Any suggestions for a 1995 E36 17in wheel that will never go out of stock? The New England roads – especially in this economy, when potholes don’t take priority in funding – are really torturing my alloys.

Born in April, 1921, Edmond grew up in Ferndale, MI with his parents Louis and Florence, two brothers and sister. After high school, he and his brother Louis both received Congressional nominations, and were accepted into the same class at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, NY. While at West Point, his brother Louis lost his life while flying a training mission. Edmond graduated in an abbreviated three years with the class of June 1943 and received a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Before departing for the war in Europe, he married his Highland Falls, NY sweetheart, Patricia Nichols.

Arriving in Europe in the fall of 1944, Edmond was assigned to the 502nd PIR of the 101st “Screaming Eagles” Airborne division a few short days before the Battle of the Bulge. He made his only combat jump off the back of a truck into the battle near Bastogne, where the 101st was encircled by the enemy. As the only surviving officer of his company, he led his men until forces of the 3rd Army broke the encirclement, winning the Bronze Star for his actions. Shortly thereafter, he was wounded by a bomb, losing the use of his wrist and acquiring some lifelong shrapnel along with a Purple Heart.

After his medical discharge from the U.S. Army after the war, he taught at Miami University in Ohio until being recalled by the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He spent his remaining Army service as a Captain teaching at West Point, and was one of the original faculty members of the Department of Military Psychology and Leadership.

After retiring on disability from the U.S. Army, Edmond moved to Connecticut, where he consulted and presented training for Life Office Management Association and across the insurance industry while receiving his PhD from Columbia University. He was one of the founding professors at the Stamford branch of the University of Connecticut Business School, where he taught business and management classes. He traveled extensively for his teaching, lecture, and consulting work on leadership and management theory with many insurance companies, and served as a director for the Sentry Life Insurance Company of New York.

Edmond continued his consulting and teaching work with his own company, Management Services, Inc. for many years, well past his retirement age. He called several places home in his life, including Palm Springs, FL; Weston, CT; Longboat Key, FL, and especially Southold, NY, where he dearly loved predicting the weather, and watching the sunset over the waves on the beach.

Edmond is survived by his wife, Patricia N. Curcuru; his sons Steven N. Curcuru, Kevin H. Curcuru, and Kim M. Curcuru; grandchildren Shane Curcuru, Julie Curcuru, Emily Curcuru, and Todd Curcuru, and great grandchildren Roxanne Curcuru and Arin Mcgilvray. Services will be held later this summer at the Southold United Methodist Church in Southold, NY, at the family plot.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to your preferred U.S. Army Veterans organization, or to the Southold United Methodist Church, in memoriam of E.H. Curcuru, USMA June ’43.

Condolences and memories may be added on the web Comments on below and will be presented to Patricia and the family.

Weather and News

We had late spring snow yesterday, so while my body is telling me it should be too warm for snow, there’s still just enough snow on the grass and a few dark spots to be more than a dusting. It gives an eerie feeling, like the onset of nuclear winter.

Oh, and then there’s the news these days. ‘Nuff said.

Office Building

They’ve been doing construction downstairs in my office building lately, and the sound travels through some of the walls. It’s an annoying cross between the clanking of SkyNet robots, and the strange chittering of some little alien creatures.

But even better than that is the latest way to save money on garage lighting. The building landlord recently replaced all the lights in our underground parking garage with efficient but flickery fluorescents. But they went even further than that: 80%+ of the lights now have motion sensors, meaning they’re turned off most of the time, until you drive near them.

It’s quite an experience being in the underground garage, where most of the lights appear to be out, and there’s just this hint of chittering in the background…

The Mall

To top it all off, those post-apocalyptic movie directors even got the Galleria to participate!

• None of the escalators are working. Possibly because of the mice scurrying along them.
• And the elevators aren’t working right either; one keeps coming and going with no-one in it.
• Plus, there’s a whole line of refugees in the mall, huddled along the wall, wrapped in blankets and looking a little shell shocked.

