There are two choices for how one may go through life: you can either make friends or go insane. While I did spend several years sticking to the latter track just to see what it was like, lately I've taken to trying to happily following both paths, and life is better.

These are the people (and otherwise) that I've hung around with or otherwise dealt with on a day-to-day basis for some extended period of time, and who have made me who I am (intentionally or not). May you be as entertained by them as I.

(Please note that the categories are approximate, and are probably not adequate to handle major life changes. For instance, Significant Others tend to end up in the same category as the person I knew first, and children go with their parents.)

Nuclear Family

Unlike many of my friends, I actually like my family on general principle. Maybe that's just because I'm so much like them. Note that, for me, my pets are truly as important as family.

Danny Skirvin - Nuclear Family (Brother)

Danny is my younger brother, born 26.5 months after me, inducing the standard level of jealousy and comaraderie of any good sibling relationship. A quarter of a century later, he's turned out to be a pretty cool guy - my brother, certainly, so we still fight over little stuff, but still one of the best people I know.
Danny graduated with a Veterinarian degree from UIUC a few years ago, and moved to Phoenix with his girlfriend Celeste. This was a big enough change; but much bigger was the recent decision to join the military. He's now in the Army Reserves, specifically in the Veterinarian Corps. Next year, he's going to spend six months in Kuwait! I still don't quite believe this...
Oh, and I admit it, we look more alike lately.

Allenite

Margie Skirvin - Nuclear Family (Mother)

Mom is one of the variety of people in our town that is best referred to as a Professor Spouse; they're over-educated, under-jobbed, and looking to do something useful. She took care of me and Danny as we were growing up, which was a full-time job; but as we got older, though, and we required less of her direct attention, she turned her interests towards politics. She first helped the local Democratic party for years, and later ran for Champaign School Board, where she served a little over two terms. She really did enjoy it, and was *very* good at it, but the stress took its toll; and so, when it came time to run for re-election in 2007, she decided to bow out. And we were even able to convince her to stay out, at least so far...
On a more personal level, Mom and I are very close, and tend to talk about the world for a few hours a week, especially politics (state, national, University, you name it). She's my closest connection back to C-U, and probably the person I talk with by phone the most.
Oh, and for the record, while I may not look *exactly* like Mom I certainly got a lot of my good sense and personality from her. And interest in math.

Bob Skirvin - Nuclear Family (Father)

Dad is a professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (NRES), specifically in Horticulture, and more specifically Small Fruits. He's an expert in brambles (raspberries/blackberries) and tissue culture (plant cloning), but mostly enjoys teaching his Introduction to Horticulture class and talking with the students. But that's just his profession. Personally, Dad is an extremely jovial guy who loves to tell stories and jokes (good and bad), bargain hunts at every opportunity, and collects more stuff than he needs or can even store. Many of my friends have taken his class and loved it; I recommend it to just about everyone. He's also incredibly devoted to our family, and is as good a father as I could ever hope for. Oh, and physically we look like clones. Yay genetics!
Beyond that, Dad is truly one of my best friends; we love to just wander the town whenever can, for garage sales or random shopping or just plain carrying on. We get to be each other's partner in crime, and I think it's good for both of us, even if it drives Mom insane. Truly, being away from Dad has been one of the toughest parts of living in California.

Jesse - Pet (Personal)

Jesse is a black long-haired cat that I found at the humane society just after I'd bought my house. He won my heart by dropping everything and running to jump on my lap when I sat down in one of the communal rooms, and continuing to do so every time I came nearby, even when there were already other cats on my lap! Really, being willing to be bitten just so he can get my attention is a good way to win my favor.
Jesse is a talker - he constantly wanders around chattering and talking to me, partially because he wants the attention but partially just because he likes it. He still loves being a lap cat, though mostly when I'm doing something else (like typing...hey!@#) He likes to hang around outside the shower, and wants nothing in life quite so much as kitten food. And he is, just barely, the Alpha Cat of the house, simply because he's willing to ignore Tulip's carryings-on.

