DC Heron Family

This Is Not Goodbye!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 07:56:00 +0000

In July I lost a dear friend, Norbert Eggert.WordWeavers (my Toastmasters club) held a meeting after his funeral where a couple of us reflected upon what Norbert. Below you'll find the text that my speech was based on.

Norbert: This Is Not Goodbye!

How do you say good bye to a friend? As we grow older, we all face this situation more and more often. Last week was the funeral for our dear Norbert, several of us said our goodbyes, tonight we’re honoring Norbert and giving Word Weavers a chance to think about what he has meant to all of us.

Norbert was one of the first Word Weavers I met. When I decided to check out area Toastmaster clubs, Norbert was one of the first people that I met. I remember that we were meeting in Alt Wiesbaden back then and on a pleasant Summer night after a Word Weavers meeting and we were able to enjoy a very pleasant Wiesbaden night, sitting outside. It was this very socializing that I really liked about Word Weavers. Norbert was always enthusiastic about talking to guests and to everyone.

You could tell right away with Norbert that public speaking wasn’t a problem for him. He was “a real people person” (as we say in America). He amazed me with the seemingly effortless way he did Table Topics. No matter what the question, he would often start out with “that is a good question”, no matter what the question actually was. He was good at thinking on his feet and often he would find a surprising way of answering his question.

At Toastmasters we’re often using the term “Authentic”, but this a good word to describe Norbert. He reminds me a lot of my grandfather. What you see is what you get. He has seen a lot and been through a lot but Norbert always seemed cool, calm, and collected. I have the feeling that he wasn't distracted by all the “noise” that surrounds us today.

I didn't know Norbert before his heart attack, but I know that he got a second chance at life and he used it and he savored it! He gave a few speeches about his near-death experience. His views on life changed and he looked at the day of his heart attack as another birthday, a rebirth if you will. He was a living example that we should all enjoy and savor our own lives.

Music In Norbert's Life

There were a few songs played at Norbert’s funeral that struck me, because there were so many people at the funeral, I wasn't able to be inside the chapel where I could properly hear the music played, so I listened to the songs and I heard the versions of the various songs that I was familiar with.

I heard “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, (made famous by Ray Charles in 1962). This song reminded me of the speech Norbert gave about growing up in Frankfurt, how he liked Rock and Roll, how he enjoyed listening to record albums with an early girlfriend and that she left him her records, when she moved away.

When I heard “My Way”, I naturally heard the Frank Sinatra version from 1969 and I thought how great it would be if at the end of our lives we could all say that we did our ways. I believe that Norbert did it his way!

When I heard “Time To Say Goodbye”, I hear the version sung by Andrea Bochelli and Sarah Brightman from 1996.This song was already a bittersweet song for me (I’d be happy to tell you about that, but I’ll save that for another speech), but now this song will forever have an additional link to Norbert and I’ll think of him.

For me, remembering the lives that we’ve lost is important. I would like to do something to help keep the memory of Norbert alive after today. I think it would be great if we could do something as a club to this end. I’m open to ideas, so let’s think about this and see what good things we can do to honor Norbert’s memory.

In closing...

I’m reminded of the death of Spock in Star Trek II, where he said to Captain Kirk,...

„I have been, and always shall be, your friend.”

I found a great quote from Isabel Allende in her book Eva Luna, that fits very well..

“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,' my mother explained shortly before she left me. 'If you can remember me, I will be with you always”

Norbert might not be physically with us any longer but he made quite an impact on many of us.

Thank You, Leonard Nimoy!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 09:59:00 +0000

February 27, 2015 was a sad day for humanity but it has given us all an opportunity to look back at Leonard Nimoy and reflect upon what he has meant to us. Mr. Nimoy had the opportunity to play a character that is known in all corners of the world (maybe even beyond our own, who knows). Mr. Spock, with his Vulcan ears and his "Live Long and Prosper" is known to people who've never even watched a scene from Star Trek. I decided to take this opportunity to reflect on what Leonard Nimoy has meant to me.

This will make me old, but I was born in the year that Star Trek debuted. I don't remember seeing episodes live, but I do remember discovering reruns and I was hooked. Star Trek gave my a love of science and technology and a belief in a brighter future, where anything was possible. Star Trek had everything, aliens galore, space travel, endless adventure, cool gadgets, everything a young boy could want. I created the presentation below, inspired by things I have learned from Leonard Nimoy.

Leonard Nimoy was a key part of the power trio at the center of the Star Trek universe. He was given the opportunity that many actors would love to have and that is to shape direction of a character. In Mr. Nimoy's case, he made lots of decisions that forever shaped how the Vulcan race would be played. Since the Vulkans were one of the central races (besides humans that is), how Vulkans were portrayed would have a big impact on the direction that the series (and subsquent series and movies) would go. There are lots of actors who have followed in his footsteps that can thank him for shaping the essence of who Vulcans were. Imagine, if he had decided to change how he had portrayed Mr. Spock?

Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Spock were the heart of the series. The chemistry between these three characters was going to drive how well the series did and play into what what happens in every storyline. Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock had an old maried couple feel to their relationship, they were always bickering about anything and everything but you knew that the friendship between the three characters was solid and could withstand anything.

One of the appealing aspects of Mr. Spock and the Vulkans was that they applied logic to everything. At the time series was produced there was a lot of turmoil (there has certainly been a lot of turmoil since) and the idea of applying some logic in a non-logical world was rather comforting. When you look at our own humanity, we often do a lot of illogical things and act purely on emotions and instinct. Throughout the series we'd often see scenarios where the logical thing was not the right thing to do and where we would need to let more of our humanity shine through. Since Mr. Spock was half Vulkan and half human, he could tap into both sides (although the Vulkan side was dominant).

Leonard Nimoy created a Pinochio type character who was trying to discover who he really was. This self-discovery is something that the fans can relate to very well. It is also a theme that would be played out through various Star Trek series. In each subsequent Trek series there always seems to be at least one character who is trying to find out who they are and this can be traced back to the way that Mr. Nimoy portrayed Mr. Spock. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, it is often said that Data was playing this role. In all of us there is a longing to find out who we are and what we're going to contribute to the world.

Leonard Nimoy not only had a great relationship with William Shatner (Captain Kirk) and Deforest Kelly (Dr. McCoy) but with the other series regular characters (Scotty, Uhuria, Sulu, and Chekov). In an article at People magazine, it is mentioned that Mr. Nimoy spoke up when he found out that Nichell Nichols (Uhuria) wasn't getting paid what the actors playing Sulu and Chekov were getting paid. In the same article it mentions that he refused to do the voice of Spock in the animated series unless Nichols and George Takei (Sulu) were hire. Mr. Roddenberry apparently started referring to Mr. Nimoy as the conscience of Star Trek.

When N.B.C canceled Star Trek after three seasons, logic would have dictated that this was the end of Star Trek,.but something funny happened on the way to the forum. There was the emergence of the Star Trek fandom. The fans did a letter campaign during when NBC canceled it in the second season, which resulted in the series coming back for a third season. When NBC again pulled the plug after the third season, they mounted another letter writing campaign, but this time without success. The fans managed to keep the fires burning which resulted in a series of Trek movies, and 4 more television series. There is no doubt that Star Trek fans made history when Star Trek returned from the dead. Star Trek fans have done many innovative things that have been picture up by other fandoms. I wouldn't be surprised if Star Trek fans created the first real fandom. Most of us have known a few "Trekers" (Star Trek fans prefer to be called "Trekers" and not "Trekies"), who've seen downright off the deep end in their devotion to Star Trek. There is a great skit from Saturday night live (you can read the transcript here), showing the extreme devotion and nerdiness of some of the fans. I have one friend who can tell you want episode any quote is from and another who can see a picture and tell you what episode it comes from, my brain isn't wired that way. There isn't a company or organization out there that wouldn't like to be able to engage into the devotion of their consumers/users/(fill in the blank) the way that Star Trek has.

For many actors they always have to consider if playing this or that role will typecast them, that is to say that will they have problems finding other roles because people have associated them with a certain character and can't imagine them in a different role. There have been some actors who have played a role and never been able to come out of the shadows of that role. At one point Mr. Nimoy tried to distance himself from Mr. Spock writing a book called "I Am Not Spock", later he would write another book called "I Am Spock". Mr. Nimoy said, "Spock is definitely one of my best friends. When I put on those ears, it is not just another day. When I become Spock, that day becomes something special." Mr. Nimoy has had quite a life outside of Star Trek, I like to think that it has been enriched by his experience with Star Trek and the people that he has gotten to know via Star Trek.

One thing that isn't lost on me is the inspiration that Mr. Nimoy has had a Mr. Spock and the the Trek universe has had. Wil Whetton (who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation) wrote in his eulogy, "When I was a kid, long before I put on Wesley Crusher's sweaters or piloted the Enterprise, I loved Star Trek. I watched it all the time in syndication on our black and white television, and when the other kids at school wanted to play CHIPs or the A-Team on the playground, I wanted to turn the jungle gym into the Enterprise. On those rare occasions that I convinced my classmates that we were bodly going toward new worlds on luch recess, one of the Cool Kids would claim the role of Captain Kirk, and I would always happily assume the role of Mister Spock... I wanted to be Mister Spock because if I was, I could be myself-quite, bookis, alien to the people around me - and it wouldn't be weird. It would be awesome." You don't have to look to far to see people doing things that they might not have had the courage to do or because they were influenced by Mr. Spock and the other characters in the Star Trek universe. NASA named one of the Space Shuttles "Enterprise", no doubt in honor of the place in their heart for Star Trek. I find this inspiration totally amazing.

I could write so much more but all good things must end. I hope that you'll take the time to think about what Nr. Nimoy has meant to you and I hope that you too will be inspired by these words from Mr. Nimoy the commencement he gave at Boston University in 2012, "You are the curator sof your own lives. You create your own life and work. Give us your best...give us the best of your art. We crave it. We hunger for it. Help us to see ourselves...to know ourselves. Illuminate our lives" May we all "Live long and prosper"(you can read the text here). Thank you Mr. Nimoy!

Photo credits: The picture above is from Flickr the license can be found here.

The Wall Came Tumbling Down!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 22:36:00 +0000

Nearly 25 years ago a most amazing thing happened, the Berlin Wall fell! This was one of the most visible signs that the Cold War was ending and really brought the world to a point that it hasn’t quite adjusted to. As Germany celebrates its “Tag der deutsche Einheit” (German Unity Day), its 24^th such celebration, I thought that I’d take a look at that event.

First of all, has it really been 25 years? I have two daughters that were both born in Germany after that historic day and they only know about what life was like before the Wall Fell, by stories that they hear or discussions that they have in school. How wonderful it is that there are generations of people that don’t know what it was like to live in the Cold War! I personally watched the events unfold from America, so I didn’t experience what life in a divided Germany was like firsthand and ever since I moved over to the Frankfurt, Germany area, I’ve had a sense of wonder when I visited Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow and any other area that I visit that was under the “Iron Curtain”. I was studying at the university when all those revolutions happened and I had one political science and one economics class that focused on these events and it truly was an amazing time, so full of hope for the future.

