A smiling face

Yesterday I stopped off at an Indian restaurant and ordered some vegetable korma... yummm very tasty ... I was so hungry that I asked the lady if she could bring me some extra sauce ... she said yes but with a befuddled look in her eye... the kind of look you get when you are foreigner in another country ordering food that you don't know much about.

So she brings my a heaping dish of vegetable Korma ... rice and naan bread... Lovely I think.... this is lots of food...

Two minutes later she shows up with another dish full of yummy creamy korma sauce and vegetable goodies floating in it... I look at her confused ... I said I only ordered one dish ... she looks at me equally confused and says to me ... this is the extra sauce that you ordered ... hummmm™ I say ... alright.

But of course my eyes were bigger than my appetite... so I asked for a to go container... paid the bill and headed home...

As I get off the highway I notice a homeless person with a sign and a very sad look on his face... I think to myself - Here is a moment in life when you can think and do something ... not that big of a thing to do ... but still it is the act of acting spontaneously that makes all the difference in life... So I reached into the back seat grabbed the bag with the goods and asked him if he was hungry and he nodded affirmatively ... gave him the food and off I went...

Today I got off that same highway and as I drove past him he had the most amazing smile... it made my day... all because someone was just really generous ... and someone asked for something more...

Things like this never cease to amaze me.

As the saying goes ... never postpone joy...

Ciao everyone.

Dead Squirrel

Hey this is not the best title ... but this is what I saw today on my walk... but what I was inspired to write about was not the fact that it was dead squirrel... and typically you see them as road kill - indistinguishable ... This on the other hand was the strangest of things ... it was laying there on the sidewalk so peaceful but gone... It looked like it had fallen from the tree above... Maybe it was tired and old and could no longer do those impressive jumps from limb to limb... And today was its last magnificent feat flying through the air with nothing to grasp but the air as it flew to the ground ...

I wonder what went through its mind/heart when it was falling ... do you think it was scared like we humans might be - Knowing that this represents our ultimate demise... or was it simply enjoying the fall... and be what has to be ... life and death just exist without anything other than the moment... but to me as the passer-by ... the moment for me was the look on it as it lay there peaceful and still...

I think that death is a precious gift ... I know this may sound weird but I was fortunate enough to be present when my grandfather died - it changed my life - having seen what happens and staying behind in this world I find it has left me with knowledge that I always refer to.

And today - maybe because the squirrel spirit was with me I thought to my self of the words that we might think of when we pass away ... like "What we leave behind" and for some reason - I kept thinking that it is not what we leave behind ... but "What leaves us behind" - can't describe why I think this way ... but for some strange reason this thought kept coming to me today.. so maybe one day it will be more clear why I thought that way today ... but just felt like sharing that...

And when I was by my grandfather's bedside and he was slipping away... I asked him if he could hear me and he all he could do was nod ... so he nodded... I told him not to be afraid ... because he was a gardener that he already know what life was all about ... "don't be afraid you are simply going back to where it all came from anyway... " and I kept holding his hand and slowly he just slipped away ... and at one point I knew he was gone...

I wonder what it is in life the makes me want to reflect on this --- maybe it is what leaves us behind that does this - I haven't figured any of it out yet... all I know is that he was an inspiration in my life and continues to be that.

Wondering .............

Saying Hello to People

I must say Friday was a rather special day to say the least. I usually walk down to Arizmendi in the morning and grab a muffin or just even to go for a walk... But as I walked down the hill Friday morning I was going to experience something very different. I was walking down the hill and this person walking up greeted me with a firm "Good Morning" greeting... hummmm I thought to myself ... that was nice of him to say that ... well I keep walking down the hill and not too far from the bottom this other woman with a huge smile looks at me squarely in the eyes and says "Good Morning" ... I don't know these people and yet they are all greeting me this morning... I am now turning to look in the park on the left to see if there is some kind of friendly gathering of some sort... but none to be seen... This is something I want to do more of in my life. So I decided to do the same on the rest of my walk to Arizmendi ...

Passing it on... while I was in Arzmendi there was a woman next to me waiting for her drink and she started talking with me (maybe she also attended the event in the park !) ... anyway she was pointing out to me the headband that one of the workers in Arzmendi was wearing and then I say to the worker - as she was pouring my latte ... You konw I just had the strangest experience... 2 complete strangers came up to me and said good morning ... and she said to me that it should just be like that and that we should not consider it strange...

So lately I have been greeting more people who I don't know when I walk past them... I wonder what they are thinking when I do!

Wow its November!!

Holy Cow where does the time go... we'll after I posted my post about "Have Filemaker - will travel" I got some interest from a philanthropist and we were going to connect over the phone but we haven't seemed to connect yet... So I should see about connecting with him again.

I am coming close to wrapping up Inspector a product for FileMaker Developers that will help them build better FileMaker solutions... Its been so much work - I can hardly believe it myself - but the final product will be amazing, and I am very proud of it.

One of the things I have also recently enjoyed very much is to hear from people who have benefited from my lynda.com training videos ... I asked them if they wanted me to do follow up titles but they seem to be content to sit in the creative space ... not sure why ... If some of the lynda.com fans feel so inclined ... you might want to send them an email in this regards or even an email to see if they might be interested in a FM 8 title... but at this point 8 is already out so who knows where that is heading ... One interesting connection I had was with a friend on someone I work with here. He came to see his friend and mentioned that he was learning about FileMaker on this web site called lynda..com and he was happy to meet me. It was great because I ended up finding out that he is a juggler and I got a juggling lesson. its fun! And also heard from another fan who has inspired me to post ...

So that proves my theory ... you need to put yourself out there ... the world does not come into your living room as I discovered once I gave up on watching TV and getting involved in the world and traveling ... it changed my live ... people change our lives ... which reminds me I need to plan some travel time for early next year.

One thing I would like to shar with you all is something I have been doing with some friends of mine. My friend has put together this web site where you log how many pushups you do every day... PushupCallenge Its great to see how people can be supportive and encouraging towards one another...

Hope you all have a wonderful day ... the rains have started here in bay area and it kind of like it ... good for sitting around a fireplace talking about life and other philosophical topics of the day ... have a great day ...