Llama farms and software, from GB

In my efforts to make this blog more interactive, I'm going to paste some replies I received (they can be found in those little tiny font links under some of my posts) and post them as new posts, so they're easier to find. Last summer, "GB" responded to my introduction with this slice of his life:

Ah, the beauty of life -- and the interplay of art and science....All I can say is that, on the one hand, I love relaxing in the sunset rays of the llama farm where my daughter plays with (I mean, trains) her llama Caballo. And on the other hand, in the world of work, I continue with my conversational role-playing software -- it received a patent in February, and got some investment funds in May. That will allow us to offer it as a low-cost, web-based authoring tool later this year.

You can learn more about llamas at the link under Places I Enjoy Visiting, which you can find at the left side of this screen. The link to GB's software undertaking (which I, ahem, did some proofreading on several eons ago), is in this list as well.

My Mother's Wide Circle

My mother died last summer, and the late summer and fall have been filled with all sorts of memories and activities, not least of them the monumental task of writing thank-you notes to all who donated to our First UUU Church of Wichita or Harry Hynes hospice. I didn't even try to respond to every card sent our way or I'd still be writing thank-you notes into the fourth millenium. I was struck by how wide the ripples flowed from the love and creativity of my mother's life.

A former colleague of my father's, not even one of his closer ones, a young woman who worked with him in a few recent undertakings, long past his days at Wichita State University, was one of many people touched by Mom, even if distantly and through several degrees of separation. She wrote to my father, "I hope that your creative self can go on, even after what you must be going through. As they say in Les Mis: To love another person is to see the face of God."

Another of my father's former students, much closer to him but much further away in time, wrote: My voice joins the chorus of love and support from every corner of the country...seeds of love you scattered far and wide.

And, finally, from a very dear friend of my father's and a high school friend of mine, who walked a hard road for both herself and her own mother, a card citing an Inuit legend, "Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy," and to which she added: I love you.

My hopes for us all are that our creative selves can go on, fulfilling not only ourselves but others we might not even know we touched, and that through love we each can bask in the face of God.