I’ve always been fascinated by history and dates and one thing that hasn’t been lost on me is that World War 1 started in 1914 and we also will have the 25^th Anniversary of the “Fall of the Berlin Wall” in the same year. Some people would point out that Word War II was largely a result of the way that Word War I ended. I’ve been listening to a fascinating account of World War I by Dan Carlin (someone who really makes history fun) on his Hardcore History Podcast, in a series that he has been doing called “Blueprint for Armageddon”. There are currently 4 episodes in this series and I’m eagerly awaiting the next episode. I would also propose that way that Word War II ended set the stage for the Cold War and we still haven’t found our way in the Post Cold War Era. Maybe some of our leaders were looking for another meaningful long-term conflict to latch on to, but it is pretty obvious that we weren’t ready for the end of the Cold War and are still trying to find our way.

25th Anniversary: Fall of the Berlin Wall from Darryl Heron

In the IT world, when we’re following best practices, after we make a big change (i.e. to our infrastructure or to software) we should take some time to review what happened, did the change go the way that it should have, are there any steps that need to be taken to correct effects from the change? When changes are planned, there should be a “change freeze” to make sure that the change being implemented can be rolled back and that a root cause analysis can be done on any resulting problems after the change. I would argue that we need to do this as a society and think about where we really want to go before we get sucked into the next Great War. After the Cold War ended, we should have done such an assessment before we got sucked into a “War on Terror”. Many of the international conflicts that we have today are at least in part due to the way that the maps were drawn after World War I and World War II and governments that were supported because they were deemed strategically necessary because of the Cold War. President Eisenhower warned us of the “Military Industrial Complex” in his farewell address…

“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” (Text of President Eisenhower’s speech from Coursera)

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a lot of other things could have been done with the money spent on the Arms Race and the money spent on arming this or that party. Add to this that we’re now developing a “Security Industrial Complex”, can there ever be enough security when the enemy is the bogeyman? How do you ever win a “War on Terror”, when is the “Mission Accomplished”, truly? Where is the treaty signed that ends the War on Terror”? Now, imagine that the money and energy pumped into endless wars were directed at problems that need solving instead. Can you imagine what amazing things we could do with the technology and the problems we could solve?

The human element is often overlooked when talking about the conflicts and fighting that we’ve had. Imagine the families and friends torn apart in the divided Berlin and Germany. Not knowing when they’d see each other again (or even if there would even be a “when”). Imagine the hopelessness of it all. What kind of future did the kids have to look forward to? And yet, the human spirit somehow prevailed, family, friends, and countrymen were reunited and what was unimaginable not that long ago came to be, a reunited Germany! The people have been able to celebrate all these things for nearly 25 years!

Before we go building more walls, it’s time to tear some more down, to reach out and build some more bridges and connect more people. My grandfather, in his eternal wisdom used to say how people everywhere were good and could get along, it was just our politicians that couldn’t get along. To Germany and the world, I wish you a happy “Tag der deutsche Einheit“ and I hope that we can unite more people that are torn apart and learn some lessons from the Cold War.

Darryl Heron

You might be interested in the 20th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall and German Reunification

Note: The picture above "Thefalloftheberlinwall1989" comes from Wikipedia.

September 11th- 13 Years Later

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 10:01:00 +0000

Project 2996

The 13th Anniversary of September 11th is fast upon us, as I write this, it is a matter of hours away. As has become my personal tradition, this is a big day for me (and for much of the world as well). A lot of time has passed since that awful September 11th when the world changed. One thing that hasn't changed for me is that there were real people that died that day and families were torn apart. It is those families that I think of when I do things related to Project 2996.

I discovered Project 2996 when I was doing research of an article that I was writing about September 11th, and it has become a part of my life ever since. Doing research on some of the victims brings them into your life and though you have you probably never met them the memories of their lives become part of you and as long as you live, these memories will live on. It might not make any sense to someone who hasn't participated yet, but surely you have read something in your life or seen something (via television or possibly online) that has touched you. If you haven't experienced this, you need to, because it is at moments like this that our humanity shines through.

For the 11th Anniversary, Project 2996 started a project of pinning pictures of all of the victims of September 11th into a Project 2996 group pinboard on Pinterest. The goal is to get a pin done for every single victim, with a tribute written up for them as well. This year Project 2996 has added another campaign focusing on the Legacy of the victims. This too is being done via a group pinboard on Pinterest. This new group pinboard is called "Project 2996 Legacy"

Legacy: What Project 2996 Is Doing for the 13th Anniversary of September 11th from Darryl Heron

I July I ran across a book called "Just a Few Sleeps Away", by Mike Nichols, who tells the the story of a family of one of the victims and how they dealt with their loss. This got me thinking about the legacy that all of the victims have left. I noticed that there were streets and buildings named after victims as well as scholarships and charities that have been created. There has been a lot done to create a legacy for the victims. This was the inspiration for the new group pinboard.

Dale and I have learned some lessons by being involved in Project 2996 and this has also influenced the decision to run this (and the other campaigns) for the entire year, not just a few days around the annual commemorations. The original group pinboard has more have 500 pins and the new pinboard already is off to a good start with over 30 pins.

I don't know if you've done the #ALS #IceBucketChallenge (I have), I found it refreshing that some many people did it. I don't think that you get too much debate about it being one of the better known campaigns of all time. Organizations around the world are looking at that campaign to see what they did right and how they can use this for their purposes. I personally have enjoyed seeing who I knew would end up doing the challenge as well as what celebrities. You can join us in any of the Project 2996 campaigns, it won't tax your pocketbook, you won't get doused in icy cold water, you'll learn something about the victims and you'll have a whole different outlook on September 11th.

On this September day, I think about the people that I have written tributes in the past (Keith Roma, Christopher Santora,Joseph P. Henry, Karl Henri Joseph, and Dana Hannon). I especially think of David W Laychak, who was the first person that I've written about in Project 2996. I think about how honored I was to get a comment from Mrs. Laychak, to one of the tributes that I wrote.

I hope that you take some time out of your day to remember the victims of September 11th, their families, their friends, and the world as this day left all of us a little sadder and world a little less richer because of all these wonderful people we lost and the impact of society that they would have had and the lives that they did and would have touched. You can follow the new Project 2996 Legacy and the original Project 2996 boards on Pinterest and even join us if you'd like to do some pinning. You can also write tributes of your own. If you don't have a website or blog to post them on, I'd be happy to post them for you. Feel free to leave a comment. If you knew any of the victims, I'd love to hear your memories and stories about them.

Darryl

Here are my posts for the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Anniversaries You can read more about the pinning campaign here. The Project 2996 website is here, the Facebook group is here, and the original Project 2996 group pinboard is here.

Goodbye EDS/HP

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 16:51:00 +0000

October 31, 2013 is the end of an era for me... On this day I'm saying goodbye to E.D.S./ H.P after over 16 years working for these two companies. Over the years I've seen many colleagues leave, sending off an email to everyone letting us know that they were moving on outside of the E.D.S. /H.P. world, so I've had a lot of time to think about this moment and therefore I wanted to do something a little bit different. I thought that I'd take this chance to write up a farewell for colleagues, clients, and anyone else that might be interested in the end of this era for me.

I remember being interviewed for the position that I was hired for at Electronic Data Systems and when asked about my aspirations within EDS, I said that I'd like to be C.E.O. Ok, I was young but I think that I obviously made a good enough impression that I was hired. When I hired into E.D.S., they had what was called a dual career path and for a long time I thought that I would work my way into General Motors. Quite a few colleagues that I know from my earlier days did this, but when I had a chance to interview for a position at General Motors, staying with E.D.S. at that time seemed like the best decision.

I worked my way in E.D.S. starting out at a call center, going into a specialty group that handled arbitrations for a client, working at the dealer business center, and finally I worked my way in project management from being part of a project management office to being the project manager for lots of projects. At E.D.S. the sky seemed to be the limit.

I Owe E.D.S. a lot!

It is through E.D.S. that I met my wife. She was working for E.D.S. in Germany and I was working for E.D.S. in the U.S. Around the time that we got married she was fortunate enough to get what was called an Expat assignment to the U.S. and when it was time for her to come back to Germany, well, naturally I came along.

Why Am I Saying Goodbye?

Well, the shorter version of this is that H.P. Germany made the decision to close the Rüsselsheim location that I'm tied to as part of many workforce reductions that H.P. has done over the years.

Great People

Over the years I worked with and met lots of great people at E.D.S./ H.P. I've seen a lot of talented and people dedicated to delivering superior service to their clients and colleagues. I hope that I'll have the chance to work with many of them in the coming years and I wish the all the best and that they find success and happiness in their lives both professionally and personally.

Whats next?

That is quite the question. I'm not really sure what the next phase of my life will lead me too. I think that there are lots of directions that I might take, but at this point I'm not sure. I know that I love working on big projects with new technology and where people can work on something greater than themselves and feel a sense of accomplishment afterwards. Whatever I do, I want to be able to leave my mark.

Lets Connect And Stay Connected

I would love to be able to stay connected and know what my former colleagues are up to. You also never know when there might be a project that we can work on together, so keep an open mind and your eyes and ears open. You can find links to several of my blogs as well as my various social profiles here. You can also email me from there as well.

Bye for now!
Darryl

Our Visit to Europa Park 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 10:01:00 +0000

As part of our Summer vacation 2013 the family and I visited Europa Park in July. We've been to Europa Park several times but it had been a few years now and with the girls being older (especially taller) they're now able to do more of the rides than the last time that we went.

Since the last time we were at Europa Park, we'd seen that park had a new restaurant called the "FoodLoop" and we were excited about checking it out. In the resturaunt there a few tables centered around different platforms where food and drinks are brought to your table in special containers over a mini roller coaster. You use a touchscreen to order your meals and your food and drinks are sent from the kitchen over the mini roller coaster to the platform where your table is. I can't guarante it but I can imagine that some kids who might need to be "encouraged" to eat their meals will be entertained by the food delivery and therefore more like to eat what is ordered. I can also imagine that the whole order and delivery process encourages people to order more food and drink.

Because Anna likes roller coasters, she went with me through the park, while Sarah and Christine did the tamer rides. Anna and I started off with the Blue Fire. The Blue Fire is a looping coaster with passengers going through 4 different inversions. It only reaches 124 ft (38 meters) with top speed of 62 mph (100 km/h), but the looping is what makes it exciting (Wikipedia). Anna had a good start and we were off. There is something special about wooden roller coasters, sure they don't tend to go as high or fast as many of the steel ones, but they're a lot of fun and some coster enthusiasts swear by them. Next up was the Woodan, a wooden coaster that reaches a height of 131 ft (40 meters) with a top speed of 62.1 mph (99.9 km/h) and a G-force of 3.5 (Wikipedia).While the Siver Star might not lead any coaster catagories any longer the first hill reaches heights of 239 ft (73 meters) with a drop of 219 ft (67 meters) at speeds up to 78.9 mph (127 km/h) and gravitational forces of 4g, so it is a pretty exciting ride and Annd didn't see the slightest bit scared! It is nice that someone else in the family likes to ride the roller coasters besides myself, so that I don't have to ride them alone.

It was a very hot day when we went, so we all tried a few water rides. The thing about water rides is that most of the time you don't sit in the right seat, either you want to get really wet and most of the water misses you or you don't really want to get wet and the water is attracked to you like a magnet. Christine decided to stand outside of one of the water rides, thinking that she might get wet. She got a little wet when the first water ride went by and decided to stay for the next one, well she got absolutely soaked, so the trick seems to be that you find a splashy area around the water rides if you really want to get soaked.

We always have fun at Europa Park and we really enjoyed our visit this year. I can imagine that we'll try to plan a trip there next year. Since Europa Park gets decorated for Halloween and Christimas, we could even plan a trip to catch either of these.

