Below is the text of the original eulogy I wrote for Dad’s funeral. I ad-libbed a great deal of additional material; rather than edit the text to reflect what I think I might’ve said, I decided to go with the original. Writing this, and speaking at Dad’s funeral, was an extremely difficult experience. It was an honor I might rather not have had. However, I remember once turning down the opportunity to speak at a dear friend’s wedding and declining because I didn’t think I had anything to say. I still regret that, years later, and was determined not to make the same mistake again.
David A. Robichaux: an eulogy
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Thanks
Arlene and my mom have both done an excellent job of sending out thank-you notes to the many, many people who have expressed their condolences on Dad’s death. The whole thing is still overwhelming, but it was made much less so by the love and concern of our friends, loved ones, and community members. However, I haven’t really done my part, except for writing letters to the hotel and the hospital. This post is by way of thanking the many people and organizations who have done so much to help us, including the Wood County Sheriff’s Office, the folks at the McVeigh and Witzler-Shank funeral homes, the members of TRAC and WCARES, and Dad’s co-workers from Dillin and Hoffman— to say nothing of the dozens of people who sent flowers, food, sympathy notes, and prayers our way. Thank you all so much.
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Flood of Hope
Last night, 13 ABC here in Toledo did a short piece on “Flood of Hope”, my effort to “surge” volunteers down to Ottawa to help with flood relief. I haven’t had time to set up a formal website, so here are the details– hopefully people searching for “flood of hope” will find this article.
The Ottawa / Blanchard River Valley area has been badly afflicted by the recent flooding. More than 500 homes are uninhabitable, and the Red Cross estimates it will take several months of cleanup work to get the area back in shape. If you haven’t been there, you might not appreciate the scope of the destruction— it’s worse than you might imagine,.
I am coordinating “Flood of Hope”, an effort to surge volunteers from the metro Toledo area down to Ottawa on September 6th. The goal is to get teams from Toledo-area employers to go down and help with restoration and cleanup work.
Here’s how you can help:
- If you’re a business owner or manager, please consider giving your employees a paid day off or vacation day to participate. (A big shout out to Ritter and Associates, the first company to volunteer to do this!) The cost may even be deductible as a charitable contribution (but maybe not; only your accountant knows for sure.)
- If you’re not a business owner, consider taking a vacation day to come help anyway, even if it’s not on September 6th. The cleanup efforts will continue for some time to come, and they need help every day, including weekends.
- Spread the word. Tell your friends, neighbors, church members, and co-workers. We need all the help we can get.
The recovery efforts can use special skills if you have them—they need construction expertise, data entry and office skills, and good old-fashioned demolition and cleanup too. Whatever you can do will be appreciated.
If you want to join the Flood of Hope, please email me or call me at 419 873 8308 and I’ll get you signed up. It’s important that you call ASAP so I can keep the volunteer staffing coordinators apprised of how many people to expect. If you can’t reach me, call the volunteer center at 419 523 3288 and tell them you want to work on September 6th.
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Flood cleanup, part 1
Yesterday I headed down to Findlay to help with cleanup. I didn’t realize the extent of the flooding until I got down there, mostly because I haven’t been watching the local news.
Matt and I first went to the LDS chapel in Findlay. The church has been designated the lead for all the church-based service groups participating in the cleanup; we drew cleaning supplies and a map to Ottawa, about 25mi W of Findlay. As we got about 10mi from Ottawa, the flood damage in the fields became readily apparent– miles of dead corn stalks, ruined tomatoes, and high-water marks on trees and greenery. When we got into town, it was even worse: the streets are lined with piles of debris. Many businesses are still closed, and many of the people whose homes were damaged have few local alternatives for housing– as a small town, Ottawa doesn’t have any hotels and little spare rental housing.
At the Ottawa center, we signed in and quickly got a work assignment. Matt and I teamed up with four missionaries (the Ohio Cleveland Mission has assigned 50 missionaries to the cleanup efforts) and headed out. We spent the day tearing out the interior of a two-story house. Wallboard, lath, and insulation all had to go; the homeowner had already taken out the carpet, but the trim and tack strips had to be removed too. It was hot (94° outside), messy work, but we could definitely measure our progress. It was rewarding work.
I’m going back down on Thursday with a few other folks, and I’m trying to coordinate a broader business-based effort for sometime next week. Drop me an e-mail if you’re interested in taking part.
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Filed under General Stuff, Spiritual Nourishment
The value of LinkedIn
David Pogue asks a good question:
…could somebody tell me the point of LinkedIn? … What I don’t understand is: If somebody knows me well enough to e-mail me with an invitation to join, why doesn’t he just e-mail me directly with whatever his problem or offer is?
Easy. LinkedIn has very little value for someone like you, David, because you’re already super-connected. For virtually any problem you have, you can easily find a resolution because you’re David Pogue. You have access to a huge audience, hundreds (if not thousands) of contacts from all walks of life, and the accumulated knowledge of the entire NYT staff (or, at least, those you get along with well enough to ask for favors).