So I’m definitely hoarding the emergency food in my desk, and raiding the drink machine before anyone else gets into the office. I’ll be ready.

(Yes, it’s all true. Well, there was only one mouse; I do have pictures. Plus they were doing maintenance on the escalators & elevators.)

(Oh, the refugees? Yes, that’s true too. They’re waiting in line for their iPads. Reminiscent of an earlier day…)

Ideas of March #ideasofmarch

• Blogs are a great social CV, far better and long-lived than Twitter et al. Think of your blog as the world’s way to see what you think is important, and how well you play with others. A great compliment to a more traditional CV.
• Blogs for me can be cathartic: oftentimes writing down great little ideas I have (even if they’re the kind that are only great in those 30 seconds before you fall asleep) helps get them out of my system, or even evolve them into something useful.
• Blogs can encourage meaningful conversations, or at least conversations you remember. There’s far too much immediate topical stuff or cheap jokes or riffs on Twitter for it to really make you think bigger.

011 Plans

• Blog more – well, blog some: target monthly. Check!
• Edit more. Write drafts, save them, and come back to finish.
• Get my average weight down below my past two decade’s average weight (which was amazingly stable for years and years; basically before my daughter was born). In progress – close!
• Post some of my Domino designs and ideas. I’ve built so many Domino apps in the past 6 years that I have a bunch of reusable design patterns that I really like. Plus the bleed yellow people seem pretty cool.
• Start my daughter’s post-college fund. We have some money for college; this is for her to use afterward.
• Upgrade all blog and email and feed reader software and centralize domains to simplify my brain. I recommend Dreamhost for domains and hosting.
• Organize and document all of the ASF’s branding policy, including training for all PMCs on how to effectively self-manage trademarks. Working on it.
• Eat fruit every day. Most days.
• Exercise at least 4 times a week. So far!

No, I have no reason to believe there’s a password compromise, and no, I wasn’t doing anything naughty with that account, so one presumes it’s an odd bug with Google’s security procedures.

Drat – I wish I could see the IP login list for my account. I’m pretty stable at where I login from, so any theoretical hack attempts would be pretty obvious if they didn’t disguise IP. But I really have no idea why I’d be a hack target.

Sigh.

Since we have two other lady cats who do need to eat dry food, we need to switch them from self-feeding dry food to having scheduled feedings. We’ve always had good luck with self-feeding dry food (with scheduled wet food on occasion) in the past, so it’s been a while since we’ve taken all the food away and only brought it out on a schedule.

Any tips on switching the ladies to only scheduled dry food feedings? I think they’ll both adapt eventually, since they are very social cats and are used to following us around, but I’m concerned about how best to make the switch without upsetting everyone anymore than our recent vet trips have done.

• Douglas Hofstadter lectures and books. Sometimes overly intellectual, but often a real delight to read if you think about them. Sadly, I bet my GEB is lost at in my dad’s house (which means: lost forever). HT to someone on Planet Apache.
• OK GO’s This Too Shall Pass is teh awesum! Nice letter by an artist explaining their issues with labels – and one of the biggest Rube Goldberg machines ever set to music (seems even bigger than The Cog).
• Cat humor escaped – better than lol – and was obvious to me, at least, although I can understand that the majority of humans might not get it.
• Unfortunately Storrow Drive is still messed up. No, Virginia, the lane drop outbound at Fenway definitely feels more dangerous to me than it was before – even accounting for incoming Fenway traffic now having a free ride. Yuck.
• MW2 players only: You know you’ve been playing too much when you catch a glimpse of a low flying plane at a certain angle, and immediately think it’s an AC130.
• Engineering Paradise can be true – although it’s often not as kitchy as this most excellent video. Requires a wide mix of geekery to recognize all the jokes and equipment used.
• Note: If anyone has a discount they can pass on to FiOS service to me, that’d be great; we’re planning to switch (but only for phone and internet, not TV). #RCN #Fail too many times. LOL quoted from support: “It’s not unusual for a cable modem to need a reboot every couple of weeks.”
• The best stretch for a tie-in goes to Bret’s Food Writer’s Diary use of Sara Palin merely as a hook to get more readers. If you like that trick and do open source or technology, however, you should really #followfriday @joesuf, because we’re trying to get him more followers than @shanecurcuru this year.