Tulip - Pet (Personal)

Tulip is the younger of my two cats, a tiny tortie. I got her at the humane society at the same time as Jesse; and she turned out to be just as much of an excellent cat as Jesse, although for entirely different reasons. Tulip is a nosy, willful little girl - she loves to fight, to play, to hunt, and to cuddle with my face whenever possible. She loves visitors, she'll do anything for a treat, and she's remarkably good at getting herself into tight situations (and less good at getting herself out). And I still appreciate that she's willing to groom me whenever the chance arises...
I should also note that, while I do think that Jesse is Alpha, it's really not by very much.

Extended Family

Outside of the immediate family, I've got Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and a pile of In-Laws.

Lois "Other Grandma" Clauson - Extended Family (Maternal Grandmother), Deceased

I didn't really know Grandma all that well; I knew that she was kind to me,and all that, but she died before I really got a chance to *know* her. I did know that she loved me and my family, that she didn't really like Dad all that much, that her last request was "not Fruit of the Loom!", and that she loved to play Oh Hell and Cribbage with me and my brother; the rest of it is all from stories, though, stuff like her not letting anybody have an unequal number of eggs and pieces of toast, and how she yelled "Bob!" at Grandpa in a wonderful voice that I can still reproduce. And I think that's really enough.

Deceased

Michael Clauson - Extended Family (Step-Uncle)

Michael is one of Grandpa Bob's kids, and the one of them that I know the best. He has long lived in Indiana, and a while ago actually moved in with Grandpa. It's not necessarily the greatest idea in the world - would you want to live with your father at that age? - but it does work for the two of them; they need the company and the support, and it's a lot easier to cook for two than one (and Michael is a very good cook). For my part, because of this relationship I've seen Michael quite a bit over the last few years, and therefore have become closer with him than with any of Grandpa's other kids. It's kindof random to pick up a family member like that, but hey, I guess it happens...

Bob "Grandpa Bob" Clauson - Extended Family (Maternal Step-Grandfather)

Grandpa Bob is Other Grandma's third husband; I never knew the first (my blood grandfather), and the second doesn't sound like he was worth much, but Grandpa Bob has been as good of a grandfather as I could hope. He's a retired electrical engineer (specializing in power systems), whose great talent is lying - he can make anybody believe anything, because it's fun and because he's obviously enjoying it so much. Dad wants nothing more than to be Grandpa when he grows up; I'm tempted to go that way myself.
Grandpa currently lives just outside of Indianapolis, in order to be within easy driving distance of as many of his kids as possible (three of his own live in the state, and my Grandmother's kids all live within a state). He seems to visit my parents about every other month or so, generally for a few days at a time. Therefore, I see him pretty much every time I go home. He may be getting older every time, but he's always Grandpa...

Bob and Jeanne Green - Extended Family (Paternal Great-Uncle), Deceased

Uncle Bob was my grandfather's oldest brother, and one of very few family members of that era that I actually met. He was in the Navy during World War II; as I understand it, his career was fairly impressive (he was most proud of his time on the USS Saratoga), even if he didn't actually go to any major combat zones. (Or maybe he did, I don't really know.) He and his wife Jeanne lived in Conneticut, where they owned both a house and a nice shack in the woods; it's rustic, and it's where my parents spent their honeymoon, so we would occasionally go out and visit it. While he and his wife Jeannie were going strong well into his 80s, the two of them started going downhill in 2005-06. Finally, the two of them died in 2007 within a few weeks of each other. Uncle Bob was 90, and he lived a good life.

Kat Maloney - Extended Family (Maternal Aunt)

Mom's always described Aunt Kathy as brilliant but irresponsible - exactly as any eldest sister would of the youngest sister, but there's a major grain of truth in it. Still, I enjoyed her as a kid; being the first nephew comes with perks. Kathy has three kids (Jessica, Stephanie, and Natalie) and three grandchildren, all of which live in Springfield. She took care of Sherlock when we went to New Zealand. And, after probably 15 years since I hadn't seen her (nor most of my family), she came to my wedding - the first time that her and her sisters saw each other in just as long!

