Design

We went out a couple of nights before Kirk left. The preparations had all been made. He had his tickets, he had signed a general power of attorney, gotten a last physical, made his arrangements. There is an Italian restaurant in El Granada, to the west of Highway 1, called Mezza Luna. It's not a terribly original name - half the restaurants in the area have something to do with half moon in their title. But it is a pretty good restaurant, and the head waiter always calls me 'bella donna,' so we liked it.

That day C had sent an email asking Kirk to do something for him. The company had been asked by the local military commanders if they had anything like a guard shack. They didn't, but C smelled an opportunity and he asked Kirk to design one.

So that evening we ate our fish and brain-stormed on the perfect design for a guard shack. It needed to be pretty simple to put up - a squad would have to be able to do it fairly quickly. There should be good armoring, and the openings needed to be sealable somehow. I argued for a panic button that would drop down shutters over doors and windows - gravity driven of course, simple was best. Kirk wanted gun slits, and thought about visibility and defense, and he penciled in an escape route so the guys wouldn't get trapped.

It was fun, dreaming up the perfect plan. I don't know how practical that first design was. The fact that it was sketched out on a few scraps of paper Kirk dug out of his pocket didn't help. There was the usual synergy there though - that energy that comes from spinning ideas with someone whose mind works with yours. Over the years we had done it about all sorts of things - crazy ideas in Germany, history projects in school, unnamed and vague things in the Air Force. It was part of the fun of being married to Kirk.

One more day.