vent sorrow in A-minor.

Today, this article popped up on my newsreader thanks to Make magazine. As I read through it, I remembered weekend days spent at my keyboard, splicing together melodies with a MIDI sequencer, a Yamaha MU-5 and a Macintosh Portable. Before that, a Roland MT-32 – the original – backed me up with strings and thumb bass.

I remember trips to the House of Guitars with my Mom, both of us trying to look cool (or at least not stick out like sore, suburbanite thumbs) as we picked through the pile of used synths, and glanced at the long-haired surf rockers and garage pop guys (who I probably ended up working with a few years later) as we stood in line to buy MIDI cables.

I could let my mind wander about this all afternoon – and I’d probably have a good time relating countless stories – but I need to go get the ’409 and dust off my piano. Because my fingers are getting itchy and this computer keyboard just ain’t cutting it.