W. David "Bil Skirvin" R. Green - Extended Family (Paternal Uncle)

Growing up, I never knew Uncle Bil all that well directly, but he affected my life on a regular basis. For starters, he worked for Sierra On-Line as an artist (he did work on the King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry series, amongst others), which was good for a video game enthusiast like myself; but more foundationally, he had painted most of the art up around my house, and so I had grown up always seeing his work. When I did see Bil later on, it somehow wasn't as influential as those two things; his impact on my life was just plain larger as a remote uncle than as a real person.
That's changed a bit over the years. I still have his art on my walls, and I often brag of my Uncle's video game history; but now, all of these years later, I actually know of Bil directly. He lives in Southern California, and seems to be constantly trying to get his life together; but when I get to hang out with him, I'm always happy to just sit and talk. He's a good guy, and someone that I'm proud to know.

Emma Siewny - Extended Family (Maternal Cousin)

Emma is the youngest of the four Siewny kids, and it shows. She's the rough-and-tumble kid of the bunch, as well as far more cunning than her exterior would suggest; this makes her a whole lot of fun to hang out with, if perhaps a bit dangerous. Emma is also currently the one that I get to see the most, since she actually stays in public areas and likes to see her cousins. Besides, we get to help her plot for... things. *grin* She's seemed to adapt to her older siblings heading off to college pretty well; weirdly, the last I checked she still hasn't demanded her own room.

Greg Siewny - Extended Family (Maternal Uncle)

Uncle Greg is an OB-GYN in Middletown, OH - a small town half-way in between Cincinnati and Dayton, where he knows just about everybody in it. He married my Aunt Jeanne when I was seven years old, which is just about the right time to seamlessly add a new family member. Shortly after the two of them visited us in New Zealand, they started having children; and when that happened, my family started visiting them regularly. Besides giving us time to be close with the kids as they grew up, this gave me a chance to really know my Uncle. Thus, I know that he has a love of bad science fiction movies, often needs help with some piece of technology or another, can nap at a moment's notice, always has some odd plans for Interesting Projects, and is basically immune to having a good picture taken of him.

Jeanne Siewny - Extended Family (Maternal Aunt)

Aunt Jeanne is my Mom's middle sister. I was her first nephew, and so she spent a whole lot of time with me as I was growing up; in return, I've spent nearly as much time hanging out with her kids over the last couple of decades. We tend to visit her house 2-3 times a year, and generally have a very relaxing time while we're there - as long as we can get over the general lack of organization in the house, anyway. If nothing else, it's fun to just talk with her for a while when I do make it over.

Lauren Siewny - Extended Family (Maternal Cousin)

Lauren is the oldest of the four Siewny kids. As is the case with all the these kids, I watched her grow up; in her case, it means that I've watched her slowly take over the household, organizing things so she can do what she needs to do (but not in a bad way!), and on through graduating from college and starting professional school. She recently graduated from Vanderbilt, and will be attending a med school somewhere near home; her life seems pretty well on track, though this does have the downside that I don't get to see her as often.

Matthew Siewny - Extended Family (Maternal Cousin)

Matt is the second of the four Siewny kids, and is the family computer geek. In many ways his life has resembled mine, at least in an age-specific context - his technical skills outstripped his social skills for many years, and he never really seemed to mind this that much. But as he grew older, he grew more sensible; and when the arguments I got into with him over computer issues grow more and more fun and knowledgeable, I knew that he was through the worst of it. Now Matt is attending Kenyon College, where he's getting far too good of an education is is trying to work out what to do with his life. Well, besides invoking his physical similarity to Michael Cera.

