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Ventura Chiropractic &
Massage
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Ventura Chiropractic &
Massage
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And Now……….The Official December 2002 Oak View, Santa Barbara, Brooklyn YOUNG FAMILY UPDATE J Here’s Jove! Hi everybody! (Fill in the Simpson’s line here...) This has been a super busy year for me, and yet strangely uneventful. This is probably because I began preparing for my qualifying/comprehensive PhD. exams in March, and have done almost nothing except read since then. These past few months have been especially insane- I’ve read 45 books since the end of September. It will all end soon, however, as I take (took, by the time you read this) my exams December 16, 17, and 18th. Then, if all goes (went) well, I’ll get to move on to the final stage of my formal schooling: writing my dissertation. It’s going to be on apocalyptic myth and imagery in American popular culture, but that’s all I can say for now, as I’m, uh, sworn to secrecy. Yeah. Next quarter I’ll also be TA-ing for a course called Religious Approaches to Death, and that should be very exciting as well.
Oh, we also recently became foster parents/hospice care for a bunny from the local shelter. Her name is Snuggles and she has cancer. The shelter asked us to take her (we had volunteered to help out in this way) since they didn’t have enough space. She is a wonderful animal and her impending death is very sad, but we are doing all we can to make her last months happy. This mostly consists of feeding her rice cake and dried cherry treats, petting her and taking her out the garden where she can nibble on the vegetables (don’t worry, she gets a healthy dose of those every day, too!). Speaking of the garden, the construction of a new playground nearby seems to have accomplished what our Eastern Block style gardening (plenty of fences- it’s neither pretty nor effective!) could not, and driven out most of the squirrels. The result has been the largest lettuces, swiss chards and snow peas we’ve ever managed! Unfortunately, the gopher is still around, and our carrots are no more. Love from Santa Barbara, Jovi Hi! Kris here! My father died this August. He was miserable, unhappy, and unable to change. He died in his bed, alone in his home in El Cerrito, California. He gave life a good shot, but it gave him one too. There was a lot of pain in his life. There was much to love in him. He always cared about us, though in the last 15 years, one had to read between the lines to see it.
Lots of good things in my life. None of them easy, but each important. The first is PEACE in the WORLD. I am trying to make a difference. Here is a letter of mine that was printed in the Ventura County Star (our local newspaper) in early December. *** It's time to wage peace The article stated former weapons inspector Scott Ritter believes the United States could declare war on Iraq as early as this month. It is blatantly obvious that would be President Bush's hope. I don't believe this direction will create security for the United States or for the world.
I am amazed and disappointed by our president's repeated comments that
he/we will wipe out terrorism once and for all. For Americans who are
afraid, and not thinking clearly, it must be comforting to hear our
president say those words. For those who even casually consider what
President Bush says, it is obvious terrorism will never be wiped out once
and for all, unless he is referring to a nuclear winter in which all of
humanity is killed. Kenn running the anchor leg.......
May we live in peace. Jo Kenn Kris Jovi |
at I feel for 
my brother,
Kap (left). There are few things in my life that have meant as much to me as his spirit of creation,
growth, forgiveness and love, and the relationship that we share! (How
interesting to think what it would be like to have our little brother,
Kenny (age 15 on right), with us. He would have been 50 years old on
December 10 of this year. My heart reaches for him. 
My grandfather Joe King died this year in April. I was close to both my
grandparents and I miss them. (My grandmother, Anna, died a couple of
years ago.) My grandfather was 92 and mentally very quick. However, his
body was not in good shape and he was often in pain. He decided he had
enough and he took his life. I respect him highly for his actions. He was
considerate and loving to me all his life.
ves and mittens for many of us in the family. I wear mine on cool
evening walks. 
January
thru May saw me through the end of school. I graduated from Rice with a
degree in Computer Science. Shortly thereafter, I packed my things in my
van, and my van in a moving truck, and G and I drove a truck from Houston
(never to return, I said to myself) to California. On the way out, we
stayed overnight with our meat supplier, Alan Birkenfeld (www.paidom.com)
in West Tejas. G moved to New York (I'll never go to that dirty, not to
mention dangerous, place, I said to myself [and G]). And I moved back in
with my happy folks while I figured out what to do next. I had a plan
(nursed by Kris) to found a company / non-profit not-dissimilar to
craigslist. (See: www.craigslist.com)
I wanted to facilitate people finding and cooperating with one another.