For those of us not similarly blessed, LinkedIn is valuable because it provides a tool for finding contacts or expertise in areas where we’re not necessarily connected. For example, say I want to know about a particular market segment in depth, or I want to ask an alumnus what he thought of a given MBA program, or I want to find someone who works for Company X. LinkedIn makes it easy. I’ve used it to find contacts at famously opaque companies like Apple, as well as contacts at companies I didn’t even know existed. I occasionally get linkage requests from people I don’t know, and I don’t feel obligated to accept them, but usually I do. Why? For the same reason I accept business cards when I meet people at face-to-face events: a) it’s polite and b) that person may turn out to be a very useful contact.
So, David, feel free to send me a link request now that you have your answer. Heck, you can even write a recommendation if you like.
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Arthritis Foundation needs your vote
Mail from Mom, program director for the Toledo chapter of the Arthritis Foundation:
The Arthritis Foundation, Greater Illinois Chapter is participating in the “Make My Non-Profit Run Better” contest for a chance to win an office technology makeover from RK Dixon. The winning organization will receive new office and network equipment valued at $30,000. The runner up will receive a makeover valued at $15,000.
This is a great opportunity for us, as you know firsthand the time it takes to raise this amount of money. This makeover would allow us to be more efficient in providing services for those who need it most. And, typically, money raised tends to support our mission, rather than offset business technology costs.
How can you help? For once, not by donating money, but by voting! The organization with the most votes will be selected as a top five finalist. The more votes, the better chance we have to win.
Go to www.rkdixon.com (click the “Make My Non-Profit Run Better” logo) and vote for the Arthritis Foundation, Greater Illinois Chapter until Sept. 5th. But, stay tuned … if we are chosen as a finalist we will need your votes again! We need this makeover to help us run better.
Please forward this email to any friends or colleagues who you feel would be willing to vote for us.
Happy voting and thank you for your support!
Our local chapter, along with several others, “belongs” to the Greater Illinois Chapter; if they win, the money will go to improve their technology infrastructure across the Illinois / Ohio / Indiana region.
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Happy 16th, darling!
No, she didn’t just turn 16 (that’s illegal in Ohio, y’know). However, today Arlene and I are celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary. It’s bittersweet, because on our 11th anniversary we moved here to be closer to my parents, and Dad’s death is still terribly fresh in our minds. However, I’m so thankful to have Arlene as my wife! (It doesn’t hurt that she got me an iTunes card and a new karate kicking bag, either.)
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Quote of the day
I don’t know who said this, but I agree with it 100%:
A veteran — whether active duty, retired, or national guard or reserve — is someone who, at one point in his, or her, life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America,” for an amount of “up to and including my life.”
That is honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.
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UC review bonanza
Good news: the pipeline of review equipment for unified communications is starting to fill up. Currently I have a GN 9350 headset (summary: love it, bought several for our office; expect a more complete review later this week) that can work both with desk phones and VoIP softphones like Communicator and a Samsung 225uw monitor with an integrated camera and mike. I just heard from my Polycom contact that I should expect a grand slam from them in the next two or three weeks: a CX100, a CX200 (aka “Catalina”), a CX400 (aka “Orca”; I’m especially interested in testing this), and the elusive CX700. I’m also eagerly awaiting the arrival of a Dialogic DMG1008 gateway, which provides 8 analog ports for use with an OCS 2007 mediation server. (For a good rundown of Dialogic’s product line, see this deck; I haven’t found anything as clear on their own site yet.)
Technorati Tags: Exchange 2007, Unified Messaging
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Hilton Garden Inn, Albany Medical Center, Albany NY
We recently stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn attached to Albany Medical Center. I felt it necessary to write a letter to Hilton Hospitality’s CEO. See below.
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Filed under Reviews, Smackdown!, Travel
Anderson to take over as Delta CEO
This may turn out to be sad news. I was no fan of Anderson’s reign at Northwest. I had hoped that Jim Whitehurst would get the nod, but instead rumor has it that he’s resigned effective immediately.
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Exchange 2007 SP1 briefing
Ed Banti briefed me on Exchange 2007 SP1 a couple of weeks ago, but the things he told me were under embargo until the 14th. I wasn’t able to post then, but I wanted to share a few notes on things we discussed.
So far, MS is well-satisfied with the number of customers: more than 900,000 downloads of the beta, moving to over 300,000 full evaluations and 260,000 trial usages of the packaged virtual machine demos they’ve been shipping. The Unisys-hosted trial system has been hosting an average of 1000 trial accounts per week; all of these numbers exceeded the product team’s expectations.
The Exchange team focused on two primary areas when deciding what to include in SP1: general planning inputs (including customer feedback and features that were in early 2007 betas but didn’t make the release) and feature criteria (including improving the OWA feature set and hitting particular customer scenarios for HA and management, among others). The result of this focus is a set of features that cover the “three pillars” originally used as the rationale for Exchange 2007’s launch: anywhere access, operational efficiency, and built-in protection.