Rachael Siewny - Extended Family (Maternal Cousin)

Rachael is the social butterfly of the Siewny family. Third of four children, she historically got along best with her youngest sister, Emma; this turned out to be a good thing for her, when it came down to it, given that her old siblings have now long-since headed off to college. Of all of the kids, hers are the friends that I personally know; there's something amusing about that. Rachael was the first one to really get involved in social networking in a big way; I've been talking with her over IM for a few years now, and she seems to care the most about her Facebook account.

Candice Skirvin - Extended Family (Paternal Cousin)

Candice is the oldest daughter of my Uncle Jim, and is about a year and a half older than me. We're not close - I've only seen her twice in the last fifteen years, and then only for an afternoon at a time - but I'm still impressed at how obviously my cousin she is. Candice has five children - Rebecca, Elliott, Mariah, Sebastian, and Victoria - and last I checked has returned to once again live in New Hampshire.

This seems as good a place as any to mention that I am in contact with Candice's youngest sister (Erica), but not her middle sister (Heidi).

Jim Skirvin - Extended Family (Paternal Uncle)

Except for Jim's red hair, Dad and Uncle Jim look exactly alike. It's kinda scary. Jim lives in Hesperia, California, near to Grandma; he runs a flower shop with his wife Phyllis (his third). He was in the Navy for a while, and then lived in New England for a while before moving back west... And, beyond the fact that I have a whole pile of cousins out of the deal (Heidi, Erica, and Candace by blood, Josh and Micah by marriage, not to mention at least five second cousins that I know of...), that's really all I know about him - I never dealt much with him growing up, and didn't hear that many stories.

Orval Skirvin - Extended Family (Paternal Grandfather), Deceased

I can't say I really understood Grandpa; he was my grandfather, and I dealt with him as such, but he just wasn't coherent enough when I was congnisant enough to really meet him. So I guess I'll just describe what I know of him. Grandpa was born to a crazy family, and came out of it...well, a bit crazy, but probably better than most of his clan. He joined the army, and marched on Germany in WWII, where he was wounded and earned a good pension for life. He returned to marry Grandma, had three boys, and found God. There was a lot of other stuff in there, too. I was his first grandson. I'll always remember his strange sayings ("it's okay, I got back in", "don't shoot me, I'm half shot already", stuff like that); he loved me dearly. But he had diabetes and had been wounded back in the war. And now he's gone.

Deceased

Sylvia Skirvin - Extended Family (Paternal Grandmother)

Grandma is as loving a person as I've ever met, and therefore a wonderful grandmother. She and Grandpa raised my father and his brothers in Barstow, CA, and were incredibly impressed when Dad got his degree and became a professor; then he had me, and she got even more excuses to come across the country every now and then and visit. She still lives in California, several years after Grandpa died, near my Uncle Jim; she still seems incredibly *alive* for her age, no matter how much annoyance her family brings to her. I'm just happy to not be part of that annoyance - she deserves all the love I can give her, and not the evils of California life.
Since I moved to California, I have seen her a little bit more often - but perhaps not as much as I probably should. At least her place is now a gathering spot for Christmas.

Sampson "Big Boy" Skirvin - Pet (Parents)

Sampson is my parents' current second cat. He's a short-hair black boy, with only a few spots of white here and there; he's also one of the wimpiest cats I've known. We've never been sure why he lets Sheba beat him up; he out-weighs her by quite a bit, and can be vicious when he's motivated, but generally he just runs off when she comes around. Over the time my parents have had him, he's moved from friendly, to skittish, back towards friendly again, and currently to afraid of anything that moves - with the exception of his nemesis, the mail delivery guy. For some reason, he'll put on a hell of a show keeping away that particular intruder...

Sheba "Little Girl" Skirvin - Pet (Parents)

Sheba was the first of my parents' two current cats - and when I say "first", I mean "by two hours". She was originally named "Delilah", to match Sampson; but given her response to having another cat show up and invade *her* house, and her overall attitude towards people, my parents decided she was far closer to "the bloody Queen of Sheba". The name stuck. Sheba is a wonderful little squeaky thing, whose greatest joy in life is to thwart Sampson. She loves boxes, and tends to hang over anything that seems like an edge. And, for some reason, she really likes it when I stuff her in a hole; or when I fight with her; or, really, just about anything. I really do seem to be her favorite person in the world, even if I live on the wrong coast now...

