A few hours ago, Emma sent this email out to our friends:

After long thought and a lot of heart searching, George & I have decided to take in a family from Louisiana. We are now starting to look for someone who can help us make arrange­ments to get people here. Meanwhile, we need anyone who wants to volunteer to help us clean out our basement and fix it up to house people. We have a guest room on our first floor, but we also need to rearrange the entire house to allow us to add 4-6 people to our lives for up to the …continue.

On Saturday 10th September 2005, over 8,000 people will par­tic­i­pate in the Northwest AIDS Foundation Walk. I will be one of them, as I have been every year since 1992.

To sponsor me, please visit my Donation Page.

I had originally signed up to march with Team Microsoft. Then we in BiNet Seattle decided to form a team. Please join Team BiNet Seattle: we'd love to have you.

It's been more than 20 years since AIDS was first recognized. AIDS is still wreaking dev­as­ta­tion in Africa and Asia, and affecting many in the U.S. Although the new protease inhibitors are helping many people in the West, the AIDS epidemic …continue.

(Originally posted to Personal at EraBlog on Sat, 11 Oct 2003 18:15:39 GMT)

I have gout. It's an unpleasant form of arthritis. Once or twice a year, one of my lower joints will swell up overnight. Usually, it's struck one of my knees, though the last few attacks have all been in my feet. The knee attacks have all been extremely painful initially and I've required pre­scrip­tion painkillers to get to sleep at night. Just bending my knee a few degrees is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat. For­tu­nate­ly, after a few days, the pain decreases to the point where it's annoying but tolerable.

Oddly, the feet …continue.

(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Fri, 25 Jul 2003 06:50:20 GMT)

As I mentioned in my Toast­mas­ter­s' speech about nat­u­ral­iza­tion, I decided on September 11th, 2002 to become a U.S. citizen.

This morning, I had my interview with the Bureau of Cit­i­zen­ship and Im­mi­gra­tion Services (BCIS, formerly known as the INS).

This afternoon, I was sworn in as a U.S. citizen at the Seattle INS Office. Eighty-three other new citizens were sworn in at the same time. Many were Filipino, Vietnamese, Mexican, or Eastern European. Only three others, all Brits, were from Western Europe. We were gathered into a stuffy room with an overflow crowd of relatives and friends. …continue.

(Originally posted to Toast­mas­ters at EraBlog on Fri, 16 May 2003 06:06:39 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toast­mas­ters on January 29th, 2003, as Speech #2, "Sincerity".

NAT­U­RAL­IZA­TION

Fellow Toast­mas­ters and Guests, last September, on the first an­niver­sary of 9/11, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life: I decided to apply for American cit­i­zen­ship, to become nat­u­ral­ized.

Like many of you, I am an immigrant. I have spent most of my adult life in this country. Fourteen years ago, I came to the US from Ireland to earn a Masters degree. I moved to Seattle in 1992, the same year that I became a permanent resident. I …continue.

(Originally posted to Toast­mas­ters at EraBlog on Thu, 24 Apr 2003 06:08:36 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toast­mas­ters on March 5th, 2003, as Speech #3, "Organize Your Speech".

SLEEP APNEA

My wife is a cyborg.

That's not to say that she's the Terminator. Nor even that she's the six-million dollar woman, although I do value her greatly. She calls herself a cyborg because she sleeps with a breathing machine. At night, she wears a mask over her nose to force air into her lungs.

When I first met her, she complained of being tired all the time, of not getting a good night's sleep, of feeling stupid. When she drove …continue.

(Originally posted to Personal at EraBlog on Tue, 22 Apr 2003 16:04:19 GMT)

I've been too busy in the last few weeks to post anything here. Mostly because I've been busy with work. Partially because I'm too disgusted with Iraq to say anything useful: Win the war and lose the peace. Feh!

In the last few days, I've been at home taking care of Emma. On Friday morning, she had a Morton's neuroma removed from her left foot. A nerve running through the space between a couple of her toes had become enlarged to about a centimeter in diameter, and it had been causing her a lot of pain. She …continue.