I was, as usual, anxiously waiting for my third swimming lesson at De Anza College pool.

Mary began the class by having us watch a short video on beach safety. The video was informative, giving details of rip currents and the basic rules to follow if ever caught in one of them.  The video was followed by a short hands-on demo on handling an unconscious person.  The single biggest issue when a person is unconscious is the tongue sliding back and blocking the airway. The first thing that is done is to hold the chin and tilt the head backwards. This …

SEED is Sun Engineering’s world wide employee mentoring program. SEED program participants are expected to rise to the top of Sun Engineering’s individual contributor or management ranks. The Sun annual SEED program took place earlier this week. I lead a Sun Open Source Discussion Panel including experts on OpenSolaris, OpenStorage, OpenSPARC, and GlassFish. It was fun to assemble the panelists and coordinate this discussion.

Some pictures from the event are in Katy’s blog. Katy started the SEED program and has been managing it since 2001.

I was thinking of and eagerly waiting for day#2 of my swimming class. There was a lot that we got to do today. I seem to be getting more comfortable in the water and hope that I get over my fear completely!

Before going into the pool,  Mary demonstrated to us the hand and the leg movements needed to stay afloat. The hand motion, when it is used, is sculling. It can be compared to spreading frosting on a giant birthday cake. By properly waving the hands back and forth through the water, the swimmer creates a force perpendicular to …

I intend to do a Triathlon. But there is a small problem… I am afraid of water and cannot swim!

I finally got some recommendations and joined the De Anza College for PE 26A, the novice swimming class. Yesterday was the first day of  the Spring semester class. The class started at 10AM with a large number of nervous students sitting on the bleachers for the instructor to start the class. It was a little cold.  Mary Donahue spent more than an hour on the class formalities, getting signatures, tour of the locker rooms, giving us details of her expectations of …

I have been thinking about Arya the whole day! Arya had the bone marrow transplant successfully done today, 08 April ‘09, his new birthday! This follows two weeks of intense preparation of the body for the transplant. This involves procedures to stop his body’s ability to make bone marrow. After the donor stem cells are injected, the new cells are meant to take over.

Arya and his family have started an on-line journal to follow his journey and to keep family and friends informed of the developments. I hope and pray that his body accepts the new cells easily and he …