I sent in an email to the DI yesterday and got a call back from my friend who was working there just to verify it was me.

I decided to run the finger command on her email and found this:

Ten days after his son, Alex, was killed in a car accident, Reverend William Sloane Coffin delivered this sermon to his congregation at Riverside Church in New York City. As almost all of you know, a week ago last Monday night, driving in a terrible storm, my son -- Alexander -- who to his friends was a real day-brightener, and to his family "fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky" -- my 24-year-old Alexander, who enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race, beat his father to the grave. Among the healing flood of letters that followed his death was one carrying this wonderful quote from the end of Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms": "The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places." My own broken heart is mending, and largely thanks to so many of you, my dear parishioners; for if in the last week I have relearned one lesson, it is that love not only begets love, it transmits strength. When a person dies, there are many things that can be said, and there is at least one thing that should never be said. The night after Alex died I was sitting in the living room of my sister's house outside of Boston, when the front door opened and in came a nice-looking, middle-aged woman, carrying about eighteen quiches. When she saw me, she shook her head, then headed for the kitchen, saying sadly over her shoulder, "I just don't understand the will of God." Instantly I was up and in hot pursuit, swarming all over her. "I'll say you don't, lady!" I said. For some reason, nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn't go around this world with his fingers on triggers, his fists around knives, his hands on steering wheels. God is dead set against all unnatural deaths. And Christ spent an inordinate amount of time delivering people from paralysis, insanity, leprosy, and muteness. Which is not to say that there are no nature-caused deaths -- I can think of many right here in this parish in the five years I've been here -- deaths that are untimely and slow and pain-ridden, which for that reason raise unanswerable questions, and even the specter of a Cosmic Sadist -- yes, even an Eternal Vivisector. But violent deaths, such as the one Alex died -- to understand those is a piece of cake. As his younger brother put it simply, standing at the head of the casket at the Boston funeral, "You blew it, buddy. You blew it." The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is "It is the will of God." Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break.

At UIUC, a lot of the Muslims use finger for journals, rather than a web log.

Anyway, I needed to read this a few times, but I like it.

Sneak a peak at beta.davedash.com

Katie, Lil’ T, engelbot, Marc, Erin and I went to Suzy’s parent’s St. Patty’s day party.

Okay, so I finished the sleep study.

I have to go to this sleep study tonight. Kinda freaky. I go in at 8:30pm and then I spend the night under observation. Then they tell me what’s wrong with me.

c.f. http://davedash.livejournal.com/

Is anybody here a member of the YWCA? Katie and I work out at my parents which is free, but it has no pool, and it’s only convenient for me since it’s on my way from work.

Yesterday Katie, Adam and I walked to “Our Kitchen.” A tiny little breakfast hole on Bryant and 36th. Definitely a good place for cheap breakfast.

A while back, I discovered LiveJournal. I thought, cool, but I don’t need it, I’ve got my own site. I visited other people’s LiveJournal’s and then got to thinking… hmm there’s something to this. One. I never post any updates on my web site. Two. Someone else is doing the hard stuff of keeping track of my journals. and the selling point… Three. the community kicks ass. It reminds me a bit of BBSing days and a bit of iT days (if anybody remembers that).

So anyway, here I am, here I remain. Hopefully I’ll get some time to work on my website davedash.com and get the behemoth Photo Gallery up and running as well.