It's been fifty one days since I dropped Lauren off at her grandmother's house in North Carolina. I haven't talked to her since.

I did finally get around to putting up my last batch of pictures from her visit at the beginning of October. You can find them at the end of this set.

They're not responding to email or phone calls anymore. Lauren was really upset when I dropped her off, so I guess they've decided it's better if she forgets about us (rather than missing us).

I used to do Sudoku all the time, but I lost interest around the time Lauren came into our lives. Coincidentally (?), I'm back into it again.

(Oh, what's Sudoku? It looks something like a crossword puzzle, but it's all numbers. 9x9 grid, divided into nine 3x3 sections. To finish the game, every row, column, and 3x3 section must have all of the digits 1-9. There's no math involved, other than being able to count to 9. There is some real logic involved, though.)

When at my computer I use Verek's Sudoku Companion. It's freeware, though it didn't used to be: I had to pay for my copy. (Verek is no longer in business, though, so I'm glad they're giving the app away.)

Sudoku Companion gives you all the options I think you might need in a computer-based version of the game, other than an "I give up just solve it for me" button. It offers six levels of difficulty: Easy, Medium, Hard, Fiendish, Insane and Sudoku of the Day. I'm not sure where the Sudoku of the Day comes from, but everybody running the app gets the same one on the same day, so it's a nifty way to have a little friendly competition. A timer at the bottom of the window tells you how long it's been since the game started, and the timer pauses if the game isn't frontmost (so if you take a break, the timer stops). You can also create your own sudokus, and save/share them. (It's very difficult to create a good one, though.)

I can usually complete an 'insane' sudoku in about thirty minutes. The dailies are usually forty minutes to an hour.

If you like sudoku and you're on a mac, go get a copy of Sudoku Companion (that's the direct download link). Do a couple warmup games, and then try Sudoko Companion Daily.png. It's the most difficult sudoku I've ever played, and took almost two hours to complete!

As I drove Corinne to work this morning, she casually mentioned the recurring dream she has about Lauren.

…

Sigh.

There are two for me. Or I should say, one recurring dream and one recurring daydream.

The night-time-while-I'm-sleeping dream is quite silly, and in fact it's more of a memory than a dream. She's been potty trained, and has just used the toilet. At just two-and-a-half years old, she needs help pulling her pants back up. She looks up and asks me to help, I lean down to help her, and our foreheads (our "twoheads," as she says it) bonk. I look into her eyes, those crazy-big, brown, anime eyes, and am transfixed.

That's it, my dream-memory. Every night, over and over.

The daydream is entirely different. Every night when I go to bed, I can't help but seek her out. I see her, sleeping either on her right side with her arms by her side, or on her stomach, curled up but not quite fetal. Her head is always on the sheet instead of the pillow, her hair everywhere. I see every detail, and I savor them. I watch her breathe for a while, and then lean in to kiss her cheek near her ear.

She stirs, though. Even in my mind she stirs. “Opa?” “Go back to sleep, baby girl, I was just saying good night. I love you.” Then I'm gone, back in my own bed.

Mike and Shannon — and probably Brenda, too — would take even this away from me if they could. I'm sure of it, just as I'm sure they'd deny it.

Jed is 35 today.

I haven't seen him since his wedding two and a half years go. Corinne hasn't seen him since he moved out of our house almost four years ago. (This was wrong, forgot about his visit a few months after the wedding. So it's been a little over two years for both of us.)

Along with his wife Alycia, her little horse and his big dog, he lives in a wigwam on the top of a mountain just outside of the arctic circle, about 10,000 miles from here. I get carrier-eagle messages from him every few months, and last I heard he was doing fine. (In fact, last I heard he was going on an Orca hunt with his brother-in-law, Nanook. We're not worried, though as Jed is the careful type who rarely suffers any sort of injury.)

Another correction: Jed tells me they live in a longhouse, not a wigwam; also they were hunting Narwhal, not Orca. At least, that's what they're telling people.

Retail software is a three legged stool.

• User Interface
• Engineering

Right?

Oh, what? There are only two legs there? Huh. What's missing?

Marketing is the third leg. Very rare is the product that can succeed without it, no matter how well crafted. (Yet so many try.)

More on this soon. Something very big is brewing.

Tonight (er, last night, since it's now 2 am) I had to break a little girl's heart. And mine. Again. She cried. She begged me to stay or take her back to "Oma's house" or just give her one more hug-and-kiss (a dozen times). I won't embarrass her (future self) by telling everybody how bad it was or what else she did, but it was bad.

By the time I left her grandmother's house (in NC where the family is living), I was weeping openly too. I finally just handed her to Mike, told her I love her, and went out the door.

I wonder how much more this would have to hurt to convince me to stay out of Lauren's life (not there yet, that's for sure). Is that the idea here? Or am I being tested to see how much I can take or what I'll sacrifice for the ones I love? Something else? Is this character-building, character-testing, or just a bed of my own making?

Anyway, I'm at a hotel somewhere in VA now, and need sleep before I finish the long, lonely drive home tomorrow. Er, today.