Life As It Comes

I wanted to write a short tribute to my Grandpa LeMay, and I’ve been remiss for not doing it sooner, but I wanted some time to reflect.

Like Kimi, I’m going to start out with memories. From early-on, Grandpa always used to call Cory and I “Buddy.” I never really thought about it much until recently, but I like that. I think it made us feel good, and it makes for a great memory.

I remember taking rides on his motorcycle - very slowly for mom’s benefit. I remember seeing him in the parades in his Shriner hat. I remember during one visit how Cory and I went down to his shop in the basement and made slingshots. I remember the year I took shop myself in Junior High and being excited to show Grandpa what I had built from wood and tell him about how I enjoyed drafting.

Grandpa was a highly intelligent man. Mom used to tell us “he’s just about every kind of engineer there is.” Grandpa completed several degrees through correspondance, furthering his education for many years. He was well-known and well-respected at RCA, having many patents and being very good at his work there.

The thing I will remember most about Grandpa though is how he lived his last few months. I remember talking to him on the phone the day I found out I was accepted to UT and hearing how he encouraged me and how his faith had been encouraging him of late. He talked of a prayer blanket that had been sent to him from my mom. A group at Mom and Dad’s church had knitted it (I think) and then prayed over it before sending it to him, and he clung to it like he clung to the promise of being saved by God’s grace. Byron LeMay fought a valiant fight against illness and old age, pain and frustration, but in the end the perseverance and assurance his faith brought him are what I will remember most of all.

I bought some new kicks this past weekend for the upcoming Trail of Lights 5K (I’m even missing Howie in Houston this weekend for it).

Also, today was my first session training with Michael ( soon to be at http://moreptfitness.hopto.org/ ). I feel great, I got some breakfast, and I got to work early!

Now, tonight I’ve got to break in my shoes a little (hopefully they help solve my pronation problem I’ve had since I was little) and practice guitar after the Guide meeting.

Sprint and Nextel have joined forces, and Oracle has acquired OctetString.

Sprint/Nextel is more for trivia’s sake, but it’s interesting to me that Oracle bought OctetString - most likely for their directory virtualization/federation capabilities.

Then, of course, there’s the Adobe acquisition of Macromedia, which stands to be an interesting development as well.

Today IBM SDK for Java 5.0 is released, for which I helped develop the security components - namely JCE. I’m proud and excited to be a part of this release. Ironically enough, this is some of my first code to see the light of day since I joined IBM.

Furthering that irony, work I did for my previous team will become generally available later this week as well.

Update: Now the API Javadocs are posted, so you can have a look at my baby.

A humble servant and selfless member of the body of Christ at UUMC has passed away today. Gayle worked tirelessly for the youth and young adults at UUMC all while battling cancer. Please keep her son Scott in your prayers.