What does this mean in practical terms? Here’s a laundry list:
- improvements to unified messaging and support for OCS 2007, including using Exchange UM to provide voice mail services for OCS calls. IMHO the big burrito here is being able to generate a message waiting indicator (MWI) for Communicator clients, but the new security features (including SRTP and secure SIP support) are welcome too.
- Public folder management tools in EMC, plus public folder access from within OWA
- Support for Windows Server 2008 (“Longhorn”), as well as support for Windows Vista for the Exchange management tools. One major change from the original plan is that the UM role can now run on Windows Server 2008; the original plan called for it to run on Windows Server 2003 only.
- Expanded support for clustering (including clustering support in the EMC)
- SCR
- A greatly Improved OWA, with support for custom forms, a server-side rules editor, the return of S/MIME support, and better support for self-service functions like remote device wipe and deleted item recovery. Bonus item: the HTML document transcoder now displays Office 2007 docs properly.
- support for slipstream installations
- several new Web services, including public folder access, delegate management, delegate access, and folder-level permissions
- 28 new Exchange ActiveSync policies for various aspects of device behavior, including encryption, authentication, and device, network, and app control. Note that these policies require Windows Mobile 6.0 devices, but they give you some nifty new features (like policies to turn off WiFi or cameras, or to enforce the use of S/MIME).
One of the biggest changes in SP1, of course, is the long-awaited standby continuous replication (SCR) feature. Beta 2 of SP1 includes SCR, so you can begin testing it in your own environments. I’m looking forward to setting up CCR on Longhorn, which should be a lot of fun to experiment with. In addition, the OWA improvements help make OWA that much more useful, especially for organizations that require S/MIME. Microsoft naturally warns that you shouldn’t use SP1 in production, but it’s fine for use on test and demo systems.
Technorati Tags: Exchange 2007, Unified Messaging
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Arthur David Robichaux, 1945-2007
ARTHUR DAVID ROBICHAUX
Arthur David Robichaux, age 62, passed away Monday, August 13 in Albany, New York as the result of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. Dave was born on August 5, 1945 to Adele P. and Eugene J. Robichaux in Houma, Louisiana. He graduated from St Francis de Sales Catholic School in 1963, where he was a member of the 1961 Louisiana state champion baseball team. He received his MBA from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
He was employed as a senior vice president of sales and marketing by Dillin Development Corporation of Perrysburg. Dave was active in many community and service organizations. As K5EYP, he was an amateur radio operator for more than 45 years and was named TRAC Ham of the Year, served as president of the Lake Erie Amateur Radio Association, and founded the Wood County chapter of the Amateur Radio Emergency Service. He was a deputy in the Wood County Sheriff’s Office Auxiliary and was also highly active in the Perrysburg Rotary Club, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Glass City Chapter of the Harley Owners’ Group, and the Ohio chapter of the Patriot Guard Riders.
Dave is survived by his wife, Ann Bloch Robichaux; his children, Paul E. (Arlene) Robichaux, Timothy D. Robichaux, Julie A. (Paul Wallich) Robichaux; grandchildren, David P. Robichaux, Thomas R. Robichaux, Matthew C. Robichaux, and Charles B. Wallich; sisters Debby (James, deceased) Verret and Norma (Edgar) Babin, and brothers Errol (Terri) Robichaux, and Mike (Debbie) Robichaux, along with extended family and loving friends. He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, Robert P. and Eugene J. Robichaux.
Friends will be received on Friday, August 17, 2007 from 4-8 P.M. at Witzler-Shank Funeral Home, 222 E. South Boundary Street, Perrysburg, Ohio (419-874-3133). Memorial services will be held at 10 A.M. on Saturday, August 18, 2007 at St Rose Catholic Church, 215 E. Front Street, Perrysburg, Ohio, immediately followed by a reception at The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints Chapel, 11050 Avenue Road, Perrysburg, Ohio. Dave was a strong supporter of the many charitable works done by the Perrysburg Rotary Club. In lieu of flowers, charitable donations in Dave’s name may be made to the Perrysburg Rotary Service Foundation or any charity of the giver’s choice. Condolences may be made to the family online at www.witzlershank.com.
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Office Communications Server 2007 virtual labs
Microsoft’s really come a long way in how they market their products. Exchange 2003 offered a test-drive version of Outlook Web Access, and Exchange 2007 has expanded on that theme by offering test-drive and downloadable versions. OCS 2007 has upped the ante by offering some very cool virtual labs that you can use to play around with the OCS software. You can do a variety of things, including setting up UM on an Exchange 2007 server, setting up conferencing, and deploying Communicator 2007. My personal preference is usually to download the bits and set up my own VMs, but this is a nifty time-saving way to play with OCS with minimal investment of time on your part.
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Life is good, mobile edition
I’m sitting in the middle row of my minivan, working on a proposal and checking my e-mail while we’re rolling down the Ohio Turnpike. My iPhone is doing a great iPod imitation, and we’ll be in Syracuse for dinner. Life is good.
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Paul's Down-Home Page 