Dan York

Remembering Challenger... 30 Years Later

There are moments in life where you can remember exactly where you were... moments that live with you forever.

Today was the anniversary of one of those.

I was a freshman at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH, and remember being in the "lounge" of Sackett House, one of the "mini-dorms" at UNH, where there was the only TV. (Things were different then.) I remember being there with another resident, a woman named Alison, I believe, who dreamed of being an astronaut and was in the Air Force ROTC program to start down that path.

My memory is hazy after 3 decades about the exact details... but I seem to recall that it was just she and I in the lounge area watching the launch. Her dreaming of being an astronaut, and me dreaming of flying into space and space stations and moon bases and more. I was then and still am a dreamer about all things related to space.

Living in New Hampshire we were of course caught up in the massive attention focused on Christa McAuliffe, the first "teacher in space". The media attention was focused on our state - and particularly Concord, NH, where she taught.

But even with all that massive media attention, we probably were the only ones watching in our small dorm... at that point in time Space Shuttle missions had come to be pretty routine... and "boring" to most people. Wikipedia's list of Shuttle missions shows that there were 9 launches in 1985 and in fact the Space Shuttle Columbia had just launched on January 12, 1986, and landed on January 18.

But the Challenger launch 10 days later was anything but routine.

I remember sitting there watching the launch... and then I just remember the fireball that none of us can ever forget.

I remember the hope... the hope against hope... that maybe, just maybe... someone had survived.

And then the despair when it was clear that nothing could have survived.

I remember Alison in tears... I assume I was probably in tears, too.

I remember that we, as a nation, joined in a collective moment of shock... and then mourning.

The histories tell me that the explosion occurred 73 seconds after launch. Watching one of those original news reports today it seems such a long time.

Later, of course, would be the endless hours of replays... the hearings and investigations... the learning all about O-rings and cold temperatures... and so much more.

Two-and-a-half years later, the Space Shuttle flights would finally resume with great safety improvements - as well as a heightened awareness in the public. Spaceflight was no longer "routine".

But at that moment on that January day in 1986, we who dreamt of space flight watched our dreams be shattered... and the emotional effect lingers to this day.

30 years... 3 decades... seems like such a long time.

But that day... that moment... that image... will live with me forever.

I remember... and I give thanks for the crew of the Challenger... and all of those who have given their lives in pursuit of dreams.

May we all together carry those dreams forward...

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An audio version of this post is also available:

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Image credits: NASA Johnson Space Center on Flickr (and here) CC BY NC 2.0, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr CC BY 2.0, and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr CC BY NC 2.0

Heading To The 2016 USA Curling Junior National Champshionships!

Yea! Our daughter's curling team is heading to the 2016 USA Curling Junior National Championships this month! Her team will be one of the top 10 junior women's teams competing for the championship in Willmar, Minnesota, from January 16-23. She and her team are SO excited!

Over the holiday break her curling team competed at the regional "GNCC Playdowns" where three womens teams were competing for two slots at the Nationals. Starting on Sunday, December 27, 2015, it was a very tense set of days, but on Tuesday morning they were able to win their final game and get the second spot.

They will now be "Massachusetts 2" in the list of qualified teams for the Junior Nationals.

The "Massachusetts" name comes from the state where the skip (captain) of the team is located. In our case the skip, Rebecca Rodgers, curls out of the Petersham Curling Club in Petersham, MA, as does our daughter Chloe. The other two girls curl out of the Cape Cod (MA) Curling Club and the Nashua (NH) Country Club.

WE LEAVE ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 15! So this is all happening in a whirlwind of activity in a short time.

If you'd like to follow along with their activities, we've set up a Facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/TeamRodgersCurling

It is a public page, so you do NOT need a Facebook account to view the page.

At the Junior Nationals, they will be up against some of the best Juniors teams in the USA, and with the Junior age range being ages 12-21 ... and our girls being 13-15... there are definitely some teams out there with more experience. (And the "High Performance" team in the list is composed of top players chosen by USA Curling and groomed for Olympic competition.) Regardless, the girls are looking forward to playing against these teams and getting experience playing at a national level! It's going to be great!

Of course, as a parent (and in my case also the team coach), there's also the cold, hard reality that it costs a good bit of money to move 8 people (4 players and their parent chaperones) from New England to western Minnesota and feed and house them for 9 days! In fact, our budget shows that it's going to be between $9,000 and $10,000!

We parents are going to make this amazing opportunity happen for these girls however we can... but this is definitely a financial stretch. As a new team[1], we don't yet have any kind of sponsorship, but we're looking into seeing what we can do. I also set up my first ever GoFundMe page at:

https://www.gofundme.com/teamrodgerscurling

And we've had wonderful generosity from so many people that have already helped push us past the 25% mark! It's so great to see so many people wanting to help send the girls to Nationals! (And more donations are definitely welcome!) We are so incredibly appreciative of all the donations to date, as well as the many other ways that people have offered to help.