Photo credit. The Silver Star picture is courtesy of Wikipedia. The other pictures we took at the park.

September 11th - 12 Years Later

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 10:34:00 +0000

Project 2996

Chances are that you probably know what day it is (or you'll soon be reminded if your day is just starting) but today is the twelth anniversary of Attacks of September 11th. A dozen years have passed and we're more than a decade after this terrible event. On this day every year, I think of the victims, their families, their friends and I like to honor the memories that we all have of them.

I discovered Project 2996 when I was doing research of an article that I was writing about September 11th, and it has become a part of my life ever since. Doing research on some of the victims brings them into your life and though you have you probably never met them the memories of their lives become part of you and as long as you live, these memories will live on. It might not make any sense to someone who hasn't participated yet, but surely you have read something in your life or seen something (via television or possibly online) that has touched you. If you haven't experienced this, you need to because it is at moments like this that our humanity shines through.

Last year I talked Dale (the man responsible for Project 2996) into trying something a little bit different. We were going to pin pictures of the victims of September 11th into a Project 2996 group pinboard on Pinterest. The goal is to get a pin done for every single victim, with a tribute written up for them as well. We haven't accomplished this yet but I'm really proud of the people who have joined us in the project. I've done a couple of speeches about September 11th at Toastmasters and I convinced a friend of mine to join in on this little project, she did several pins last year and a few days ago she asked me if we were doing anything for the 12th Anniversary. She said that she didn't have much time but she still managed to do a good dozen or so pins, so my she has a heart felt thank you from me. I'm confident that we will get a pin out for every victim!

This morning I did a dozen plus pins myself and have now learned a little bit more about Barbara Olson, Peter J. Ganci, Jr,, Army Specialist Craig Amundson, Ryan Daniel Fitzgerald, Anthony Joseph Coladonato, Andrew Cross Abate, David E. Rivers, Irina Buslo, Bojan Kostica, Gregory James Malone, Kathryn Anne Shatzoff, Peter J. O'Neill Jr., Faustino Apostol Jr, John G. Farrell, Margaret S. Lewis, Virginia M. Jablonski, and Stephanie McKenna. One of the new vicitms that I learned about had a tribute that had been written as part of Project 2996 and in reading the tribute I noticed that a family member had asked the writer if she knew the victim, but also came the comment that she was so glad to see the tribute. I received a comment from the wife of a victim that I wrote about and it touched me deeply to see this.

On this September day, I think about the people that I have written tributes in the past (Keith Roma, Christopher Santora,Joseph P. Henry, Karl Henri Joseph, and Dana Hannon. I especially think of David W Laychak, who was the first person that I've written about in Project 2996.

I hope that you take some time out of your day to remember the victims of September 11th, their families, their friends, and the world as this day left all of us a little sadder and world a little less richer because of all these wonderful people we lost and the impact of society that they would have had and the lives that they did and would have touched. You can follow the board on Pinterest and even join us if you'd like to do some pinning. You can also write tributes of your own. If you don't have a website or blog to post them on, I'd be happy to post them for you. Feel free to leave a comment. If you knew any of the victims, I'd love to hear your memories and stories about them.

Darryl

Here are my posts for the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th Annivesaries. You can read more about the pinning campaign here. The Project 2996 website is here and the Facebook group is here.

Are Your Ready for the German Champions League Final?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 25 May 2013 11:12:00 +0000

Millions of people will watch Bayern Munich (Munich) play Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final tonight, will you be one of them? After 124 games with 365 goals scored, we're down to this game (figures from Wikipedia). This is a unique match up and the first time that it has been an all German Champions League final. Bayern and Dortmund are two of the top teams in the German Bundesliga, hard core and casual fans alike will be ready for these two rivals to play in this huge game.

Bayern has one of the biggest and best known soccer clubs in the world. They're the biggest and best known sports club in Germany, and 4th biggest soccer club in the world generating 368.4 million Euros in 2012 (Wikipedia). To me they're like the New York Yankees of soccer, having won 23 national tittles, winning the Champions League in 1974, 1975, 1976, and 2001; while being the runner up in 1982, 1987, 1999, 2010, 2012. They might not always win but you can't afford to overlook them.

Dortmund has developed into quite a rival for Bayern. They won the Champions League in 1997. Dortmund has had their ups and down and even almost went bankrupt. Jürgen Klopp has lifted Dortmund out one of their low periods winning the Bundesliga in the 2010-11 and 2011-2012 seasons.

Living in the Rhein-Main Area, I started following Jürgen Kloppwhen he was the coach at Mainz 05 and was impressed that he was able to led that club from the second Bundesliga to the first. I also liked watching him when he was part of the soccer coverage on German television. It was lot of fun seeing him lead Dortmund to their two recent Bundesliga tittles.

I've seen that Jürgen Klopp has given some interesting interviews lately and I decided that I wanted to find out what was said. Since the game tonight is being held in Wembley Stadium in London, there are interviews that are done in English and non-native English speakers this provides the opportunity for lots of lost in translation moments or translations problems. In fact there was a Jame Bond quote that really piqued my interest. Jurgen Klopp said in an interview at the Guardian in response to the possiblity of Robert Lewandowski will likely be leaving Dortmund (with a good possiblity of ending up at Bayern), "What can I say? If that's what Bayern wants … It's like James Bond – except they are the other guy [the villain]."

Jürgen Klopp told the Guardian about the deep pockets of Bayern and their ability to spend large amounts of money on players that "Bayern want a decade of success like Barça. That's OK if you have the money because it increases the possibility of success. But it's not guaranteed. We are not a supermarket but they want our players because they know we cannot pay them the same money. It could not be our way to do things like Real and Bayern and not think about taxes – and let the next generation pick up our problems. We need to work seriously and sensibly. We have this amount of money so we can pay that amount. But we lose players. Last year it was Shinji Kagawa." While he probably didn't mean that teams that don't have an endless supply of money to spend on players might not be woried about taxes but that most teams don't have the financail resources to complete with Bayern, Mancherster United, Real Madrid, and so on. This is certainly a challenges for many teams in many diferent sports.

I can't really say that I was surprised, but I learned that Jürgen Klopp was recruited by both Bayern and Hamburg while he was at Mainz 05, before he ended up going to Dortmund. He said of the experience of being consided for the job at Bayern that "It wasn't too disappointing --for a second division manager to be called by Bayern is not the worst thing in the world" I'm sure that Dortmund fans are glad that he ended up where he did.

Over the years I've liked it when cross town rivals met in various championship games, this makes the event special and stand out more. In baseball I remember when the New York Mets played the New York Yankees and when the Oakland A's played the San Francisco Giants in the World Series, so it is exciting to see two German teams playing in the Champions League final.

Jürgen Klopp said "We are a club, not a company..but it depends on which kind of story the neutral fan wants to hear. If he respects the story of Bayern, and how much they have won since the 1970s, he can support them. But if he wants the new story, the special story, it must be Dortmund. I think, in this moment in the football world, you have to be on our side." I'll be pulling for Dortmund, how about you?

Here is a infographic that you might find interesting....

Photo credits: I combined the logos from the clubs based on logos at Wikipedia (Bayern and Dortmund). The infographic comes from here.

Good Bye Roger Ebert!

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:21:00 +0000

Source: facebook.com via darryl on Pinterest

I was deeply saddened to read that Roger Ebert passed away. For me Rogert Ebert will always be half of the movie critic duo of Siskel and Ebert (they are pictured together at the top of this post). I used to watch their weekly movie review show to see what they thought of the new movies and often used their reviews in deciding if I wanted to go see a movie or not (like lots of other people I might add). Their show was a big part of my life.

Source: google.com via darryl on Pinterest

I think what originally drew me in was my love for movies. I've often thought that it would be great to be able to make a living by being a film critic, so it is only natural that I would enjoy watching these two do their show. For me Roger seemed more down to earth that Gene. Gene often appeared very snobbish for my taste, but the two of them together did what I thought movie critcs should do. They told us what they thought of the movies they reviewed and between the two of them you could get a good idea of if a movie was worth seeing.

Source: tumblr.com via darryl on Pinterest

Time when by and Gene Siskel died and he was replaced by another film critic. I had stopped watching the show at this point and not long afterwards I moved to Germany so I wasn't aware of all that Roger Ebert with through in the past decade, so I was really surprised when I read the accounts of Roger Ebert after he died! He had quite a battle with cancer and as a result part of his jaw was removed and long story short he lost the ability to eat, drink, and speak and even needed a feed tube at one point. He turned to a series of computer voices in order to speak, this eventually included a copy of his own voice derived from his own DVD commentaries! The picture above is a caricature of Roger Ebert drawn sometime after the problems with his throat.

I was surprised to learn that Roger Ebert was largely responsible for convincing Oprah Winfrey to sysndicate her show, would Oprah have been nearly as popular if she hadn't listened to his suggesion to go into syndication? Good Morning American had a nice interview with Chaz Ebert, Roger's wife, there is a video in the article but I'm not able to view it from Germany. It sounds like they had quite a life together.

Even though his show didn't hold the same priority and place in my heart as it did when I was younger, I really miss the show that he and Siskel used to do. I admire his attempts to continue and carry on after his health initially became an issue. I wonder what it must have been like to fight the battle he fought with his voice. Losing his partner to cancer earlier, I'm sure that he often had doubts if he would be able to keep fighting. I wonder how many movie critic were influenced by Siskel and Ebert? Whenever I think of thumbs up, I'll always think of you and Gene Siskel. I hope that you get to meet all the stars that passed away before you. Imagine the movies they could be making now.

Photo credits: "Siskel & Ebert" picture from Roger Ebert's timeline on Facebook. Roger Ebert giving Thumbs up picture courtesy of the IMDb. The caricature of Roger Ebert is from kaganmcleod.com. All of the pictures above have been re-pinned to my Gone But Not Forgotten board on Pinterest.

You might want to also want to check out...

The ABC story about Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert Through the Years (a nice slide presentation showing him through the years).
Wikipedia Entry on Roger Ebert
Wikipedia Entry on Gene Siskel
Roger Ebert Defends 'Star Wars' (Roger and Gene face-off on Night-Line against a critic that is definitely not a Star Wars fan).

Hello Pope Francis!

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 03:35:00 +0000

Source: brandonvogt.com via darryl on Pinterest

Goodbye Cardinal Bergoglio, Hello Pope Francis! The world welcomes you open arms as the new pope. You are taking leadership of the Catholic world at a time of great turmoil and challenge. You have a honeymoon phase with your new position where the world is waiting to learn about you and people are willing to listen to what you have to say and hear you out. There is a new hope with a new pope and we all are crossing our fingers that you'll be able to live up to our expectations and help to lead us forward.

I truly hope that you're able to bring the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and all the religions of the world together, and that you'll be able to find some common ground by which you can build an effective coalition of the world's religious peoples. There is so much division in the religious worlds at the moment and we desperately need to find a common ground, to find new ways to work together, and to lift each other up. As the Pope, you have some influence here, I hope that you'll use it to these means..

I hope that you're able to get the atheists and agnostics of the world to join you on a different common ground. That you can use the realization that we're all people and that our humanity should bind us together, to lift up our weaker brothers, sisters, and children that need our help.

I hope that you're able to bring together the states and nations of the world. There are lots of politicians that have become corrupt over the years and are no longer looking after the needs of the people, they're only looking after the needs of special interests and those that are able to pay for their time and attention, or the various political systems have been broken and world leaders aree unable to manage in the mess we have today. I hope that you're able to get warring parties to come to the table and negotiate, so that we can end all the useless bloodshed and conflict.

