Today Apple made available in all US Apple stores the products announced at last week's Macworld. I was in line at my local Apple store bright and early to finally get myself iWork and iLife 05 and two iPod shuffle. Sad to say, I wasn't early enough for the shuffle. The store opened at 9am and by 9:20 which was the time I was standing in fron of the register - they had ran out.

Our area so far has gotten 12-18 inches of snow and it's still coming down while I write this. But the day was not at all a disappointment, I spent the whole day playing with iLife and iWork. The new app Pages look promising while the rest of the updated apps could use a little speed improvement - correction, they could actually be a lot faster.

In the final analysis,
love is not this sentimental something that we talk about.
It's not merely an emotional something.
Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men.
It is the refusal to defeat any individual.
When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power,
you seek only to defeat evil systems.
Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love,
but you seek to defeat the system.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The flight was uneventful until about 20 minutes before landing at around 11,000 feet. Our plane LOST CABIN PRESSURE. Lost. 100%. Gone. I didn't think much of it except for the pain in my ear and Sam and Patty crying. I said to my wife, ok we lost cabin pressure, no big deal. We're almost there anyway. I think the incident was building up because minutes before, a number of people in the plane especially the children were already complaining about their ears. Suddenly we heard a lound noise not unlike a window closing hard then opening then a loud swooosh of air being sucked out of the plane.

People were in semi panicked mode when a flight attendant got on the intercom to tell that there was some mechanical failure and that we had lost cabin pressure. She went on to say that since we were below 14,000 feet, there was no need for oxygen masks and that everything was under control. Pkay, I thought, she said that words I wanted to hear - under control. Needless to say the minutes of the landing approach seemed like forever. A burst of applause capped what was until then an 'uneventful flight'.

more later...

My wife is now complaining because she still doesn't have a clue what to give me for Christmas. We normally would simply tell each other what we want - that lessens the anxiety of Christmas shopping. This year I am completely without clue what I want to receive from her. On the Apple front, I practically have no desire to add to my already 'full' Mac list. I have an iPod, a Mac, all the software - so what else?

I do need another leather jacket coz it looks like this winter is going in the record books. This morning felt like 5 degrees F. Last night it snowed a bit. Saturday we finally got the opportunity to shop without the kids. Thank God for the sitter. We managed to get the kids' dresses and a couple more things and as an impulse buy, I purchased the new Boss Wave Music system. In a word, awesome. The sound is fantastic for such a small footprint. As soon as we got home, I hooked up the iPod using 1/8 connector I was in iPod/Music heaven. I could've purchased the more expensive and bigger Acoustic Wave System but the bulk and the $1k price turned me off.

So now, I managed to hook up the PC, the Powerbook, the iPod and the TV to the Wave System and experience sound in full glory. Thanks Bose. :-)

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 04, 2004
RE: Christmas Party

I'm happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on December 23, starting at noon in the private function room at the Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! We'll have a small band playing traditional carols...feel free to sing along. And don't be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will be lit at 1:00 PM.

Exchange of gifts among employees can be done at that time; however, no gift should be over $10.00 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone's pockets. This gathering is only for employees! Our CEO will make a special announcement at that time!

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Patty
--------------------------------------------

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 05, 2004
RE: Holiday Party

In no way was yesterday's memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees. We recognize that Chanukah is an important holiday, which often coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However, from now on we're calling it our "Holiday Party." The same policy applies to any other
employees who are not Christians or those still celebrating Reconciliation Day. There will be no Christmas tree present.

No Christmas carols sung.

We will have other types of music for your enjoyment.

Happy now?

Happy Holidays to you and your family.

Patty
-------------------------------------------

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 06, 2004
RE: Holiday Party

Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table .. you didn't sign your name. I'm happy to accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that reads, "AA Only"; you wouldn't be anonymous anymore. How am I supposed to handle this?

Somebody?

Forget about the gifts exchange, no gifts exchange are allowed since the union members feel that $10.00 is too much money and executives believe $10.00 is a little chintzy.

NO GIFTS EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.

Patty

---------------------------------------------------------

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
To: All Employees
DATE: October 07, 2004
RE: Holiday Party

What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20 begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees'
beliefs. Perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party- or else package everything for you to take it home in little foil doggy baggy. Will that work?

