jorge's jome

My mother passed away early this morning. She had been in the hospital for the past month with kidney problems and pneumonia. After an initial few days in the ICU, she had shown signs of improvement. Sadly, about a week ago she started developing problems again and things deteriorated from there.

To say this has been devastating is a huge understatement. Although she was 74 years old, she seemed to be in fine health and was always running around all over the place. She was well known for just dropping in at people's houses with little or no notice, it was just part of her charm. I guess I sort of expected her to be around forever.

There are so many things I learned from her. She was an incredible woman. I can't imagine what it must have been like raising two boys mostly on her own. But I can't recall ever hearing a single complaint from her. I can't even say I ever heard her say anything mean or derogatory about anyone or anything. She lived modestly and didn't seem to care about material possessions or social status. Despite being from a part of the world that is still very sexist, I think she was a great role model for modern women. She was very independent and self-sufficient, and did anything she wanted to whenever she wanted to. Yet, at the same time, she was one of the most giving people I know.

The pain that I feel in realizing that I can't just drive up to go see her any more, that I'll never hear her voice again, is almost unbearable.

If anyone is interested, services will be held at the following location:

Forest Lawn Memorial Park
21300 E. Via Verde St.
Covina, CA 91724
(800) 204-3131

The viewing will be on Tuesday evening (7/15), and the interment will be Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. the following day. Flowers may be sent to Nivea Ibarra at the above address.

Posted by at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

We just got back from Italy at 2:00 a.m. this morning, a 28-hour day of planes, automobiles and sitting in airports. We're both pretty beat and are trying to get over the jet lag. I will be posting a lengthy blog entry about the trip with lots of photos. It should be up within a day or two.

Posted by at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The big day is almost here, I'm getting really excited about this trip. We're landing in Venice on the morning of the 18th, we'll be there for 3 days, then we head to Lerici for 6 days, then finally to Florence for 4 days. Aside from Venice and Florence, other cities we plan to hit include Pisa, Lucca and Siena. And, as Lerici is so close to Cinque Terre, we will definitely spend one, maybe two, full days in that area.

In order to help us navigate our way around Italy, I picked up a TomTom 130S. BTW, Costco has this unit on sale right now for $179.

I used it around town and was quite pleased with how it performed. The only issue is that the standard configuration didn't have enough room for the US/Canada map and the Italy map, so I had to remove the US/Canada map for now. As you can see, the unit is very small and easy to carry around. It comes with a mount that you can attach to your windshield. Or, remove the mount attachment and it fits nicely in your pocket, great for walking around town. But, the really cool thing is that Google Maps lets you push waypoints directly down to your device.

Makes it a piece of cake to plan your entire route and add all your POIs along the way. FYI, I'll be uploading photos as often as I can considering I'll be spending most of my time out and about. But, if you're interested, here is a link to the Picasa album to which I will be posting my pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jorge.velazquez/Italy2008

Posted by at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)