I hope that you're able to inspire and motivate the wealthy people and corporations of the world to realize that they have obligations to society and that life is not only about making money. I hope that you're able to inspire them to feed the poor, to create lots of jobs that pay a living wage so that employees can support their families and have a decent life. I hope that you're able to convince the wealthy and the corporations that the world has limited resources that need to be shared equitably and that polluting and destroying our world for short-term profit is not in the best interest of the human and animal populations on our planet.

I hope that you're able to bring the Catholic church up to date while preserving the best of Catholic traditions and customs. Please do a review of all major policies, and where the church needs to come out of the dark ages, shine your light and help them to move forward. There are lots of Catholics who really want to be a part of the church again but many of the church's dogma, teachings, and policies are out dated, and they exclude many who would like to be a part of the church.

I hope that you're able to lift the poor out of poverty, that you're able to help them break the cycle of poverty that only seems to pull in more and more people. I hope that you're able to inspire the uninspired to do wonderful things with their lives.

I hope that we're able to look back in 5 or 10 years and see your time as Pope as a real breakthrough, one that the world has been waiting for. I wish you all the best.

Source: twitter.com via darryl on Pinterest

September 11th- 11 Years Later

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 04:09:00 +0000

Source: project2996.wordpress.com via darryl on Pinterest

Today is the 11th Anniversary of September 11th. I hope that you'll take a few moments to think about the 2996 victims, their families, friends, colleagues, and others that their lives have effected. It is through my desire to honor the victims that I found (and lots of other people too) discovered Project 2996. I've been honored to kick off and participate in a special project with Project 2996 in honor of the 11th Anniversary.

Every year I try to do something a little different to honor the memory of September 11th. This year I started a campaign to have all of the victims remembered via a photo and description appearing as a 'pin' in a group board at Pinterest. I've been doing a lot of things with Pinterest in the past few months and I thought that having a group board on Pinterest where others could 'pin' the victims would be a great way visual way for all of us to remember that all 2996 of the victims were people and not just some clincial statistic rattled off in the course of some vaguely related toppic. Below is a screenshot that I captured yesterday and posted in an article at the Project 2996 website that gives you a little taste of what the board looks like, but as the case with pictures, you just can't capture the totality of it. It is definately something that you have to see for yourself. You also need to take the time to scroll through all of the pins.

Project 2996 is largely responsible for over 1700 online tributes to the victims of September 11th. Many of the people that have participated, have blogs and write about a wide variety of topics and have a wide variety of interests and persnalities (much like the victims that we honor). In many cases, if it weren't for Project 2996 we would not hang out in the same circles. I really like being part of something bigger than myself and knowing that all of us together can do so much more together than we could all by ourselves. There is certainly room for more people to join us as there are currently around 1300 victims still needing a 'real' tribute by a 'real' person.

Pin @

David W Laychak is the first person that I wrote a tribute about, he was my first real dive into Project 2996. I had the pleasure of having and email exchange with his sister and his wife wrote a nice comment after one of the tributes that I wrote for him. Like so many other things in life, the first time we do it is something special. Although I never met David or his family, somehow he is part of my life and not someone I will ever forget. I'm really proud of the tribute that I wrote for David for the 7th Anniversary of September 11th.

Pin @

Keith Roma was the 2nd person that I found via Project 2996. I decided that I wanted to expand my tributes and thought that I'd like to write about some of the firefighters. Of the 5 people that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th, I spent the most time researching him. I was immediately drawn to him when I saw a picture of him with his daughter. I discovered that there had been some controversy about including him in the list of the FDNY September 11th victims because although he was part of the the New York Fire Patrol, he was not "officially" part of the FDNY.

Pin @

Christopher Santora was also part of the 5 firefighters that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th. I was drawn to him initially because of his age, at 23 he was one of the youngest firefighters to die. He was a substitute teacher before following in his father's footsteps and becoming a firefighter. “P.S. Q222 - Fire Fighter Christopher A. Santora School” is named after him and was even attended by his nephew.

Pin @

Joseph P. Henry was also part of the 5 firefighters that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th. I was drawn to him after reading that a woman he had saved had promised to name her first born son after Joseph. He had only been with Ladder 21 eleven months before September 11th. “Firefighter Joseph Patrick Henry Lane” in Brooklyn is named after him. While doing research for Joseph, I discovered a nice tribute that had been done by Jen.

Pin @

Karl Henri Joseph was also part of the 5 firefighters that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th. He was an EMT. Like so many other Americans, Karl and his family came to America from somewhere else, they came from Hati and although he loved Hati, America was his home. In doing my research fro Karl, I found a nice tribute from Tuxedo Cat Grandma.

Pin @

Dana Hannon was also part of the 5 firefighters that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th. Dana started out as a volunteer firefighter, making his way to Captain before joining the FDNY. He proposed to his then girlfriend on top of the Sidney Harbor Bridge. While researching Dana, I found that Danielle at Stupid Trivia wrote A TRIBUTE TO DANA HANNON,

I feel that my life had been enriched by getting to know my 6 victims. While there family and friends will never forget them, they have touched my and I can't help but feel that I'm a better person because of it. If you're family, friend of any of these wonderful people, I'd love to hear your memories, please leave a comment below. I hope that you'll take some time to think about the victims of September 11th and that you'll check out the Project 2996 board at Pinterest. Maybe you can join in and help us create a pin for all of the victims. Maybe you write a tribute for one of the nearly 1700 people that we need tributes for.

Darryl

11th Anniversary of September 11th Is Coming...

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 09:04:00 +0000

Hello Everyone! In case you didn't realize the 11th Anniversary of September 11th is now a little more than a week away. I wanted to take the time to tell you about a few things that are going on and hope that many of you will join me.

I've been involved with Project 2996 for a few years now and I've been pretty busy working on something for the 11th Anniversary of September 11th. Below is a presenation that I've put goether that tells you a little bit about Project 2996.

What is project 2996? from Darryl Heron</ a>

For the 11th Anniversary we've created a Project 2996 group board at Pinterest. The idea is pretty simple, we want to have a pin with a picture for all of the September 11th victims. The pin should also tie into the various Project 2996 online tributes that have been published over the years. Below is a screenshot that I captured of the board yesterday...

Project 2996 has also started a campaign called "Calling All Teachers" with the idea of getting teachers to involve there students in learning about the victims of September 11th. If you're a teacher or you know a teacher why not have a look into this campaign?

What is needed?

After the last review of Project 2996 tributes, there were still around 1,300 victims without tritbutes. Have a look at "the list" to see if there is somethere that you'd like to write a tribute about.

Signup at Pinterest (if you're not already a member there).

Let us know your user name (you can let us know at the Project 2996 website or our Facebook page or leave a comment on the board in Pinterest).

We really need people that will create 'pins'. You can have a look at the pins that are already posted to see how they should look (see here for more information on pins).

I've already created pins for most of the Pentagon victims and I've created several pins for the various passengers and crew of the different flights. We'll really need pins for all of the victims at the World Trade Center. If you'e already created a tribute, it would be great if would create a pin that links to your tribute(s). If there is already a pin existing, why not add a comment with a link to your tribute?

You can also create your own boards for September 11th and 'Repin' what is in the Project 2996 group board. This would really help a lot because it helps generate Traffic and Traffic is the name of the game in the internet today. Don't be shy in sharing what you're doing in your social circles.

Thank you to everyone in advance and I hope that we make this a very memorable 11th Anniversary.

Darryl

Photo credit: New York 2 courtesy of mistereels.

September 11th- 10 Years Later

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 08:01:00 +0000

September 11th 10 years later

View more presentations from Darryl Heron.

Ten years ago today the world as we know it changed. Sadly, we'll never be able to return to the workd as we knew it before that Tuesday morning. We won't be able to bring back the family and friend that dies that day. Sometimes it seems that it was only yesterday and at other times it seems that it was worlds away, in fact it was a different world that we lived then.

I decided that I wanted to do something different as part of my tribute for the Tenth Anniversary of September 11th, I decided to create and upload a presentation at Slideshare. While I've done many Powerpoint presentations over the years, this is the first time that I've done something like this, so I hope that it will be memorable and worth the effort that I put into it.

I hope that you'll have a look at some of the tributes posted at Project 2996. Project 2996 has the goal of seeing that an tribute is posted for each and every person lost that day, so it would be great if you decided to write about someone that doesn't have a tribute post about them yet. If you don't have a web site or blog to post it, then I'd be more than happy to post it for you on this blog here. Let me know in the comments below. I've really found the experience of being involved in Project 2996 has be truly worthwile and I can't recommend it enough.

As I mentioned in the preparation post that I wrote, I discovered Prepare New York a few months ago. They've done so many great things in the last few months. I was reading about Ribbons for Hope which is running from September 9-12 in Battery Park. If you're in the area I believe that should be worth checking out and participating in. Why not check out Prepare New York and see what you can learn and share with others?

Find more photos like this on Prepare New York

Yahoo! News has been running a special series on the Tenth Anniversary of September 11th.
While there will be tons of specials commemorating the Tenth Anniversay, this has been a nice portal to see all the stories about the families of victims or the way that peoples's lives were touched. It is worth checking out and finding all the gems that are there.

As we go about today, my thoughts are with the victims and their families and friends. I hope that we can use the Tenth Anniversary of September as a healing moment that brings us closer together. I'm also thinking of my mother how lost her battle to cancer at the same time that the World Trade Center was being attacked. I hope that all of you are able to celebrate this event in a way that is meaningful to you and that more brighter days are ahead.

Preparing for the 10th Anniversary of September 11th

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 22:30:00 +0000

Now that August is upon us, we're a little more than a month away from the Tenth Anniversary of September Eleventh. I'd like to ask your help in honoring this event. For the Tenth Anniversary, I had hoped to do something really memorable and while the clock is ticking, there is still time to make this memorable and I need your help.

What were you doing on September 11th, what were you doing and where were you when you heard about the traggic events of this now infamous day? I was working when I got a frantic telephone call from my wife asking me to come home. I heard various things from NPR coverage of September 11th being broadcast over AFN (Armed Forces Network) as I was driving home that day. When I opened the door to my home, I was aware of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane crash in Pennsylvania, but my wife told me that my dad called and that my mother lost her battle to cancer sometime between the two planes hitting the World Trade Center. I was watching the coverage and dealing with the loss of my mother. The two events are forever connected within my mind. So September 11th is very personal for me.

Project 2996

On the 6th Anniversary, I wrote an article for one of my blogs and in researching the article I discovered Project 2996. The idea is pretty simple, they wanted to see that there were tributes posted online for all of the victims. For the 7th Anniversary I wrote about David Lychak, who was working at the pentagon. For the 8th Anniversay I expanded my tribute to include several firefighters who lost their lives.

There is little doubt that there have been a lot of bad things that have happened after September 11th, but what isn't in doubt is that all of the victims that died that day were people. Some where parents and had spouses, girlfriends, or boyfriends. Most of them will be missed by family, friends, coworkers, and a host of other people who never had the opportunity to know them or the gifts and talents that they brought into this world. Ther e were the police men and women, firefighters, EMTs, and other professionals who put their lives on the line all the time. There were a lot of people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there were 2996 people that died that day and countless others that lost loved ones and friends. Personally, I always feel bad when a child loses a parent at a young age, because I know that losing a parent at any age is never really an easy thing.

