I haven’t blogged in a while, partially because I haven’t felt up to it, and then when I started feeling better I knew I had to blog this, and it’s hard.

Two weeks ago, Good Friday, a friend of mine was killed in a car accident. He was driving home about 2am from a friends, and was blindsided by a drunk driver. The services were last week in Chicago. Greg Vasich was a great person, smart, funny and kind. He leaves behind a nice family, a sweetheart, and a hole in the hearts of everyone who knew him.

I’ve never had to deal with an unexpected death before, and never of someone younger than me. (Greg was 23 and had graduated in December from UIUC.) The healing hasn’t been easy. I’ve started writing this entry three or four times, but have never found the right words. Last week, I dumped a whole bunch of thoughts into a file, with the intention of making it a blog post, but it didn’t happen. Just the act of writing it, though, helped me very much. Maybe I’ll clean it up a bit and post it. It may not be good writing, but it’s what helped me, and maybe that’s worth keeping in the blog and sharing with others.

So, anyway, Greg, I’ll miss you. I wish I had your spirit and energy to help me deal with this. Rest in peace, my friend.

I woke up on Sunday and thought it was 11am. Then I walked into the living room, looked at the cable box, and realized, “Wow, it’s PM.” Stupid time change. It was pretty neat leaving work at 7:30 tonight and it still being pretty light out. I dig that. But I’m still tired from getting up early.

Other hints that tell you spring is in the air:

Basketball is over. *Sniff, sniff* I think it’s cool that the championship basketball game is on the same day as opening day at Busch stadium, which is not Bush stadium, even though the miserable failure threw out the first pitch.

Mountain Dew Livewire is back in stores for 2004. Mmmmm sweet Livewire. I had two today at work, and got a mini buzz, and then a headache. Or those could have been left over from the bad bourbon I was drinking last night (the headache, not the Livewire.) Went to see Ben Folds playing at Foellinger last night… He rocked that bitch, let me tell you! It’s always impressive to see people with a ton of music talent. I’m going home this weekend, maybe I’ll try to play some piano. (Note to self: See if I can download Ben Folds cheatsheet off the Internet.) Other note to self: Download Ben Folds EPs from iTunes. Note to other Self: Kansas sucks, but is #1 in the top 25 to watch for next year. Illinois is #5.

Eric bought a gas grill. Well, he bought the grill, I bought the tank of gas. And then we made burgers. And chicken. And maybe ribs tomorrow. MMMMmmmmm bbq.

I’ve spent the last two days at work tracking down more networking/VPN related problems. This is different than the problem that kept me there until 5am Friday night, and different than another open issue I have with our vendor. I have a note outside my door that says “Please do not disturb.” and it’s worked really well. Even after the network problems get ironed out, I think I might leave it up.

Okay, well off to go play with a 3d version of Scorched Earth.

It feels weird to blog about sports, since they’re not real critical to my life (although it’s a big part of my entertainment, it’s not like 10 years from now the fact Duke lost tonight will matter.) Interesting sidebar - I would have been deadlast in our office pool if Duke would have won. Last place gets their money back. But I’m going to finish the season second to last, which doesn’t get any recognition. Not even a ribbon.

What is pretty great is I bought 2005 NCAA Final Four basketball tickets for St. Louis next April. Okay, okay, I put in my entry in their lottery. I pay $4 just to play, and if I get in, I get to go to the Final Four next year. Woot. If I lose, they refund me the entire price, less the $4 charge. I think that’s retarded.

I missed the football spring scrimmage at Memorial Stadium this afternoon. Athletics had sent tickets, but I just didn’t realize it was this weekend, and missed it. In even better football news, I learned the Young Alumni program that gave us public season tickets at students prices is back this year - for UI graduates within the last 6 years. That drops the football season tickets from $207 down to $77. Rock.

Work has been busy. We’re gearing up for the Siebel Center Grand Opening in 4 weeks. I worked this week getting the information panel display system up and going. We’ll see if the info panels actually arrive and get installed in time. The department is getting a new website that’s database driven, and some of that information will power the info panels. Right now, we’re just focusing on the grand opening, but eventually that will be a permanent fixture for the facilities and personnel in the department. With my recent work on the blog, and the wiki, I think it’s interesting that the building is becoming just a big blog. Suck it out of a database, display it, etc. Show it a little different on a website, versus an info panel, versuses an RSS feed or listserv. It’s like Microsoft commercial where the third quarter numbers change, and so does the presentation, although we’re more concerned about hanging projector screens than cutting them down. There’s a ton of things to do before the opening.

I was also busy tracing networking troubles for one of our access switches last night. This came up around 4pm, I left and went to dinner, and then was back at work and in a conference call with technicians until 4am this morning. I saw the sun come up on my drive home, and then crashed until this afternoon. Like Albert Einstein kinda said, “Do not worry about your problems with the networking, I assure you mine are far greater.” Well, Foundry’s problems are greater than mine, but I share the brunt of it.

And tomorrow, I hope to wash my car and clean our the garage.