Somebody or other called our modern phenomenon "Loss of the Commons" or
somesuch. Essentially the town gets so big (and the common-land so big and
rich) that any individual may choose to abuse the commons and not be able
to detect their negative effect. Or they may detect it, but consider their
ill-impact insignificant. In many ways I think we've lost touch with the
commons. Anyway... I convinced my friend Jay Kotowsky that my plan was
sound, and that we should try our hand at such a website / tool based in
Ventura. --- And then I visited
www.idealist.com. --- And a saw an APB for people interested starting
a non-profit in New York... with the same plan as Jay and I had! And these
guys seemed to have some experience and success with tech startups.
Well... I thought, I guess I could go out and
meet them and
visit G. And so I went. And I liked the group. And oh what a shocker, I
loved New York. And I liked seeing G. I went back to California to finish
up business there. In the beginning of August, my friend Colin and I
hopped in a car and went to Houston. To drop off Colin at Rice. From there
I flew to my new home. Whereupon I spent a month and a half sweating and
job hunting. I needed a job because until this non-profit got funding,
there was no money in it. But boy did I love New York. There are people
everywhere. So much public social life. And so much ethnic and racial
diversity. So unlike suburban isolationland. And there's public
transportation in New York. (Which may strike in less than 2 hrs...
leaving me stranded in Manhattan...) And GOD do I love public
transportation. First, I have no pollution / oppression /
Middle-East-war-starting guilt associated with traveling. Second, I don't
feel the stress of driving at 75 with 5 lanes of traffic. Third, my
commute time is my own. I always spend that time reading. I have never in
my life had 50 minute per day alloted to reading for pleasure. I've read
Crime and Punishment, the Communist Manifesto, Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep, and Crome Yellow, and am working on The Name Of the Rose.
I love it. Back to the beauty of New York. The diversity of the
neighborhoods, the cleanliness of the air (compared to Ojai or Houston),
the quality of art / music / museums / farmer's markets, the convenience
of everything... (the fact that I am part of the biggest member run
grocery-coop in the US -- A wonderful store). New York is doing me right.
I have a beautiful place with ten foot ceilings, wood floors, a giant
kitchen, and fantastic light all year round. Well, anyway, back to events
of my year. G was desirous of getting her life more organized. So she
bought a handheld (computer), aka palm-pilot. Then she wanted to get the
Franklin-Covey organizational software for it. So one weekend she was
going uptown to the Franklin-Covey store, and I felt like hanging out with
her, so I went along. And Franklin-Covey was trying to move an economy
model palm, bundled with their software. And it was cheap. And the
software alone was not cheap. And I bought a palm. After a whirlwind
romance with that palm, I began hatching business ideas that utilized
handhelds. And I started setting myself up to program my palm. Meanwhile,
I'm still using craigslist to try to find a job in NY. I saw a posting for
a company called Wireless Generation that needed a technical
specifications writer. I went to their website. They're a company that
makes handheld student assessment tools for teachers. After recording the
assessment on the handheld, the teacher plops the assessment on a server
(via the web) and beautiful progress charts and reports are automatically
generated and recorded. The idea is to take tedious administrative tasks
off teachers' shoulders, and allow more time and energy for
person-to-person instruction. Novel way to combine technology and
education. I was fascinated. So even though they weren't offering
programming jobs, I wrote them a letter on a Thursday that said
essentially, "I want to work for you. But even tho I am very interested in
you specifically, I am aggressively searching for a job, so please get
back to me ASAP. In fact, if I don't hear from you Friday, I'm going to
come visit you Monday." And I did visit them Monday. I talked to the
receptionist, left my resume again, was told it would be at least a week
before things would settle down enough in the office for me to hope to
hear anything, and headed out. I only got as far as the subway when I got
a call. "Could you come back right now for an interview?" A 5-day
programming assignment / aptitude test later, I had my first real job. I
really like my company and the people in it. I really like the work we do.
I really like the money. I really like New York. I think I'm going to stay
a while. P.S. My friend from longest ago, Paul Borchard, moved to NY with
his wife. We recently reconnected. What great 2 people. I am really happy
to have them here.