Meanwhile, I've arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest from The dessert buffet and pregnant women will get the table closest to the restrooms. Gays are allowed to sit with each other. Lesbians do not have to sit with Gay men, each will have their own table. Yes, there will be flower arrangement for the Gay men's table.

To the person asking permission to cross dress, no cross-dressing allowed though. We will have booster seats for short people. Low-fat food will be available for those on a diet. We cannot control the salt used in the food we suggest for those people with high blood pressure to taste first. There
will be fresh fruits as dessert for Diabetics, the restaurant cannot supply "No Sugar" desserts. Sorry!

Did I miss anything?!?!?

Patty
------------------------------------------------------------

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All F**king Employees
DATE: October 08, 2004
RE: The F**king Holiday Party

Vegetarians, I've had it with you people!!! We're going to keep this party at the Grill House whether you like it or not, so you can sit quietly at the table furthest from the "grill of death," as you so quaintly put it, and you'll get your f-------- salad bar, including organic tomatoes. But you know, tomatoes have feelings, too. They scream when you slice them. I've heard them scream. I'm hearing them scream right NOW! I hope you all have a rotten holiday!

Drive drunk and die!!

Patty, The Bitch from HELL!!!!!!!!
-------------------------------------------------

FROM: Joan Bishop, Acting Human Resources Director
To: All Employees
DATE: October 11, 2004
RE: Patty Lewis and Holiday Party

I'm sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy recovery, and I'll continue to forward your cards to her. In the meantime, management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party and give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd off with full pay.

Happy Holidays!

So today is the monday after Thanksgiving. We've been on holiday since Thursday, that's 4 days of doing nothing but eat and shop. Thanksgiving dinner was great as usual. The wife spared no expense in making this Thanksgiving spread the best so far. Our family Thanksgiving tradition is simple and we've kept it the past 5 years. It is a night spent with just the four of us verbalizing the things we are thankful for and having dinner. Sam and Patty are thankful they have each other as sisters as well as thankful that we are their parents. teehee. We as parents are thankful that we've never been happier with our life. The past year has been sooo good to us I don't even know where to start. Suffice it to say that we are now where were we've always wanted to be. :-)

The day after Thanksgiving was spent early in The Mall at Short Hills. Though we had planned to be there early (not crazy early like 5am) we only managed to be there before noon. Early enough before the lunch crowd gathered. Did I mention we were all tired after all the shopping. Lerie got what she wanted so I guess the trip was worth it.

We then explored the city, FAO, Takashimaya, lunch at the Rockefeller Center and a walk through Broadway. Weather was great. Although I think I'd rather go to the city when there are less tourists. It was crazy walking through 5th Avenue!

The Winter Parade at Metuchen was cancelled due to the rain. A shame because Sam and Patty's Girls Scout Troop was joining this year.

So it's back to work for me and now I can't wait for the 23rd to fly to Chicago for some 2 weeks of Holiday vacation. ;-)

DEATH AND LIFE
by Ernani Agtarap

Today (October 18), I celebrate another birthday. Then I come to think what birthdays are really about. The day when your mother gave birth to you. Brought you out in this world. Gave you life. What should my birthday mean? Should everyone I know remember? And if they don't? Will my life and the meaning of my birth depend on how other people are affected by it?

Recently I went to a wake for a child of 8 years, died of leukemia. Everytime I feel a sense of death - I lose something in me. The active child in me dies and the adult in me thinks hard and deep. I feel a compelling need to look at my life and reflect on how these things affect me. "These Things", are things that doesn't pass through our brain but rather skips it and pierce our hearts directly. I look at a dead child and questions I've asked a million times when I was a child comes back in great abundance and suddenly I don't have answers. As a child, I ask - why must people, young and old die? As a young man, I recall having definite answers to these questions but now I realize those weren't answers but reality checks on the state of my being as it tries to cope with life.

I die when someone close to me die. I cry when someone I love cry. I feel a certain pain only I know when "these things" pass my life. I love life and what it presents me from Monday to Sunday. When I look up the sky I don? see clouds but life, the same way I look at flowers - life. So why must death be part of life?