Now... the countdown is on... in 11 days we'll be on planes to Minnesota for an amazing week of curling!!

P.S. Our daughter Chloe is on the right end of the photo. For those who know curling, she plays "Lead" on the team. (And the photo is arranged in order of Skip, Vice, Second and Lead.)

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[1] This is the first year these four girls have been curling together as a team. However, they have each been curling for 5-8 years and one of them (Rebecca) was an Alternate on a Nationals team last year and three of them (Rebecca, Anna and Elizabeth) were in the regional playdowns last year as part of another team. All four of them have been playing on teams in youth tournaments (bonspiels) for the past five years, very often playing against each other! So it's fun to have them all together on one team.

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An audio commentary is also available:

My 3 Words For 2016

As has been my tradition for a while now, I like to start off on January 1 writing about my "three words" that represent my aspirations for the year ahead. (See my 2015 three words and also earlier years.)

So here we go for 2016...

STRATEGY

I've found myself quite "busy" this past year, but the question is whether I've been "busy" with the right things. And more to the point - has there been a reason for some of the things I've been doing.

Not that you absolutely NEED a reason for everything... but we live in an age of distraction, and if we aren't careful it's easy to find that we've frittered away time that we could have spent otherwise.

In 2016 I want to think a bit more strategically about the various activities I'm involved in. To make conscious choices about what I'm doing - and for whom - and why.

And to have a bit more of a plan in some cases.

Some common phrases come to mind:

• Connect the dots.
• Think of the big picture.
• Do fewer things better.
• Less is more.

In some ways this is perhaps a continuation of, or a refinement of, the "Essentials" that I talked about in 2015.

The point is that I want to think and act a bit more strategically this year.

HEALTH

In the chaos of 2015, I let my health slip down in my list of priorities. I haven't been making the best choices in terms of eating or exercise. Sadly, I've gained back 25 of the pounds I lost over the past few years. I didn't run a single race in 2015 - and in fact ran a measly 213 miles over the entire year... not even running at all in the entire month of December, and only a pathetic 6 or 7 miles in both October and November. There are other examples.

I need to change this.

I need to put a priority back on taking care of my health. Because if I don't do it, who will? And I want to be around in the long term for my wife and kids.

REFLECTION

I want to make time this year for more reflection. Caught up in the maelstrom of being "busy", I haven't been taking the time to...

Pause.

Think.

Contemplate.

Reflect.

It's hard to carve out that time to just think about things... to think about how all the dots are connected.

But we need to do so... or at least *I* feel the need to do so.

This time of reflection feeds back into the "strategy" word above... and indeed into the "health" word as some of that reflection can happen while, say, running.

These are my aspirations for 2016... what are yours?

P.S. There is, of course, a fourth word that will consume a great part of 2016 for me... CURLING! Particularly given that my 13-year-old daughter will now be going to the 2016 USA Curling Junior Women's National Championships in two weeks in Minnesota...

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An audio version of this post is available:

Putting One Foot In Front Of The Other... And Walking On...

Today was one of those days. You know the type I'm talking about.

When the to-do list seems to just keep going and going and going...

When for every one thing you check off, it seems like three more get added...

For every blog post I published or document I created, there was another one that I was reminded that wasn’t done yet.  The email messages came in with new projects and things to add to the list. An IM message reminds me that there was another project still lurking out in the background that needs finishing up.  Another message bringing a request from someone to know when I’ll finally have a chance to do something I should have done four months ago…  the finance department pings me wondering when I’ll finally get to doing expenses…  a calendar reminds me that I still need to book the flights for an upcoming trip… 

The hits kept on coming and coming...

Not just in my work life, but also in my personal life… the guilt of not being able to meet with someone to help on a project that I helped start, but then haven’t been able to do much more with… drama within organizations with which I am involved…  chaos in the lives of those around me who I love dearly… a reminder at dinner time that I need to find substitutes for the curling game I’m not going to be able to play in on Saturday… the lingering feeling that I’m dropping the ball on something else… and then the parent evening tonight… the unfinished email messages...

It was one of those days… 

And then when I take a “break” to look in on social media, I find that world is exploding with amazing news all day today!  So many things I want to write about… to podcast about… heck, just to READ about… 

And the frustration that there are some big pieces of writing that I want to do.  There are things happening all around us that I can see - dancing right in front of me - that I know that I can pull together and connect the dots in ways that would help these things make sense to other people.  The frustration that I know I could help people understand. 