Leading letters go out to The One I Love.

The various early snowstorms were not really that unusual – sure, a few records may have been set the first time DC and Maryland were snowed over, but that’s to be expected now and then.

I began to be suspicious that something was up when we had several storms in a row – or rather, not-storms here in Massachusetts, but with real storms in the mid-Atlantic. Having that once is unusual, but it’s been a regularly recurring thing this year.

The thing that tipped me off something was truly out of balance was the complete non-storm earlier this month. A significant storm was forecast for Thursday the 11th. It was a picture-perfect forecast, coming the afternoon beforehand, and resulted in many local schools closing, and various snow emergencies being declared. And then… nothing happened. A few flurries. Very disappointing – well, perhaps not to some schoolchildren!

Now a total mix-up in New England weather forecasting isn’t that odd – happens every couple of days – what was truly out of balance was the parking ticket amnesty declared. Since there wasn’t any snow, but there were a lot of parking tickets given out due to the snow emergency, a lot of people were upset at having to pay unfair parking fines. And – gasp - the Mayor granted an amnesty and discounted the tickets! Unbelievable! A Boston politician giving up income that was legally theirs? Something was clearly unbalanced in the Force.

Once again this week, the Greater Boston area is looking forward to a not-storm for several days: plenty of rain and snow, but temps in the mid-thirties; hence, no real accumulation, and not much positive for the winter weather lovers (albeit the mountains may do better for the skiers if it stays cold enough up there). Instead, snow is forecast across all sorts of places in the south and midwest that rarely ever see snow.

I’ve finally figured out what’s causing it.

It’s us.

The people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

It’s our fault. You know why?

We sent a Republican to fill Kennedy’s seat [1].

This winter’s weather is karmic payback for the imbalance in our local politics. Think about it – Boston area weather is a mess, but isn’t getting great snow (the one pretty & skiable saving grace of bad winters). On the other hand, DC and the Mid-Atlantic are getting pounded repeatedly – regularly stopping work in our Capitol. The connection’s pretty clear, I think.

[1] For those not fortunate enough to live in this Great Commonwealth, this is referring to the long-held US Senate seat of Ted Kennedy, which was recently won by the Republican Scott Brown in a special election held due to Kennedy’s death last year. And while Massachusetts has a history of electing the occasional Republican to local political offices, it has widely been seen as a staunchly Democratic state when it comes to Federal offices.

• Check out the new Community Development project at Apache – great stuff, and don’t worry, the Mentoring Programme will accept Americans as well as English speakers.
• A shout out to the staff at Peet’s in Lexington, my favorite coffee shop.
• A shout out to the cashier and bagger at Whole Foods in Medford, who were wicked nice last Friday afternoon.
• Question: did I really miss anything important on Twitter over the past 3 weeks?
• What am I forgetting to put into my Monoprice order? I’m stocking up on cheap HDMI cables and wall ports for when we upgrade to a wall-mounted medium size flatscreen tv.
• Interesting read of a website: Letters of Note (via Writing Or Typing) Copies of just plain interesting letters from a variety of historical situations.
• Big thank-you to D.R. and others for getting Facebook to sponsor Apache!
• What Facebook-reading app do you use? I have just enough friends inside Facebook that I want to follow the witty conversations, but I’m really tired of the website. There must be better clients to watch the stream of interestingness go by.

What? You thought this was a year in review for last year? Sorry – just a cheap way to get all the little bits stuck in my head of this year so far cleared out so I can start the new year fresh.