Larry.org

My Mother-in-law, Mary Ann Utriainen, passed away last Friday night.

My wife and I collected images and created this video, which we played at the memorial service.

I think it turned out pretty well, but we’re still quite sad.

Here’s a quick video of it to show the motion of the new Garbage Truck Getaway 7599 lego model, since you can’t really get that from the box.

So for the last two and a half years a close friend of mine and I have been working on a labor of love that is finally live.

It’s called Figment, and it’s a game for people that like to make up fake bands.

It was certainly a lot of work creating it, and now that it’s in actual use, it’ll be nice to see where it goes from here.

Now I just have to get all my fake bands into it

This visit to the lava flow on Volcan Pacaya in Guatemala was the highlight of her two week trip to Costa Rico and Guatamala.

I can understand how that would be a highlight.

Did you know that the liquid magma in this video is between 700 and 1300 degrees Fahrenheit?

I’ve been quietly following a friend progress through a stunning battle with Brain Cancer. He’s got a great website about the whole ordeal that’s really worth checking out if you are in any way not convinced of the completely unbridled power of a website with a very specific focus. It’s also quite an amazing read.

He and I went to High School together and were in Band together. I always enjoyed talking to him when I would run into him after high school as he’s a whip smart guy and has a quiet humility about him. The combination is very endearing, as whenever I talked to him I always feel like he’s both really interested in what I have to say, and really going to say something I’m interested in listening to. That comes across on his website too. I love the way he digs into all the medical details and so graciously and honestly translates them into English without oversimplifying the unbelievable complexity of battling brain cancer.

So pretty much immediately after he was diagnosed he started sending out emails. I hadn’t seen him in quite some time as I’d moved to Phoenix. I guess the last time I saw him was when he played at my sister’s wedding.. I don’t remember what year. A while ago, shall we say.

After the first year or so he switched over from emails to blogging and registered a domain name. The earliest versions of the site were interesting but this update is really the one that I think David should be most proud of. It’s really clear what’s going on on the site and he’s got so much material from posting over the years that it’s a rich and engaging read.