Author: midder

I really despise Oracle. It’s a great database and works ridiculously well, but it’s just entirely too complicated and difficult to get setup for most standard applications. I’ve got an application I’m trying to get running and it’s driving me crazy. I guess there’s a reason Oracle is often used with Java/J2EE applications.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to rewrite the application in Rails (and use a different database), but I’m not sure what the client will think. It needs to run on Apache, but apparently they run their webapps on Tomcat. It would be kind of fun to use Tapestry on a real, full-blown app, but I don’t really have the time for that right now. We’ll see. Maybe I could write it how I want it, host it myself, and go from there.

I guess I just needed somewhere to vent since this Oracle import is driving me crazy and it’s 12:22AM.

Today was Randy’s funeral. It was a nice service. I was amazed at the turnout. People from the community he served, his brothers and sisters (whom I don’t think I’ve ever met), and people from all over. Abigail had a bit of a rough time during the viewing period, but overall did very well.

Randy’s family did a great job. I’m sure he’s proud of what they did. Overall, it was just a very nice service with lots of good memories. Brandon, Chris (both my cousins), and Dave (my cousin Jennifer’s husband) gave especially nice remarks. The support from folks at the church was nearly overwhelming. They put on quite a spread after the burial.

Now, of course, comes the hard part for Janene and her family.

I went back to work today. I worked a couple of days last week, but it was pretty uneventful and, truth be told, pretty inefficient. I think that all of us there were thinking deep down that we were getting hosed for being there, so it was pretty kick back.

My Aunt Janene asked me to be a part of Randy’s dressing yesterday at the mortuary. That was a humbling and sobering experience. I was kind of surprised how good he looked, but I suppose that’s all relative at this point. He certainly looked at peace somehow.

Tomorrow is the funeral. It promises to be a roller coaster of a day. I can’t imagine what his children, and especially his wife, must be going through. Janene has asked that I help with the dedication of the grave. I told her that it would be an honor. We’ll see how it goes.

Grace started preschool yesterday. One of these days, I’m going to fix my Typo install here so that I can post pictures to this thing. I took a picture of her in front of her teacher’s house. She was pretty excited. I’m glad she’s back in school. She seems to need an outlet for some sort of creative energy that she has built up.

Abigail returns on Monday of next week (1/9 I think?). She’s been trying to tell us that she was supposed to go back today, but that wasn’t the case.

Lucy is still a nut. But a happy nut.

I’m trying to get an application running that I wrote in 2004. It just makes me realize how much I hate Oracle databases. I would much rather use most anything else. So I’m currently downloading release 9, with the hopes of replacing my more-recent 10g instance with the older one. I’m sure for 99% of those that read this stuff (99% of zero is . . . nevermind) this makes absolutely no sense. So I’ll stop there.

This week has been a good one. I’ve spent quite a bit of time home with my girls, playing games, skating, and what not. It’s also been a bit emotional and more than a bit tragic.

Yesterday (Thursday), Aaron (my brother-in-law) called me and said that we needed to go and see my Uncle Randy in the hospital. Apparently he was having problems breathing in the morning and asked his wife to take him to the hospital. They went in at about 5:30AM. Aaron and I got to the hospital at around noon. Randy was certainly having problems breathing. The doctors thought that he had double pneumonia. He’s had heart problems for a while now, apparently with one of the valves.

My Aunt Janene seemed especially shaken up. She’s gone through quite a bit, to say the least. Aaron and I left a blessing with Randy and we left feeling pretty concerned about him, but also pretty good. We figured that he’d just get better and come home. Apparently later on (about 10pm?), he went into cardiac arrest. I spoke with my mom this morning and she told me that he had died. I was shocked, frustrated, angry, but, most of all I think, concerned about his family and just sad. They have gone through much.

Randy was such a loving, giving person. He was always willing to help, always wanting to help. He was very active in the disabled community in Phoenix. He did a lot of speaking, singing, counseling, and consulting, trying to help people cope with their disabilities and work through them. He was successful in what he did — people really seemed to like him. But more than that, he just loved people. Through all of the struggles and issues that people go through, particularly in family situations, there was no doubt that he loved you. He loved his family dearly and would do nearly anything for them. And I think that the love was returned and the respect mutual.

Randy will be sorely missed.