Adopted Family

In the past, I managed to adopt several of my friends, or be adopted by them. At this point, they fit into a special category of "family" that I wouldn't otherwise have gussed at.

Lauren Barley - Adopted Family (Aunt)

Lauren Barley is my aunt, and the family member that I see the most often. The story of how she became my aunt is an interesting one, but perhaps not best related here; in short, I kept her in the divorce. *grin* She is as happy to have family in the area as I.
Lauren works as a technology analyst - or at least that's my best understanding of her job. Mostly, she works as William's mother, as her son is absolutely the light of her life. She's loving, cheerful, generous, and... truly, what I think of when I see her is that she is family.

Xian Barrett - Adopted Family (Brother)

Sean was my first "best friend", the kid that we all find when we're young and deal with as the most important being in your life for some long period of time. We went to school together, grade school through high school; he skipped more grades than me, though, so I saw him less and less as time went on. Brother status was reached when he realized that he'd gone through school too fast, started hanging out with Danny, and moved in with my family (the reasons still escape me, since he lived down the street, but it worked okay). Then he got into anime, found a major, graduated, and disappeared to Japan to teach. He finally settled down a few years ago, got married, and currently works for the Chicago Public School system as a teacher; and he managed to win a major federal fellowship to help in this process back in July/August 2009. It's great to see him getting his life together - and, perhaps more to the point, it's great to be back in touch with him again.

Tim and Judith Ng - Adopted Family (Godparents, and/or Uncle/Aunt)

While pregnant, it was proclaimed by my parents that I would be named after one of these two; they were all best friends through grad school, and, well, you have to name kids after someone. They never guessed what the results would be, though. It wasn't the academics - Tim was until recently a professor of Horticulture like Dad, as well as a department head and various other scary titles - but the love of computers, video games, movies, and random little toys can be directly attributed to the name. Or that's my theory at least. Judith works at the Department of Education, and manages to both keep Tim in line and keep the wheels of government running. I'm still proud to be associated with both of them, and they with me. Though I still think it would have been cool if Tim had applied to be UIUC's Chancellor...

Ray Reskusich - Adopted Family (Brother-In-Law)

Ray was essentially the founder of allen19, and was the last surviving resident of the 1997 Quad. He invited me to live in the room, because I had chosen to hang around there occasionally the year before and they needed somebody strange to live there; as far as I could tell, though, I was more than he was bargaining for. That didn't hurt, of course - over the year we got to be good friends, as we encouraged each other in our anti-work ways and generally slacked more than any sane person ever should. Still, we both eventually graduated, him a year and a half earlier than me; he went off to work in St Louis for most of that time, and eventually returned to work for CCSO and live with Mel in Urbana. Now, of course, he and Mel have moved off to Seattle, with Ray working for Microsoft, and I miss them both dearly. I really need to make my way up there one of these days...

Allenite; allen19; Eva Gang; Monday Movies; Roommate: allen19 (Fall 1997- Spring 1998)

Randy Schlemmer - Adopted Family

Depending on who you talk to (and/or the time of day), Randy is either my Uncle or my Cousin. Either way, he's family; he's married to Aunt Lauren and is father of William, but it's just a question of how far removed you have to get and still be family. I see him every couple of weeks when I have dinner with him and his family; as he's a technology project manager, we generally have quite a bit to talk about, at least in general terms. He's a good guy, at least.

Cousin

William Schlemmer - Adopted Family

William is a nephew/cousin combo, in much the same way as the Siewny kids - that is, he's most accurately a cousin, but based on the age difference I treat him as a nephew. William is the only child of Lauren and Randy, and is truly the light of their lives. He's in most ways a fairly standard nine-year-old kid - a bit awkward, enjoys sports and video games, always looking for ways to improve his lot in life (which generally involved trying to get more time online and/or with his DS). And he certainly seems to look up to me, which is both satisfying and intimidating...