I wish I won't ever feel lonely. I can be very lonely in the most crowded of places. Loneliness is the dagger of life and like your physical body, when you are struck - even on the most remote part - your whole being is pained. Sometimes I feel I'm being struck every once in a while. As a child - I was what you would call a very hyper-active child, a lot of attention in school, church with peers. Now, all I remember was all the time I spent alone in my room crying as child because I had to memorize a twelve page declamation piece. That I had to wake very early and prepare my speech for this club and that Sunday school class. That I had to go to national writing contest when I didn't want to. Before I sleep - as a child, I cried a lot. I think it was during this time that I realized the real meaning of being lonely, the child in me would die of loneliness.

Maybe death was a way out of being lonely - maybe it was the answer to all people's misery. Maybe it was LIFE after life. That's what I thought. I remember my first experience with death. I was around 7 or 8 years old, I had a puppy - it was the most beautiful puppy that I've ever seen, his name was Beauty. I ate with him, slept and felt sad whenever I'd leave the house without him. I was Beauty and Beauty was me. Then one afternoon coming home from school I noticed Beauty didn't have any energy to play with me. I told my mother who then brought him to the vet. When they came back - I felt different, I knew then Beauty won't be around for long. That night I stayed with Beauty and watched his nose very closely. They say when a dog's nose dry up - he would eventually die. I lay down in the corner of my room where beauty sleeps and watched him till I fell asleep. The following morning I woke up in my bed and saw Beauty? beddings folded. I asked by mother where Beauty was and they told me he was in already in heaven. I cried a lot inside my heart that day and for days after that. There was nothing I could do. I had no control. Maybe that's why it hurt so much. Up to this day whenever I see a puppy or a dog - I look at the nose first!

I guess I got over Beauty but I can't say I got over death. I thank God that my near-death experiences were never repeated when I was a small person till last year.

My grandmother (my mom's mother) wasn't your typical grandma. She didn't bake cakes or cookies. She wasn't overweight. She didn't have a farm house in the country. She wasn't very religious. But she wasn't just a grandmother she was my Nanay. She died last year of reasons I'm still not sure about. She loved me. She didn't have much to offer but whatever she had she gave. When I was starting out in grade school her days were occupied by being a seamstress - in the afternoon she would play kwaho a card game with her local grandma friends. Everytime she'd see me, she would hand me a coin - it didn't matter how much, for a child in those days, coins were power. I remember the time I was so envy of my friends because they had Matchbox, these are small steel toy cars. I wasn? one to ask for gifts be she gave me one. With her frail body I remember she would carry me on her back on the way to church or school. I remember her coin filled purse as if it had my name written on it. She always had something to give me, I always thought my grandmother was very rich - and she was! If only I could turn back the digital sequence of my liquid crystal watch (the hands of time in those days) and tell her how much I love her. I missed that opportunity - I was too busy being a child. It should now be my turn to keep a coin-filled purse and carry her on my back - I missed that opportunity, I was too busy carrying my own weight. It should now be my turn to give her the Matchbox that she had always wanted - I missed that opportunity, I was too busy with all my Matchbox. I keep that toy car with me as a reminder of my childhood and the person that made me feel even as an adult very much a child.

A great sense of loss, that's death for me. Maybe people who die are happier than people who are just born. Birth is a trial, a phase, a ritual. To die one must overcome life - its pains, trials, hurdles and sorrows. So far I?e lived a fair life. I'm happy to be alive and loved. I reflect about the people who have been a part of my life but are not with us anymore. They will always be a part of my life. Maybe that? the reason I love to sleep. In my sleep I? with everybody - with Beauty and my Nanay and the people that love me now. A sense of loss, I felt that recently reading TIME magazine. As I look at a man lying dead in a rescue boat in a north sea accident. I don't know that man but his face was enough for me to see him as my brother. I never got to meet him. It's a missed opportunity. Maybe I do know him - in my dream.

I still get lonely a lot these days. But I feel I'm able to cope with life. 26 years seems like a long time but I believe my next 26 would be too short. I thank God for death but I thank him more for life.