Over the past few years I've written tributes to the people listed below. If anyone has new information about any of them that I could share with my readers I'd love to post updates. I'd love to be able to share about some of the good things that have happened to the families and friends of the people that have left a mark on my life. Afterall, ten years have gone by and a lot can happen in ten years. I was fortunate enough to exchange emails with David Laychak's sister for the initial tribute that I wrote about him and I was thrilled to see a comment from his wife to the post that I did in 2009.

Keith Roma (27)- of the Fire Patrol
Christopher Santora (23)- of Engine Company 54
Joseph P. Henry (25)- of Ladder 21
Karl Henri Joseph (25)- an EMT
Dana Hannon (29)- a NYC Firefighter
David W Laychak (40)- a civial working at the Pentagon

In addition to helping me put together a memorable tribute in honor of the Tenth Anniversary, maybe you can help Project 2996 reach its goal of having an online tribute for all of the victims. Please feel free to host a tribute at your own blog or website or I'd be happy to post one in your honor if you don't have your own blog or website. You can leave a comment to this post or contact me via Twitter.

Prepare New York

A few months ago I found a Social Network that caught my eye. Prepare New York is differnt than any othe Social Network that I'd seen before. In a weekly newsletter that I received after joining, they described themselves as "Prepare New York is a coalition of New York based interfaith organizations including-Auburn Seminary and its Center for Multifaith Education, Interfaith Center of New York, Intersections International, Odyssey Networks, Quest, and Tanenbaum and its Religion and Diversity Education Program, who are committed to preparing New York City (and the nation) for the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 by promoting civil dialogue, education about religious pluralism, support for the Muslim community, and coordinating events on the day of the anniversary. September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and 9/11 Communities for Common Ground serve as advisers to the coalition."

What I really like about this social network is that it is an interfaith effort between Muslims, Jewish, Christians nd other to prepare for the 10th Anniversary of September 11th. They wish to clear up a lot of the missunderstanding and if possible some of the hatred that has fostered in the past decade (and actually goes back quite a bit father). I'm filled with hope when I think of what more interfaith projects such as this one can accomplish. Maybe they can encourage more acceptance of diversity and an embrassing or differences instead of driving us apart.

In Conclusion

As the 10th Annivesary of September 11th approaches I'd like to use this occassion as a healing moment that brings us all closer together. I'd love to see each and every one of you write a tribute for Project 2996. While you're at it why not check out PrepareNY and see some of the great things they're doing, maybe you can even make some new friends. Let us all remember that we lost nearly 3000 people on that sad September day, let us honor their lives.

Here are some other links that you might be interested in...

Project 2996

My posts for the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Annivesaries

Prepare NY

Photo credit: New York 2 courtesy of mistereels.

Danke, Thomas!

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:15:00 +0000

Thank you, Thomas! (Danke, Thomas!) Saturday marked the last Summer open-air "Wetten Das?" with Thomas Gottschalk as the host and so his nearly 25 years as host of one of the Saturday television shows in Europe is drawing to an end.

The show was origingally hosted by Frank Elstner, who hosted it from 1981 to 1987. Thomas Gottschalk took over the reins in 1987. The show has been normally broadcast live from various cities within Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, with a Summer open-air show that has been done live from Mallorca a few times as well as Disneyland Paris, and Turkey (to name a few). The show inspired the British show "You Bet!" and other international versions around the world. Ordinary people attempt to do various unusual and sometimes very difficult tasks. Celebrity guests then would "bet" on the outcome of these challenges. The celebrities that lose their "bets" often have to do some embarassing, humiliating, and often times entertaining activity as a result. I've been amazed by the number of well-know American and British actors, singers, and bands have appeared on the show.

It wasn't long after I moved to Germany that I discovered the show. While I haven't seen every show since I've been here, I've seen quite a few and haven't missed many. So Thomas Gottschalk and "Wetten Das?" have been a big part of my German experience. Like, much of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; I was watching the show on December 4, 2010, when the 23 year old man wishing to launch his career as a stuntman had that terrible accident while trying to jump 5 moving cars while wearing spring-loaded shoes/boots. They momentarily stopped the live broadcast of the show while doctors looked at the stundman's injuries and eventually cancelled the rest of the show. I sat glued waiting to hear that he would be alright, bud sadly the young man ended up being paralyzed. This heavily influenced Thomas Gottschalk's decison to leave the show in 2011. While the young stuntman did probably know about the risks of the stunt he planned, the thought that he'd end up being paralyzed probably didn't seem like such a huge risk, how could he have known? He might have thought that he might get a bruise or a broken bone or two, but not paralysis! Nobody knows where this young man's life will take him and how bright his future will be, I cetainly hope that he can make the best of his situation. I wish him the best.

The show started with Status Quo doing a medly of their hits. Cameron Diaz (actress) , Jennifer Lopez (singer and actress), Kevin James (actor), Heidi Klum (famous German model), Sebastian Vettel (famous German Forumla One driver), and Dieter Bohlen were all guests this past Saturday. In one of the oddest things I've ever seen, a man removed the shell off coconuts with his teeth (the video at the top of this post). When Kevin James came on the stage he was "shelling" what looked like oranges. The other bets included two cranes playing tennis, the man who threw 5 kg barrels of beer into a basketball hoop, another man who did handstands while trying to shoot baskets with his feet, and another man jumpted his bike from bikestop to bikestop. J-Lo performed "On the Floor", Peidro and Sarah (the 2011 DSDS finalists) sang "I Miss You" (their new duet), and three young Italian tennors sang a crowd pleasing "O Sole Mio". In the final song of the evening, Status Quo performed "Rocking All Over The World", you could see that Thomas was having a blast, this was after all his evening, and he had rocked all over the world.

Like the Prinzen said is their song "Deutschland"...
Natürlich hat ein Deutscher "Wetten, dass" erfunden
Vielen Dank für die schönen Stunden"
(translated as Naturally, a German created/discovered 'Wetten Das?', many thanks for all those wonderful hours). Thomas, I'm glaod to have spent all those Saturday evenings with you! I wish you all the best with your future projects.

Here are some other links that you might be interested in....

-Wetten-Das.com
-Wetten Das on ZDF
-Wetten Das @Wikipedia
-Wetten Das YouTube Channel
-Wetten Das on Facebook
-"Rad" bet
-"Basketball" bet
-"Crane Tennis" bet
-"Handstand" bet
-Status Quo - Rockin All Over The World - 2011 - Gottschalk's "Wetten Dass" Farewell
-Status Quo - Medley (LIVE @ Wetten Dass? Mallorca, 18.06.11) (HQ 16:9)
-Jennifer Lopez- On the Floor (LIVE on Wetten, dass ...) (June18th, 2011)
-Peidro and Sarah- I Miss You
-O-Sole-Mio
-ZDF Video Status Quo "Rockin All Over The World

Goodbye, Space Shuttle Program

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:02:00 +0000

The Space Shuttle Endeavour landed for the last time last week. This was not just the last flight for the Endeavour but now all that remains for the Space Shuttle program is the last flight of the Atlantis (currently scheduled for July 8th). Given all the focus on cutting budgets right and left, who really knows what it will mean for the American space program or for space programs in general, but the end of the Space Shuttle Program is near.

President Kennedy Says America Will Put A Man on the Moon And Return Him Home Safely By the End of the Decade... And America Answered

The U.S.S.R. was leading in the Space Race and President Kennedy challenged and inspired America....

"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters" (President Kennedy's address before Congress on May 25, 1961.

JFK - We choose to go to the Moon, full length (Address a Rice University)

In a bold and daring move, President Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the Moon. He demonstrated the leadership, vision, and a whole host of other things that were needed to make this a reality. At a point in the Cold War where others might have thought that this was a crazy idea, he shared the dream and what space exploration and travel could mean to America and the world. America heard the call and put a man on the Moon (and returned him home safely). Below I've embedded President Kennedy's address at Rice University (above) and his address to congress (below) where he laid out the vision and the challenge. Both videos show a visionary leadership that is hard to find in the world today.

John F. Kennedy "Landing a man on the Moon" Address to Congress - May 25, 1961

The Space Shuttle Program

The "Space Transport System" (the offical NASA name for the Space Shuttle Program) was different than previous programs in that it was based on the use of a few reuseable spacecrat compared to the more "conventional" approach to "disposable" rockets. The Endeavour flight was number 134 and the upcoming Atlantis will be number 135. The Columbia's first mission was in 1981, so the program has had 30 years of service.

There are certainly plenty of criticisms that can be made of the Space Shuttle Program. Without getting into all the details they tend to fall into the categories of costs; cultural issues and problems (the shift in NASA culture away from saftey in order to make frequent launches), Shuttle operations, and the accidents of the Challenger and Columbia, and so on. There is a nice entry at Wikipedia on the Criticisms of the Space Shuttle Program that gives a nice summary of some of the more common ones. So, I won't argue that there could not have been better programs or that there weren't ways that the program could have been improved, far from it. The focus on the program, it could be argued, slowed down other developments because the bulk of the budget and focus was on the Shuttle Program. In order to make the program more attactive to Congress, work was spread to several companies based in several different locations throughout the U.S., this added a great deal of complexity and opperational costs, and since the aerospace industry went through a lot of consolidation, ultimately, most of the Shuttle is coming from just one company, Boeing. There are plenty of lessons that can and should be learned from the Space Shuttle Program, but they need to be learned and applied, not just a decission to end all space programs because they're seen as too costly.

Our Future In Space

At a time when our current age seems so bleek and nobody really seems to want to think past today let alone to the future, we need the bright promise of a space program that is commited and has a compelling mission that engages the people. We need the hope of a brighter tomorrow, not one more dismal than today.

Every since I was a little boy I've dreamed of space travel and seeing other worlds. I was captivated by Captain Kirk and later by the world of Star Wars, but I've always thought that we should be exploring space, that this is something we MUST do. Without a high profile program and the right backing, I fear that space exploration and travel will become a victim of budget battles and I wonder if it will ever again have the the emphysis that it needs. We don't have a President Kennedy inspiring us to send a man (or woman) to the moon (or a host of other seemingly far away locations) and safely return him (or her) within this decade.

We don't have someone inspiring us to develope an affordable and safe successor to the Space Shuttle Program. We don't have someone motivating us to find faster ways to travel the astronomical distances of light years (warp drive technology to borrow a term from Star Trek). Proxima Centauri, (also called Proxima, or Alpha Centauri C), considered the closest star to our own Sun, is approximately 4.24 light years from our Sun. A light year is the distance that light travels in a vacume within one Julian year and is equal to approximately 10 trillion kilometers or 6 trillion miles. (Wikipedia) A plane flying 400.2 miles per hour would take 20 years to fly the 93 million plus miles from the Earth to the Sun. (kidsinflight) So you can see why it would be necessary to travel faster than the speed of light to travel the vast distances of space within one's own lifetime.

President Kennedy had a lot of compelling things to say about going into space in his "We Choose to go to the Moon" speech to Rice University (September 12, 1962), including that space like science didn't have a conscience of its own and that if it were to be used for good or bad that would depend upon man. He also thought that space could be explored without feeding wars and other mistakes that man has made. He said that man was determined and space exploration would go on with out without us but that this generation wanted to be a part of it and would lead it.