Cousin

Mel White - Adopted Family (Sister)

In retrospect, Mel justifies everything I did in Allen Hall. I met her through one of my "harass the freshmen" techniques - they move in, are greatly confused, and are suddenly dragged into a huge group of upperclassmen and forced to talk about their confused lives until 3am. It was a fun tactic, and Mel loved it - enough so that she started dating my roommate Ray, and adopted me a week or so later. As with any siblings, we've fought and argued, and cared about each other far too much; but still, she was one of the forces that kept me in C-U for years, simply because I didn't want to be too far from her. Of course, then she took off with Ray for Seattle, and so I don't see her anywhere near as often anymore. It's all the same coast, right, shouldn't it be easy?

Allenite; allen19; Monday Movies

Caitte Williams - Adopted Family (Sister), Allenite

I adopted Caitte on my 21st birthday. It was the right thing to do; we'd known each other for about three years at that point, and treated each other like siblings for most of that time. She was, at that point, a Chemistry major imported from Indiana. I met her through a Babylon 5 showing at the start of the school year, and over a very short time we grew to be close friends. We lived together for a year; we fought and argued, but it was fun for both of us, even as we drove each other crazy. Siblings, I tell ya. I helped her through relationships and breakups, school and job crises, and everything in between; she helped me just as much, through topics just as varied.
She moved to Texas after school was out, to work for Teach For America. While the job wasn't that great, it did introduce her to her husband, which has to be worth something. The two of them moved to Washington DC a year or so after they got married (I got to be a bridesmaid!), where they recently bought a home and... well, just plain stay busy. It's hard to talk to her when she's on the wrong coast, so I don't know too many details past that point...
Also, she is short.

Eva Gang; Like Disco (Fall 1996 - Spring 2000); allen19; Groomsman; Roommate: BASL (Fall 1999 - Spring 2000)

Randall Williams - Adopted Family (Brother-In-Law)

Randall is Caitte's husband. The two of them met while working for Teach For America back in 1999-2000; I met him about a year later when Caitte brought him to Chicago to meet us, and again later when I went to Texas to visit the two of them. I approved; I think Caitte took this as the go-ahead. They were married in November 2003, and he moved from boyfriend-in-law to brother-in-law. I approved of him before the wedding, and I approve of him now - not only is he good to Caitte, but he's smart, amusing, able to keep up with her *and* me; we can rant about TV shows and politics and all sorts of random stuff. All in all, a good in-law, if my first. Randall has completed master's program in Museum Studies, and is now working with his degree; as far as I can tell, this has been a massive improvement in their lives. They're still living in DC with their two cats (Nikodemus and Nostradamus), and I hope to be able to spend some more time out there with them soon.

Orlando McMeans - Family Friend

Orlando was one of my Dad's students for his entire college career and then some - he started with him for some high school projects, and got his PhD with him about a decade later. During this time, he was fairly often tapped as a babysitter for me and Danny; as such, we still have very fond memories of him and all the silly stuff we'd do together. Orlando is now a very successful family friend, working as a Dean out at the University of West Virginia, a position he got only a couple of years after getting his doctorate. He manages to visit fairly regularly, and sometimes it even matches up for when I'm in C-U; but in the mean time, I'm just happy to see him doing so much with his life. Even if the job is tough on him, he has done so incredibly well... frankly, he inspires me to my own greatness.

Margaret Norton - Family Friend

Margaret is my Dad's lab manager, and has been working with him for over twenty years now. I first got to know her when she would semi-babysit me and my brother while our parents went traveling; even then, she was effectively family. When I lived in C-U, she was a regular part of every "official family dinner"; her role was to bring some kind of dessert, generally including something that I'm actually able to eat (yay, no chocolate!), and always brought Bridget, her wonderful dog. (My role was to just be there - it's helpful to be the kid sometimes.) She's one of the most amusingly sarcastic people I've ever known, which appears to be how she puts up with Dad at work. Definitely a fun person, and somebody that I will probably always look at as some form of older sister or aunt.