Our department just received delivery of some 20+ G5 Powermacs with 23inch flat screens. We decided to make an actual 'G5 Tower' while the techies set them up. :-)

I was chatting with a friend from Apple and she broke me the news that she and her husband are getting a divorce. She has a 4 year old daughter. I was shocked to say the least that her husband would dare fool around as she must be one of the sweetest and kindest person I've met with a killer smile to boot. I can almost feel what she must be going through. Her husband is fighting for full custody of their daughter - the ass. Makes me wonder what kind of man would leave a perfectly nice and hard working wife and their lovely 4 year old daughter. Some things are just too hard to understand. But these things happen sad to say. At the end of our talk she told me that 'things could be worse' - true, I just feel so sad for their daughter.

If you have $9.99 to spare, go and buy the Avenue Q album. The inspired brainchild of the songwriters Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, this canny toy chest of a musical takes its stylistic cues from "Sesame Street," from its cheery urban set to its singing puppets of assorted colors and dispositions. And in doing so it becomes the first mainstream musical since "Rent" to coo with such seductive directness to theatergoers on the fair side of 40 in their own language, in which irony is less a mind-set than a loosely worn style. Directed by Jason Moore, with a book by Jeff Whitty, the show applies the coaxing, learning-is-fun attitude of children's educational television to the R-rated situations of postcollegiate life in the big city. Featuring a pitch-perfect ensemble of live performers and oversize hand puppets, "Avenue Q" is to "Sesame Street" what Mel Brooks's "Producers" is to vintage Broadway musicals: a connoisseur's tribute to what it only seems to send up.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=2899519

Our ole' buddy, ole' pal Ernie is celebrating a birthday today. Bert is organizing a surprise party for him. He's making paperclip garlands and stressing about the miniature Ernie heads cake decorations. And wouldn't ya know, Ernie keeps getting in his way.

But that's no surprise. After all, Ernie is always playing with Bert's buttoned up personality. He's forever stealing Bert's cookies--living his life philosophy "Do unto others before they can do unto you." Ernie is the eternal clown. Remember the hysterical Banana Sketch and Ernie saying, "I can't hear you, Bert! I have a banana in my ear!"? Or how about Ernie's classic poking method for checking if Bert is awake. If he wasn't when Ernie started, he will be soon!

Jokes aside, we all know that Ernie has a sweet side too. Who can forget his touching rendition of "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon?" Or how upset he gets when he imagines life without Bert, his roommate, his best buddy, his best pal?

Even I get upset when I imagine Ernie and Bert without one another. The odd couple make the perfect pair. Ernie couldn't be a prankster without having Bert around to annoy and Bert couldn't thrive on being uptight if Ernie weren't around to test his patience. They are a well-matched twosome down to the coordinated shirts on their back. Have you noticed that they both wear striped tops? A clever design technique used by the creators has Ernie's stripes run horizontally, creating a relaxed look, while Bert's run vertically, creating an uptight look. (Gee, I always thought that vertical lines were simply slimming!)

As relaxed and rambunctious as he may be, Ernie is a good friend to Bert and everyone else on Sesame Street. So we wish him a very happy take-that-banana-out-of-your-ear-birthday!

Took some time this afternoon to ogle the newly opened Apple Store in nearby Bridgewater Mall in Bridgewater, New Jersey. This store opening visit is different because I personally have been curious as to what these mini stores look like. There have been rumors and photos posted on the web prior to this week's opening of 6 mini stores nationwide and I'm happy to report that once again Apple did not disappoint. Click on the photo above to see more photos of the interior.

My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy
Nancy Cartwright is the ultimate Simpsons insider. Her raspy, childlike voice is immediately recognizable as none other than Bart Simpson, the most precocious, irreverent, and intriguing 10-year-old ever to enter the American consciousness. In this behind-the-scenes story, Nancy Cartwright tells of the Simpsons' early days, when the cast was given a closet-sized space to record commercial bumpers for The Tracey Ullman Show. She traces the Simpsons' rapid rise to wild popularity, offers hilarious anecdotes about cast members and guest stars including Mel Gibson, Meryl Streep, and Elizabeth Taylor, and explains what goes into making the half-hour animated series. And she reveals what it's like to be at the center of an American institution, one that reinvented the sitcom, rocked the networks to the core, and changed forever the face of American television. Packed with more information than has ever been revealed about the longest-running animated show, here is the perfect book for the millions of Simpsons fans who can't get enough of America's favorite dysfunctional family.