It has been a rainy day – perfect to return to updating SisterBetty.org.  Most of the updating is behind the scenes and involves Cascading Style Sheets.  However, if you’re curious, Stairways of San Francisco has a new look.

While I’ve been quiet here the past two months, I’ve been busy over at Radiationworks.  Take a look at the NS Otto Hahn, a cargo ship built by Germany in 1960 to test the feasibility of nuclear propulsion in civilian service.  During 1960’s and 1970’s, you could have cruised the oceans in one of its well appointed staterooms.  If you don’t mind slumming, you might still be able to take a ride.  The reactor was removed from the Otto Hahn in 1983 and replaced with an oil-fired power plant.  Renamed the MS Hua Kang He, the ship is still carrying cargo around Asia.

30 December 2002 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

The telephone rang this morning with news that an old friend is in the hospital and unlikely to make it to the New Year. 

I acclimated to losing friends in San Francisco.  At least two people I’ve known died in each year I’ve lived here; some years more.  San Francisco, despite its big city reputation, is in fact a small town.  Even those who aren’t close friends create a small fissure in the structure of this place when they leave. 

Grief, for me, is less about the physical death and more about the absence.  The space once occupied remains empty:  an invisible gap which is invariably tangible only to those who knew the same space filled. 

A friend of mine commented to me last week:  “Why do people have pets?  Why do they knowingly bring something into their lives which they know will die before they do and for which they will have to grieve?”  The answer to me seemed obvious.  But, then again, sometimes the weight of grief can outweigh the experience of love and the avoidance of one appears to circumvent the other.

30 December 2002 - later - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

Lots of updates to Stairways of San Francisco.  I'm starting to look a little like David and his supermarkets.   Well, at least it's not a collection of ceramic toads littering the house.  Special thanks to Drew for some related and  timely bits of San Francisco history. 

By the way, I'm very pleased to say I had a hand in pushing Drew to start his own web site.  Wander over there and take a look.

Thanks to Mark, too.  He doesn't know it, but I picked apart his source code over the last few weeks to figure out how to make Cascading Style Sheets.  Kudos to my Aussie pal Justin for helping me integrate it all seamlessly.

And, if you are especially crafty, you'll find my first music video hiding on this site.  It features trains from an upcoming rail journey.