But yet the pieces sit there… dancing just out of range… taunting me… beckoning… calling me to pull them together and make them whole… 

It was one of those days… 

And as the end of the day approaches there is a sense of frenetic activity… of an unsustainable pace… of burning too many candles at too many ends… of ropes fraying… of the need to do fewer things better… of the need to be more present… 

And I must pause...

… and remind myself that sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is to simply...

… breathe.

To take that moment to pause amidst the chaos… to have a moment in the madness… 

...

...

and then to pick yourself up...

put one foot in front of the other… 

...

… and walk on.

Running In The Pre-Dawn Stillness

There is something beautiful about running in the hour or so before dawn. Everything is still. Quiet. Awakening.

You see the animals coming out for their breakfast. Rabbits. Birds. Others.

The day is yet to begin.

Full of possibilities and opportunities.

Ours to discover. If we choose to do so.

There is something beautiful about running in the pre-dawn hours.

[Photos are from my run this morning at 5:45am in the Woodlawn and Greenlawn cemeteries in Keene, NH.]

Video For All Those Parents Who Travel: "While I Was Away" by Pat Green

For all of those parents like me who travel a good bit, singer Pat Green recently put out this very well-done and quite touching video, "While I Was Away":

I'd honestly never heard of Pat Green before, but a work colleague shared the link on an internal forum. My work takes me away from my wife and kids for about 25% of the time ... so about 80-90 days a year... and it's definitely very hard on all of us. I'm thankful my job doesn't take me away more, as some of the other professions do. But each time I'm away, I do think of all the things they are learning and doing while I'm not there.

Beautiful song...

My Frustration With Privacy Screens For My MacBook Pro

I find privacy screens frustrating, yet necessary. As I prepare to head to Buenos Aires for the ICANN 53 meeting I was reminded by a thread on Facebook that I should re-install my privacy screen on my 15" MacBook Pro. It's not that I have anything in particular to hide... it's just that when I'm sitting in chairs surrounded by people on all sides of me I don't particularly want people next to me reading whatever it is I have on my screen.

My frustration is that it seems that the only real provider for a MacBook Pro is 3M (here's a search on Amazon) and the problem is simply this...

It's very hard to take the privacy screen on and off!

For whatever reason... perhaps the limited space on the edge of the screen... perhaps customer frustration with past implementations... 3M makes the privacy screen go all the way to the edge of the display and then has you mount it using a double-sided tape. There are no clips or anything that you slide your screen in to. You tape it on to the MBP screen.

Now... IN THEORY... you are supposed to be able to take the privacy screen on and off multiple times. The tape is supposed to keep working.

In practice, I've found that you can remove the screen and replace it... but only a couple of times.

After that... the tape loses its stickiness and the screen starts falling off.

With a previous laptop, this was fine. I mounted a privacy screen on the laptop and pretty much never took it off. It worked fine.

However, with this laptop, I've been in several situations where I wound up needing to give a presentation to a small group of people without a projector and so I needed to take the privacy screen off so that people could gather around and see the presentation. Additionally, I had a couple of situations at home where I wanted to have multiple people look at my laptop.

The end result is that the privacy screen no longer sticks to the MBP.

Now, 3M did provide a few extra strips of tape when I bought the screen... but I have no clue where I put those strips of tape.

My solution right now is to just apply a couple of pieces of regular clear tape to hold the screen in place. It works... although it doesn't look all that pretty.

What do any other MacBook Pro owners do for privacy screens?

Do you have another vendor of privacy screens you like? Do you just leave the screen always on? Do you keep re-applying the tape? Have you found a way to have clips on the side?

The Scourge of Cancer Strikes More People I Know

I haven't written about our journey with cancer for a while because my wife's own journey has been one of the ongoing tedium of Tamoxifen ... another day, another pill... and more fatigue, joint pain and so many more issues. It is, though, unfortunately our "new normal" ... and will be for at least two more years of Tamoxifen. We just try to keep on going through it...

But in truth, it's been a rough period of time for us since I last wrote in July 2014 in regard to cancer around us.

• A brother-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and fought it extremely hard but in the end the cancer won.
• A woman in my wife's breast cancer support group who received treatment at the same time as my wife had her cancer return... but in the terrible way of breast cancer the cancer came back as stage 4 lung cancer. It "metastasized", in medical speak. Things do not look good.
• Most recently, the partner of a friend was diagnosed a few months back with renal cancer (kidneys) and after fighting it with chemo, radiation and more... he is now being moved into hospice care as there is nothing more that can be done. It is now only a matter of time before he passes on.

All of this happening around the time of the four-year anniversary of my wife's own diagnosis.

This last one in particular struck me hard because just back in November I had lunch with my friend and her partner... and he was so alive and seemingly healthy. He seemed like a great guy and they seemed great together. And now only a few months later their world is turned so incredibly upside-down.

