SunSPOT

So there was this contest where people at this conference could win one of these development kits.

My idea involved monitoring, and doing some simple things to protect, a remote astrophotography outpost. Dramatic temperature changes? An unexpected flash of light? Discard that exposure and begin another. Temp falling near dewpoint? Wind screaming? Rain? Close the dome. I wrote up this idea and submitted it.

Two people were chosen as Grand Winners: no audience voting, no nothing, those two instantly got development kits. Those two ideas were: a) Give it to the local Java Users Group where a different person will have it each month and report back, and b) Will It Blend. Eight others were chosen as finalists for four kits, and each of those eight finalists gave a one-minute presentation this morning.

I won a kit.

About six people gave me their business cards (and wanted mine, but I hadn't had the foresight to bring any) asking that I let them know where my blog was so I could keep the developer community informed of my progress. I met one serious astrophotographer, too.

I hadn't the heart to tell them that this progress was going to be downright glacial. I'm serious. I'm busy! ...But not too busy to have ripped open all the packaging already. These things are way, way cool. The first thing I want to do with one is air text. Because I can.

Yeah, I know (comments screened)

I am fully aware of the great change in tone between this post and the one after it. I'm still in shock; I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do, I don't know if I can get myself there in this kind of time, and I don't even know what my siblings are doing because I'm in the wrong time zone and also happen to have been out of the office for three days. I woke up several times last night with... mental images. My own imaginings. I can not even comprehend the magnitude of what his mom and dad must be going through.

If there were something I could do to make it all not have happened, I'd do it. But we're not granted that power. If there were something I could do to ease a bereft mother's pain, or a father's (my cousin's), I'd do it. But we're ultimately not granted that power, either; this is a Hell they'll go through alone, because no matter what the rest of us can say we haven't been there, and while the support and kind words of others may bring a wan smile and ultimately help get them through, it will in no way make this not Hell.

Tomorrow is the first time I'll be awake and free to talk at an hour that would be reasonable for that family, and I'll call, and I'll say something effing stupid, but they'll at least know I'm thinking of them. (This is where I most keenly feel the fact that I'm a total dork.) And if I can't get to that area of the country I'll send food, or flowers, or something. If I have two brain cells to rub together, I'll send some food again three months from now, when most other folk have moved on with their lives and yet the loss still cuts like a knife.

*sigh*

Not much else to do, really. :-(

*sigh*

He was eighteen.
I changed his diapers once upon a time.

*sigh*