"Why go into space when we have so many problems here on Earth?" and "What does the space program do for me?" are a couple of questions that are often raised about having a space program and funding it. What is often overlooked and/or forgotten is that for every dollar spent on the space program in research and development there is a huge return (around $7) in terms of corporate and personal income taxes from increased jobs and ecomonic growth (NASA's Spinoffs Bringing Space Down to Earth). The space program has helped forge and improve countless products and services. Satellite television and dishes would be kind of pointless without Satellites orbiting the world. The navigation system in your car wouldn't work to well without the Statellites either. Countless software programs have been adopted and utilized for all kinds fo things as a result of the space program. Imagine that we wouldn't have Google Earth or probably a host of other Google products. Much of the technology sector, medicine, and electronics owe a huge debt to work that they've done with or for the space program.

The future benefits of space exploration and travel are almost limitless. All kinds of new materials have been created through the space program, what kinds of other materials can we create through continued space programs, maybe we can derive a replacement for plastic that doesn't use petroleum or all kinds of other materials. By building colonies in space and colonizing planets we can avoid many of the natural disasters that we've experienced in the last few years. Can you imagine no more earthquakes, torandos, hurricanes, tsunamis, and flooding? How about planets for the Palestinines and Isralies? The possibilities are only limited by our imaginations.

As the Shuttle Program is winding down Boeing announced that it will lay off 510 workers with the program ending. We need to make space exploration a priority again. In today's world I don't think that any one country needs to lead in space, but if we can pool more of our resouces together and do more projects in cooperation with with ESA, Japan, India, Russia, and other countries involved in space now (and countries interested in becoming involved) we can achieve some great things. How about we commit to building a spacecraft capable of traveling at light speed then we could make a trip to Alpa Centouri and back within a decade instead of over the course of generations? How about finding some planets with an atmoshpere that would support human life and building some colonies?

NASA video: Space shuttle Endeavour final launch

Earth viewed from the moon by Neil Armstrong

Here are some links that you might be interested in
-NASA
-From cell phones to computers, technology from NASA's space program continues to touch everyday life
-Space Spin-offs: Technology Derived from the Space Program: Lots of interesting links
-Benefits of the Space Program
-Shuttle Missions: Lost of information on the Shuttle missions

Prince William Married Kate And I Passed the PMP!

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sun, 01 May 2011 03:35:00 +0000

On Friday Prince William married Kate and I passed the PMP. While much of the world was watching the pagentry of the royal wedding and the associated festivities, I was busy answering questions on the PMP exam.

For many years I've wanted to take the PMP exam (Project Management Professional) from PMI and Friday I took the exam and passed it. Since a little time has passed now, the elation level has dropped but I'm still pretty excited about it. It has been a long term goal to get my PMP, but life seemed to always get in the way. In true project management fashion, I'd just like to say that I'll schedule my lessons learned session for another time but for now the serious lessons learned about actual test preparation and strategy are out of scope.

Last Summer I became aware of a virtual PMP preparation session being offered at my company. A different Knowledge Area is covered every week and you review the material with colleagues scattered in different locations online and via telephone conference. I thought that it would help give some structure to my studying efforts and would help me to stay motivated. They've been doing this for a few years and I had heard that a few collegues had used this as a part of their preparation. I was glad that I was able to get a spot in the wave that started in September. I'd say that this is when my current journey really started and I became serious about taking the exam.

As often happens in the project world and with life in general, my projects heated up and I was too busy to study very much during Decemeber, January, and well into February. The nature of my projects meant that I needed to work several weekends and some pretty long weeks. My orginal timeline had been to take the exam in December or January, but I had to rebaseline when my project load was so crazy. When I could see some light at the end of the tunnel, I scheduled some time off and the exam for April 29th.

I bought a copy of the PM Prepcast. in August. This is an multimedia series of audio and video programs that can be played on your iPod or other devices. I listended to the various episodes when I was driving around by myself and watched episodes on my computer. It is a good way to prepare for the PMP, because you can make use of non-tradtional study time and listening (watching too) helps to reinforce your learning. For those of you that have a hard time focusing on dry text books, this is a really good way to cover material you need to know for the exam.

I was on cloud nine when I saw that I had passed. Just to make sure that there wasn't some kind of malfunction at my testing unit, I confirmed with the guy running the part of the testing center where I took the exam that I had passed, he gave me a print out that showed how I did in the areas where your performance is reported.

I knew that my father would be happy for my accomplishment and was ancious to get a hold of him and spread the good news. At first I only got his answering machine and he returned my call about an hour later or so. He was so excited, you could really hear it it in his voice. I know that this brought back his own memories of taking his first certification, all those years ago. I know that he remembered how my mother helped him study for his exam and the pride that he feld when he was certified in his profession. I have to thank my wife and kids for putting up with all my studying the last few months. They really supported me more than anyone can expect their family to do. If they had not been behind me, there is no way that I would have been able to do it.

It wasn't too long after I scheduled my exam date that I realized that there was also this little wedding going on at the same time. That just makes the passing the PMP all that more special for me. Lots of people have taken and passed the PMP, but how many people can say that they did when Prince William got maried? So it is with great pleasure that I now add those initials after my name.....

Until next time.

Darryl Heron PMP

Photo Credit: "Success, succeed, business, money sign" courtesy of lockstockb.

P.s. Be sure to check out my Systems-Overload Blog and look for me online at some of the usual locations.

Goodbye Howard Cunningham And June Cleaver

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 02:33:00 +0000

With the recent passing of Tom Bosley and Barbara Billingsley I just want to take a little time to reflect on their deaths. Both played television icons that will live on long after their deaths via televsion syndication, cable television, DVD sales, and overseas markets. How many Americans haven't at least heard of Happy Days and Leave It to Beaver, it they're not familar with the Howard Commingham and June Cleaver?

Both shows were set in the 50's and for lots of people including myself who wasn't born yet and didn't live through those years, these shows were and still are our window into that time period. Mr. C. (as Fonzi referred to him) was a role model of fatherhood for lots of people. While there are lots of jokes about how perfectly dressed June Cleaver was no matter what, her character defined how many people view mothers and the role of wives in society.

Life certainly appeared simpler on these shows than it has been since that time period. The problems faced by Richie and the gang an those of the Beaver seem downright simple compared to the problems and issues that we're facing today. This probably has a lot to do with a fondness that we have for the "Good Ole Days" and much of the desire to want to turn back the clock. Images depicted on those shows are very welcoming and reassuring. There is a civility and friendliness displayed between neighboors and people that you meet and people seemed to genuinely care about each other. Things were black and white without all the grey area that we have today with people doing all kinds of things that they should know in the back of their mind (or whereever their conscience is hiding) are wrong, and doing them anyways. You might even venture to say that this was the American Camelot.

Of course televison, movies, and books can choose to focus on certain things often ignoring others. Given the things that have happened since the 50's there was obviously a lot that was ignored or was brewing under the surface. There was not too much involvement of minorities in either of the shows and given America's melting pot image and demographics, there were plenty of minorities around even in the 50's. Equal rights and the role of women in the work place were not really takled other than being the sterotypical role of women being only mothers and wives. The taboo issues were never reallly touched and we never really saw a darker side of Howard and June, certainly there were areas where they would have both been flawed. You have to wonder how they would have dealt with some of the issues that seem to divide us today?

Much of life and attitudes in those shows are worth bringing back and if given a chance, I think that much of the American population would like to be able to return to the more simpler life of the 50's. In fact there are lots of politicians who have hijacked the "family values" theme for their own corroupt and warpped use. Americans would like to be able to trust their political and business leaders again, but that trust has been violated and a true return to honor in those fields seems like a long way off in the horizon (if it is there at all). Most leaders in that era did seem to genuinely care about their country and the American people as opposed to those today that seem to only be looking to line their pockets at any cost. You wouldn't have expected CEOs back then to get millions of dollars while shipping the jobs of their workforce off to the far corners of the world in the name of Shareholder value. Eisenhower warned the public about the Millitary Industrial Complex, you got to believe that he would not have started a War on Terror, or wasted taxpayer money so irresponsibibly as many of our leaders since.

Finally, I'd like to say goodbye to actors portraying Howard Cunningham and June Cleaver. You've created characters that many of us identify with in our window to that time period. There are lots of fond memories of your shows and the chacters you created will live on in our memories and new generations will continually be exposed and get to know those characters via methods that are probably not even conceived of yet today.

Photo Credit: "Oldsmobile Super 88" courtesy of straymuse.

Germany- 20 Years After Reunification

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 05:23:00 +0000

October 3, 2010 marks Twenty Years that Germany has been reunified. I couldn't let this event pass without saying a few words. I'll try not to repeat too much of what I wrote last year in honor of the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and
German Reunification- Fall of the Berlin Wall 20 Years Later but as we get older we do sometimes repeat ourselves.

First of all you have to wonder where all the time has gone, can it really be twenty years now? We have two generations of people that were born after the event and have no idea of what it was like before. For these post German unification- Fall of the Berlin Wall generations, it must seem just plain stupid that we ever lived that way and that we put up with life being that way.

I never got to experience the East/West situation first hand because by the time that I had moved to Germany, and it had already been more than 10 years since it had all happened. I do remember how exciting it was that the Iron Curtain was falling down and all the hope that people felt. It seemed that if the Berlin Wall could fall and Germany was united again that anything was possible, what a great feeling that was, we could stand to have some optimism like that again!

The countries and people living behind the iron curtain were thrust into Western society and Captialism and while many joined wholeheartedly, many others were reluctanly pulled along. Can you imagine how much of a change that was for all those people that new nothing but life behind the Iron Curtain (and even those who were fortunate enough to taste life in the West)? I remember a scene from Moscow on the Hudson, a movie where Robin Williams is a circus performer from Russia and while performing in New York, he decides to defect. One scene in the movie his is flabergasted by the ceral selection in a local supermarket and is almost paralysed with having to make a choice. Can you imagine going from bread lines to being able to buy 100+ different breakfast cereals? On paper and in the back of our minds we think oh what a great change for these people, but for a lot of them the transition was not and is not easy, they're still people that have had to deal with some tremendous change.

Germany is in a bit of a bad position in the Europe that is emerging. West Germany was properous before with a strong economy. They were certainly glad that Germany was one country again and that they could travel around freely (how refreshing that had to feel for so many people!) but they probably had not idea of the financial costs that would come with welcoming the former East Germany in. In West Germany they've paid a lot of taxes because of the reunification and the various projects to develop East Germany. The jobs have not really lived up to what was hoped. Lots of jobs are continually drawn out of Germany into other former Iron Curtain countries where the labor costs are cheaper. So you have a population that has had to spend a lot of taxes on reunification, but business is not returning that investment into Germany. Something doesn't seem right about that!

I briefly saw a report on a daily morning show about a survey on how happy Germans were after 20 years of unification, the figures and the the questions asked seemed to echo much of what I had read in Germans Disappointed by Reunification, New Poll Shows. From the story just mentioned, it was pointed out that while many easten Germans felt exploited and that they didn't really get a good deal out of hte reunification, Manfred Guellner said that "western Germans have the feeling that they have simply footed the bill for eastern Germany". Since more than 1 Trillion dollars have been transfered from West to East since the reunification, you can understand why many might feel that way. Also, bear in mind that 1 Trillion dollars for Germany, a country much smaller than the U.S., 1 Trillion dollars is a lot of money, heck it should be considered a lot of money anywhere!

The Fall of the Berlin Wall, the Breakup of the Iron Curtain, and the German Reunification caught much of the world by surprise and it seems that our leaders didn't have too much time to recover and re-adjust before the current War on Terror. After all those years of the Cold War and all the money that was spent, there should have been more thought given to how the world should move on afterwards instead of getting drawn into another endless set of wars.