So very hard to comprehend.

All "younger" people in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

No easy answers.

All we can do is, as my friend wrote, "hug your families extra tight tonight".

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An audio commentary is also available:

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Image credit: a photo of Arlington National Cemetery by Todd Van Hoosear on Flickr

Never Give Up

Never. Give. Up.

I was vividly reminded of that lesson last night in the championship game of the Men's Curling League at the Petersham Curling Club where I play. Our team, which had played extremely well together all year, had made it through the playoffs to be in the final championship game against another excellent team.

This was it. The end of the long curling season and a chance to have our names inscribed on the league trophy at the club.

After 5 of the 8 ends (think "innings" in baseball or "periods" in hockey), both teams were tied. Then the other team scored 2 points in the 6th end. Then they stole 1 point in the 7th. So we were going into the final 8th end three points down with a score of 7-4.

We thought we were doomed. It was highly unlikely that there was any way out. Scoring 3 points to tie was going to be extremely difficult based on how well the other team was playing.

In my mind, I had mostly given up.

But part of why I enjoy the sport of curling is the degree of skill it takes... but also the unpredictability of what can happen. A piece of lint on the ice could cause a rock to go off in an unplanned direction. A change in humidity can make the ice slower or faster than it was just a few minutes ago. The skip can call the sweepers on too early or too late and have the rock end differently than planned. The person throwing the rock can throw it wrong... missing the line he/she is supposed to hit or throwing it too hard or too light.

So many variables.

The 8th end began as you would expect. The other team fired their first rock through the rings... just got it out of there. They were up by 3 points - all they wanted to do was knock rocks out and make sure we couldn't score any points.

But then things happened. We made some good shots. They missed a couple of shots. We missed some shots. They made some good shots... the game went on.

But in the end we came down to the final stone of the opposing skip with 4 of our stones sitting in the rings. You can see a photo above that I took of the way it was set up. Our skip had his final stone to throw, too, but we expected the opposing skip to simply come down and sit on our rock that was in the blue "four-foot" ring. Either that or hit our rock out and roll over behind the other rocks where it would have been extremely difficult to get to his rock. It was a comparatively "easy" shot and the opposing skip had made shots like this all the time.

Looking at it I thought we were done.

But... the other skip's final stone was too light! Even with the frantic sweeping of the team the rock didn't make it down to the rings and instead hit the rocks in the front.

Unbelievably... we had just scored 4 points to win!!!

Our skip didn't even have to throw his final rock.

We sat there with our mouths open... uncomprehending at first.

And THEN we celebrated!

Never. Give. Up!

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An audio commentary is also available:

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Heading To Singapore for ICANN 52

I'm sitting in Newark airport (EWR) right now in the midst of a 5-hour layover waiting for a United flight that will take me to the other side of the world... quite literally! UA 179 flies directly from Newark to Hong Kong... for 16 hours in the air!

After that I'll have another 4 hours of travel time from Hong Kong down to Singapore... getting me in there about 1:40am Sunday morning, February 8, 2015.

With the funky aspects of timezones, I will be losing "Saturday" almost completely except for the hour or so I will be on the ground in Hong Kong.

Here is what the flight looks like on the Great Circle Mapper, complete with my return trip back through Tokyo:

(With the usual non-intuitive notion (to me) that we are flying north over the North Pole to get to the other side of the planet. My brain always thinks I should fly west... but north is actually shorter.)

I'm off to Singapore for the 52nd meeting of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, better known as "ICANN". ICANN is the nonprofit organization that oversees the world of domain names and the Domain Name System(DNS) and I have a specific interest in how we secure the DNS. I'll be there primarily for a series of activities related to DNSSEC that I describe here:

• Many DNSSEC and DANE Activities At ICANN52 Next Week In Singapore

There are a great number of other activities happening there, too, and one of my colleagues outlined some of the items related to public-policy:

• Return to Singapore: From chili crabs to names, numbers and protocol parameters

I will of course be monitoring those issues as well. I expect to be doing some writing from Singapore for multiple sites... and probably some video and audio as well.

I've had the privilege of being able to visit Singapore twice before and have been impressed by what a beautiful city it is. I took some photos on my first trip there that I posted to a set on Flickr:

You'll notice how the grove of "supertrees" captured my attention. Here's one of my favorite photos from that set:

The supertree grove is a rather surreal (and unreal) place to visit - definitely worth seeing! I don't know if I'll be able to get there on this trip... my schedule is extremely packed... but we'll see.

It should be a good week.

P.S. And talk about temperature changes... it was -10F (-23C) when I left Keene, NH, this morning and it will be near 88F (30C) during the day in Singapore!

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I recorded an audio commentary about this trip: