2007-10-16 Diana memorial and life

Thursday and Friday I took time off from the day job to go help Phil package up his code for a Christmas release. Learned things about Windows registries, Windows Vista, and Windows installers that I hope to never repeat (although I do still like the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, and I'm keeping notes on Windows development stuff).

On Saturday Charlene and I drove over to the Cheese Factory, got on our road tandem and rode with the Marin Cyclists out to the base of the Marshall Wall, then we decided that we weren't going to make the climb, turned around, spent a while sitting and watching the geese and hanging out, and when everyone else got back sat and talked with people and had a picnic.

At 2 we raced (including a jump for my car 'cause I'd left the lights on) back over to finish up a soup to take to Diana's memorial service. That was an amazing way to remember her. There was about 45 minutes of music and remembrances by family (a few tearjerkers), and then a huge potluck (and a band playing for dancing and a room full of Diana memorabilia). I don't want to try to guess how many people were there, but the three towns of the valley probably have a population of around 3500, and I think it'd be underestimating to say that 10% of the locals were there, let alone all of the out of towners. Diana impacted a lot of lives.

And afterwards we talked to Megan about the logistics of carrying on Diana's chocolate business and rented an attempt at a tearjerker Hallmark Special sort of movie (complete with James Garner and a host of other '70s actors) that ended up being totally unrealistic but a lot less preachy than either of us expected. Worked well for the mood.

Sunday I worked more with Phil.

Charlene's really dropping the pounds, which is good, I'm a little concerned about the rate at which she was dropping them, but I think she's on a reasonable pace now, and we're trying to do it in conjunction with decent exercise. We've also changed our cycling pattern, Saturday was a 20 mile day in which she had no knee pain, and I think working on spinning rather than mashing, and convincing her that we don't need to cruise at 20MPH, will do wonders for the distances we can actually reasonably accomplish.