So on the 20th Anniversary of German Reunification, I wish to say congratulations to Germany and to all the people living in the former Iron Curtain. I'm glad that you got to breakaway from the awful Cold War era existance that you were living. I hope that we can find a good way forward, that you didn't just trade one form of oppression for another. Capitalism (and the Free Market) and our Democracies, need some sterring to keep us away from the iceberg on the horizon. I think that we'd all rather have choice than live under oppressive totalitarian regimes and freedom means more than being able to buy Coke or Pepsi at your local market.

You might also be interest in the post that I wrote about my trip to Dresden last year.

Photo credit: Market place view of the Dresden's famous Frauenkirche taken in August 2009

September 11th- Nine Years Later

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 03:07:00 +0000

Today is the Nineth Anniversary of September Eleventh. I hope tht you'll take time from all the hype and all that is going on in your life and stop to think about what it means to you. On this day nine years ago a terrible tradegy happened to America and the world. People that died in those awful attacks that day came from different parts of the world, had different nationalities, and differing world and religious beliefs. Most of the victims that day had not met each other previously, bar the people that worked together or were traveling together that day, but now they were all brought together and share a common event. The world will never be the same.

I hope that we as peoples of the world can be driven to aspire for greatness, to look for ways that we have in common and can relate to each other. I hope that we will build and create great things. I hope that we'll raise our kids to be good and wonderful people that believe that anything is possible. I'm really glad that I discovered Project 2996 because its goal of remembering each victim is something positive and a worthy aspiration, one that I hope will be fullfilled, is certainly a better response than some of the other things we've heard about since September Eleventh.

I hope that you'll join me in remembering and preserving the memory of six of the heros of that day:

Keith Roma

Keith Roma was 27 and with Fire Patrol. Last year when deciding who I wanted to write about I was drawn by a picture of him holding a baby. His daughter (Samantha) was seven at the time of his death. I discovered that there had been some controversy about including him in the list of FDNY victims of September 11^th list, because the New York Fire Patrol was not officially part of the FDNY. There were witnessed accounts of him saving people that day and he died trying to save 9 people. You can read more about Keith in my tibute from last year.

Christopher Santora

Christopher Santora was 23 and part of Engine Company 54. He was one of the youngest fire fighter to have died. He had been a substitute teacher and even turned down a permanent job at junior high to follow in his father’s footsteps as a fire fighter. He played “stickball” as it was called in his neighborhood. He wasn’t a Mets or Yankees fan but rooted for the Toronto Blue Jays. You can read more about ChristopherKeith in my tibute from last year.

Joseph P. Henry

Joseph P. Henry was 25 and with Ladder 21 out of Manhattan. Last year when I read the following tibute to him I decided that I wanted to include him the the people that I was honoring...“I was trapped in building one for an hour. I would not be alive if it weren't for the firemen who unlocked and broke down the doors to the stairwells. I want Joseph's family to know that when the time comes and I get married and have a family, I will name my first born boy after him. He was an amazing person and I will forever keep him and his family in my prayers.” Vanessa Sierra, college classmate (from the CNN Tribute to September 11th). Julia Corrales, his girlfriend, wrote that that he had only been a fireman for 11 months before September 11th and that they were going to go to Ireland on their first vacation together on October 19th, 2001. (from the Irish Tribute website). You can read more about Joseph in my tibute from last year.

Karl Henri Joseph

Fire fighter Karl Henri Joseph was 25 and working from Brooklyn. He was an EMT. Karl and his family came to the U.S. from Hati. Lucy Bouciquot, a family friend wrote in a tribute at Legacy "He liked Haiti, but America was his home." Mr. Beehler, a fire fighter that went to the academy with him said "Karl had a way of shrugging off the ribbing. He had a great smile and a great laugh...As far as the job, he was top-notch." (from his Legacy entry). Karl is another shinning example of an immigrant working hard for a better life in America. Tuxedo Cat Grandma wrote a nice tribute 2996: Karl Henri Joseph in 2006 worth checking out.

Dana Hannon

Dana Hannon, 29 at the time of his death was the first of the group of fire fighters that I came across when preparing for last year's tribute. Before being a professional fire fighter, he was a volunteer that became a Captain before becoming a professional. While a fire fighter in Bridgeport, Connecticut he was awarded a medal of valour for a rescue there. Dana proposed to Allison Dansen from the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia! They married the folowing fall. "He was the best brother anybody could ask for," said his sister, Kyle. (tribute at Legacy). Danielle at Stupid Trivia wrote A TRIBUTE TO DANA HANNON a nice article that I assume was a Project 2996 tribute in 2006.

David W Laychak

I first wrote about David W Laychak two years ago. Since he was my first Project 2996 tribute I think of him often when I think about Project 2996 and September Eleventh. David worked as a civilian at the Pentagon. His brother was largely responsible for the memorial at the Pentagon which opened two years ago. I'm grateful to his sister (Molly Laychak Walen) for the information that she provided to me. I was pleased to see that Ms. Laychak put a comment up after last year's article. David was a civilan working at the Pentagon.

As I wrap up my tribute this year, lets remember the lives of these and other true heros that lost their lives on September Eleventh. To the families and friends of those that lost loved ones, although they're gone they're certainly not, nor they ever be forgotten. The world is a better place for countless ways because all of these 2996 people lived. May their memory live on in spouses, parents, siblings, children, grandchildre, friends, and even in those that never met them.

My Other Posts About September Eleventh...

Photo credit: "Twin Towers III" courtesy of mrgoose.

Input Wanted for September 11th Post

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:05:00 +0000

As the 9th Anniversary of September 11th draws near, I'm starting to prepare for my post and was hoping that I might be able to get some help from our readers. This will be the 3rd year that I've written a tribute honoring some of the victims of September Eleventh. Three years ago I stumbled upon Project 2996, a sight dedicated to remembering the victims of September 11th and making sure that their memories live on, and became involved two years ago writing a tribute to David Lychak. Last year I expanded the number of people that I paid tribute to, including some firefighters.

I'm still thinking about what I'd like to do this year, so your ideas and feedback are wellcome. I'd like to pay tribute to the people that I've writen about last year but I also don't want write the same things that I did last year, so I'm looking for additional information that could be provided about:

Keith Roma (27)- of the Fire Patrol
Christopher Santora (23)- of Engine Company 54
Joseph P. Henry (25)- of Ladder 21
Karl Henri Joseph (25)- an EMT
Dana Hannon (29)- a NYC Firefighter
David W Laychak (40)- a civial working at the Pentagon

I'd like to know about: How their family and friends have coped with their loss? What people have done to preserve their memory? How and what the family and friends are up to? I'd also like to know if the families and friends have any other things that they'd like to share. What I don't wish to do is publish anything that would effect the privacy of the family and friends, so if there is anything that you'd like to share with me that you don't wish published, please let me know, because I know that the family and friends have suffered greatly and some of them would like to stay out of the lime light.

Because Project 2996 is dedicated to remembering the victims of September Eleventh, they'd like to see as may tributed published as possible on September 11th, ultimately, they'd like to see a tribute for all 2996 victims, consider yourself invited to write your own tribute. They've provided some good resources to aid you in your search at their Tips on Research page. You can learn more about Project 2996 at their What Is Page? It sure would be great to see Project 2996 meet their goal.

You can provide your input in the comments section below or you can email me at systems.overload.time at googlemail.com. I look forward to getting your feedback and seeing some great tributes.

Here are links to the posts that I've done on September Eleventh in the past

Good Bye, Ronnie James Dio

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Mon, 24 May 2010 03:53:00 +0000

Heavy Metal's legendary singer, Ronnie James Dio, died of Stomach Cancer on May 16th at the age of 67. I thought that I'd like to say a few words.

I woke won morning in 1983 to the amazing sounds of "Rainbow in the Dark" blaring from my clock radio. I was immediately captivated by the vocals of Ronnie James Dio. This was one of those moments that you never forget. I was fortunate enough to see Dio in concert in the Summer of 1984 on his "Last In Line" tour along with Twisted Sister at Pine Knob. This was one of many great concerts for me that Summer. Those were the days before CDs, when we listened to cassettes.

Like a lot of other boys at the time, I was into Heavy Metal and Hard Rock and had known Ronnie James Dio as the guy that replaced Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer in Black Sabbath. He was also the first singer in Rainbow, the band founded by guitar legend Ritchie Blackmore after leaving Deep Purple. Between various stints with various incarnations of Black Sabbath, he had his own band. After replacing Ozzy, Dio seemed forever tied to Black Sabbath, not ever really get too far from the band as you can see if you look at his musical history. Kind of like Billy Martin and the Yankees, he would get a way and always get pulled back in.

Dio was one of the artists that organized "Hear N Aid" that got various Heavy Metal and Hard Rock musicians together to raise money for Africa as a sort of Hard Rock answer to U.S.A. for Africa. This was not to be his only venture into the world of charity and giving. Manager and wife, Wendy Dio has requested that fans make a donation to the Ronnie Jame Dio "Stand Up And Shout" Cancer Fund (you can read more about it at Dio's homepage).

Dio revealed last Summer had stomach cancer, after wrapping a tour in Atlantic City with Heaven And Hell ( the latest version of Black Sabbath). Wendy Dio has written quite a bit about his battle with Cancer at the website. On March 12, Wendy wrote... "Well, now it has been Ronnie’s 7th chemo, another cat scan and another endoscopy, and the results are good – the main tumor has shrunk considerably..." Like so many others, Ronnie James Dio wasn't victorious in his battle with Cancer, but he fought and kept the music going.

Heavy Metal, especially that which Dio, has had a lot of good verses evil themes, many of them very epic in nature. I thought that I'd site a few of the more famous lines from Dio. (I don't even dare to try to match the imagery)

From "Heaven And Hell"- Black Sabbath (you can read the rest of the lyrics at Lyrics Freak here)

The devil is never a maker The less that you give, you're a taker

The lover of lifes not a sinner The ending is just a beginner The closer you get to the meaning The sooner you'll know that you're dreaming

Well if it seems to be real, it's illusion For every moment of truth, there's confusion in life The world is full of kings and queens Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams

And they'll tell you black is really white The moon is just the sun at night And when you walk in golden halls You get to keep the gold that falls

From "Rainbow in the Dark" - Dio (read the rest of the lyrics at Lyrics Freak here)

When there's lightning You know it always brings me down Cause it's free and I see that it's me Who's lost and never found

No sign of the morning coming You've been left on your own Like a Rainbow in the Dark

Do your demons Do they ever let you go When you've tried do they hide deep inside

From "The Last in Line" - Dio (read the rest of lyrics at Lyrics Freak here)

We're a ship without a storm The cold without the warm Light inside the darkness that it needs We're a laugh without a tear The hope without the fear We are coming - home

We'll know for the first time If we're evil or divine We're the last in line It's the angel or the beast And the answer lies between The good and bad

And lastly from the "Mob Rules" -Black Sabbath (read the rest of lyrics at Lyrics Freak here)

If you listen to fools, The mob rules

Upon hearing the news, I played several songs from Dio at Blip.fm. I'll be getting out my CDs with Dio to hear him again. My condolences to the family, friends, and fans of Ronnie James Dio. This was truly a sad day for music. Dio was such a big part of my teenage years and my early twenties. I'd like to thank him for the music and for all that he has meant to me over the years. Although he might not have to wait to much longer for "the judgment", in the hearts of his fans, he'll always be the "Last in Line" singing about those epic battles of good verse evil. It is really amazing how the lines between good and evil have become so blurred that it isn't so easy now a days to know the good from the bad. Ronnie, it seems that you work isn't done. R.I.P, Ronnie.

Here are some links that you might like if you're a fan of Ronnie James Dio...

The official website

Become a fan at Facebook

The official Twitter account

Wikipedia entry on Rio James Dio

Yahoo story about his death

Photo credit: Heaven And Hell 5 from Wikipedia Commons

DSDS 2010 Finals Tonight

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:02:00 +0000

Tonight (April 17th) is the final and it boils down to Mehrzad Marashi and Menowin Fröhlich, who will be the German Superstar for 2010 (Season 7)?

I enjoy hearing good music and seeing musicians that are good at it. I'm not so much into the whole reality tv thing and the trumped up drama that goes along with it. I have to also say that I'm not really happy with the selection process. If the process were truly democratic it would be one person one vote, not whoever is willing to spend 50 cents per vote to vote. This is not democratic at all, only a matter of who's fans are willing to spend more to vote. Every season has some controversy, let's face it that is something that the networks and show producers want to see. They want to have people talking about their show and as the expression goes ever bad press is still press. This season I was disappointed to see Nelson Sangare didn't make it to the top 7, I had him pegged for the top 3. This season there seemed to be an awful lot of problems with the candidates remembering the text, even Menowin had some problems at Dieter Bohlen made a comment about "Ayo Technology" from Milow sounding like alphabet soup.

I'm not happy with the way that Menowin is being "pushed". Last year the Bild promoted Annemarie Eilfeld (wikipedia entry), there was almost a story about her every week. This season there seems to be an awful lot of coverage of Menowin. Watching the show last week it seemed like the jury was really pushing Menowin, almost will to give him the DSDS title then and there. I love a good Cinderella story, to see the underdog come out on top, but we've had a few other recent down on their luck Superstars (Thomas Godoj, and in particular Mark Medlock) and I want the music to be the story not promotion by the Bild or someone at RTL that thinks Meonwin is the person they want to hang the success of DSDS 2010 upon.

One thing that I've been disappointed with about the show, is that they don't really promote the winnners. With the exception of Mark Medlock, you almost don't hear anything at all about the past winners. One of the reasons that Mark Medlock has done so well is that he really learned how to "play" Dieter Bohlen (wikipedi entry), so he didn't have too many problems getting promoted. He and Dieter even went on tour together. When you think about how many people watch the show and are fans of this or that candidate, it seems hard to believe that it promoted properly, that more of the former winners and candidates wouldn't be doing better and be better well known.

Both Mehrzadt and Menowin can dance and have moves (this can't be said for all of the contestants this year). Menowin's voice is higher and more suited toward's Michael Jackson type songs. He sang Santana's Maria Maria with an intensity that I really liked. He did a good version of the Simply Red song "If You Don't Know Me By Now", since the lead singer for Simply Red has a higher voice, it matched pretty well. I also really liked the version of "We Are the World" that he did (but in the back of my mind I kept waiting to here the famous singers of that song chime it).

Mehrzadt can perform a variety of songs and can really give a song a lot of feeling. He gave the Lionel Richie song "Hello" more feeling that Lionel Richie himself gave it. Although Dieter Bohlen seemed to that that "Runaway (Del Shannon)" was too old for the audience, I wonder how many out in tvland were enjoying that golden oldie? I also thought that "Mr. Boombastic" (Shaggy) was fun, even if Dieter thinks Shaggy is one of the worst singers. Mehrzad seems like a class act. Last week, in his thrid song, Mehrzad proposed to his girlfriend, so regardless of if he wins or not, this show will always have a special memory for the two of them as a couple.

I've seen the set list for tonight...

Menowin will sing...

That's What Friends Are For (Dionne Warwick)
Billie Jean (Michael Jackson)

Mehrzat will sing...

Endless Love (Lionel Richie)
Fresh (Kool & The Gang)

Both will sing "Don't Believe" written by Dieter Bohlen. I would have almost bet that Menowin would do at least one Michael Jackson song (so not really a surprise here), while I'm sure that Mehrzat will give the Lionel Richie song a lot of feeling. Here's hoping for a good show. If you're a fan of any of the other candidates from this or any of the other past shows, it is worth having a look at the Wikipedia entry to see who has their own webpages and who is making a career post DSDS.

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Here are some links that you might want to check out.

Photo credit: DJ Night 3 courtesy of fangol

Our Tenth Wedding Anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 03:00:00 +0000

April 7th war our tenth wedding anniversary, so before going any farther I'd just like to thank my wife saying "yes" and agreeing to share her life with me! While I wish to avoid the cliché about it seeming like only yesterday, it doesn't seem like we've been married for ten years! I don't claim to know all the secrets to a long-lasting and happy marriage, and while there are factors which are outside of our control, I can share what I know about my marriage.

I've found someone to share my life with and someone to share her life with me. I think that this is what most everyone is looking for, ultimately. Sure you might want this or that in your spouse or significant other, but you want to be able to share your happy moments as well as your sad ones, for better or worse as the vows often say.

In the beginning of most relationships there is the excitement of getting to know the other person, everything is new and exciting. While there is the honeymoon period to your marriage, you could also say that there is a honeymoon period to most of your relationships (regardless of if you are married or not). Some couples that have been married for a long time say that they do various things to keep the spirit of the honeymoon period alive and to keep their relationship exciting and new. Other couples do various things to rekindle the spirit of that honeymoon period. I think that you need to find some sort of balance so that this doesn't drive you and your spouse crazy with trying too hard and that you don't drown in the mundane parts of life or in all its tribulations.

I believe that common or shared interests are essential. Early in relationships you can have lots of differences, maybe even there is a spark or chemistry because you're so different than your significant other that drives your relationship, but later on it is helpful to have interests that you share. My wife and I both like to travel and learn about places that we haven't been before. We both get excited about visiting a new place that we haven't seen before, or going back to a place that we really enjoyed. Some couples have hobbies that they share together. The more things that you share that both enjoy, then this can also mean that more of your time together can be fun quality time that you both really enjoy.

Raising kids together can really help bring a couple together. In many marriages the children become the focus of our lives. When the kids are little there are the wonderful memories that you have of all the firsts and all the cute things that they do. Later on there is all the learning and development of your kids. A word of warning, while kids can bring couples closer together, they won't necessarily save a marriage. Not everyone wants kids and there is a lot of work and responsiblity that goes with having kids, so it is not a decission that should be made too lightly. It sure is hard to beat the satisfaction of seeing what good kids you have and somehow feeling somewhat responsible for that.

Mine is not a prefect relationship. In fact, if you were to ask my wife, I'm sure that she could list some things that I could do better in our relationship. What I think is important is to realize that nobody is perfect and not drive yourself crazy trying to find "the perfect relationship". On the other hand you also need to realize when you're not happy with the relationship and get out. If you're miserable now, why do you think that you'll be happy a year from now or farther down the road with your significant other. You also need to realize when you're in a toxic relationship and run. I've known lots of women who wanted to fix this or that guy, but it is really hard to change someone and being able to change someone into what you want sometimes makes them "unexciting" and "unattractive".

My wife has a German passport and nationality but she is American in her mind, soul, and heart. From early on she had an attraction to American things and people. She was an exhange student in high school and was able to spend some time in America. While she is German, she often felt herself being American. How does this lead to a successful marriage you might ask? It is hard to quantify, but this is one of those intangilbe things in our relationship that makes it work. I used to dream about living in Europe, and through my wife I've been able to do this. Through me, my wife was able to live in the U.S. for a year, have an American family that lovers her, and further cultivate her "Americaness". Maybe there is the secrete ingridient to marriage, that bonding or imprinting experience that draws the couple together. This might also be the "this is our story" component, every marriage and every relationship has its own "unique" story behind it.

I remember that my grandfather used to describe my grandmother as "good friend" when he talked about her to others. He used to say that talking to her about what happened to him during the course of his day was one of the things that bothered him the most after she died. I'd say that is one of the things that I was looking for, regardless of if I really knew it or not.

I remember before getting married having said that I thought that it should be harder to get married, to which one of my sisters said to be careful what you wished for. One of the things that I had meant by that statement was that was if people had to think more about marriage before getting married, there would be less divorces. When Christine and I said our wedding vows, we made a comitment to each other. While we've certainly been blessed, we both decided that that our vows meant something to us and that we were going to be there for each other

Couples need to find a way to disagree and to fight. This is one area where many marriages and relationships fall apart. It is darn near impossible that two people will ever agree on everything. You might be able to go a long time without finding and major disagreements but they are bound to happen and you need to be able to know that your relationship can survive the differences. How this is handled will vary with every couple and every relationship. If there are never any disagreements, you have to wonder if the relationship is in good shape, there might be warning signs. If one person is always going along with other person they might not care about all the small decisions but they might also be building up a resentment over always giving in.

Christine, thank you for taking me into your life and being my wife! I look forward to many more years to come. If you're interested you can read about how we met, the wedding, and another post that I wrote in honor our 7th Annivesary. I find it hard to believe that it has been ten years. When I think about couples celebrating 25 year anniversaries, that doesn't seem so far off now any more. I hope that everyone can find some to share their life with that makes them happy and is good for them.

Photo taken at the Wiesbaden Biebrich Schloss (castle) April 7, 2000.

Our Star for Oslo 2010 Final Tonight

noreply@blogger.com (dcheronfamily) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:05:00 +0000

Tonight is the Finals in the "Unser Star für Oslo 2010" (Our Star for Oslo 2010) televised contest in Germany. The winner will be Germany's entry into the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest being broadcast in May. Among some of the more notable careers that the contest has helped launch are ABBA, who performed Waterloo in 1974 and Céline Dion who performed "Ne partez pas sans moi" in 1988 oddly enough for Switzerland.

Germany is tried of finishing poorly for so long and they do some pretty creative things to win (or at least finish better). One of the first efforts that I'm aware of was that of ProSeiben personality Stefan Raab hosting a contest on one of his shows that resulted in Max Mutzke performing "Can't Wait Until Tonight" for Germany in the 2004 contest (note Max is performing this is song in the video embedded at the top of this post). This year ProSeiben and ARD have been airing a contest to determine who'll represent Germany in the 2010 Eurovision. While there are more and more music casting shows, this is first that is co-hosted on two different networks, with ARD being publicly run no less.

I remember seeing some of the promotion for Max when he was going to perform at Eurovision and getting excited about his song. The song was very catchy and sounded like something that Joe Cocker could have sung very well. I watched the 2004 Eurovision and realized that I had somehow gotten old and out of touch because most of the music being performed didn't appeal to me and I was surprised to see that Max didn't finish near the top. I had kind of written off the whole Eurovision experience off after that.

I didn't see the Unser Star Für Oslo from the beginning but came into it later on. I found it really refreshing that this was focused on people that could really sing and not creating drama and conflict. Clearly most anyone of the candidates could do a good job representing Germany. I've also enjoyed that the jury has not been overly critical, obscene, or uncivilized. Maybe the performances didn't lend themselves to those types of critiques but it has been nice not hearing any below the belt commentary.

Tonight it boils down to who will be representing Germany in Oslo this year, will it be Lena Meyer-Landrut or Jennifer Braun? I don't know if I'll be tuning into Eurovision this year or not, but it sure would be nice to see one of these two women win it. I'm looking forward to hearing some good music tonight.

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