Magic Schlemmer - Pet (Adopted Family)

Magic is Lauren and Randy's dog. I don't actually remember what variety she was - something hypo-allergenic, so as to not cause William to explode too badly - but really, that's besides the point anyway. What matters to me is that she's a cute, friendly dog that looks upon a visit from me as the Greatest Thing Ever(tm). She's absolutely convinced that I feed her carrots, that I run around for hours, and that otherwise I do all of the things that her masters won't actually do; I really don't know where she got these ideas...

Skyline Kitty "Sammy" Siewny - Pet (Extended Family)

Skyline Kitty is a small, black scaredy-cat that belongs squarely to Lauren. She's a cute little thing, and lots of fun to chase around the house in a futile attempt to pick her up; still, she enjoys hanging around and just looking at you. Her favorite game, at least that I've found, is CD Tray - she is endlessly fascinated with the CD-ROM tray as it opens and closes when you press the button. She comes up and lightly hits it as it goes, before running away and hiding behind something before pouncing again...

Tobey "Wiener-Bun" Siewny - Pet (Extended Family)

While reports of his ancestry don't necessarily agree, Wiener Bun looks like a mix between a Black Lab (head and facial features) and a Dachshund (everything else). He's my cousins' second dog, after Jack passed away; he's also a much more pleasant dog to be around, though I wouldn't say he was *smart* or anything. After Tigger passed away, Wiener-Bun was proclaimed Alpha Pet of the Siewny household; Tigger just couldn't see the mantle being passed on to Skyline Kitty. Too bad he's not much smarter...

Cheese Coney Siewny - Pet (Extended Family)

Cheese Coney is the most recent addition to the Siewny clan, and (I believe) the only that has seen the overall numbers at the house drop over time. She's a long-haired grey cat, skittish and always hungry. The other animals in the house mostly seem annoyed at her; she wants to play too much, or she's an intruder, or something like that. Me, I just want to play with her, and at least she's easier to catch than Skyline Kitty...

Morgan "Captain" White - Pet (Adopted Family)

Morgan is Ray and Mel's cat. He was adopted to be Riley's pet; after a short period of being freaked out by the animal several dozen times his weight (he was just a kitten, after all!), he adjusted quite nicely, and the two became friends. Years later, he's turned out to be fairy permanently kitten-esque - at least, along the axis of "enjoys playing viciously". It hurts, but it's fun. I haven't yet met his new brother, but I hope to do that some time soon.

Bay Area

I have rather less friends out in the Bay than I'm used to, but those that I do have I really am quite fond of.

Ana Barrios - Bay Area

I met Ana as a part of the Minnesota Underground Railroad, an organization loosely set up to acclimate transplants from that great state to the differences of nice weather and a large body of water. She's a Spanish teacher, originally working at a local grade school. I'm not actually sure what she's up to at the moment, though... it's been a bit too long. (And it says something that I've been out here long enough to lose some track of my Bay friends!)

Alan Berman - Bay Area

Al was the first person I met through Dave and Katie, and one of their miscellaneous parties. He's another Minnesota native, who came out to the Bay to work at Google; for a while he worked at the local branch, which meant that I saw him on a fairly regular basis. This changed somewhat when he moved up to the San Francisco branch, which was closer to home; still, he comes out to parties and such. He's always a fun person to laugh and joke with at these events, since our senses of humor seem to be similar.

Abhijay Bhatia - Bay Area

Ahbijay is Sarah's husband. He works for Intel on the accounting side; interestingly, he has a strong computer engineering background, so he'd be just as good working over on that side of the work. It's an interesting combination, and offers a lot of amusing (if random) dinner conversation topics when we go out once or twice a month.
He got me to eat goat brains once.

Sarah Bhatia - Bay Area

Sarah is one of many people I've met out in the Bay that hails from the Minneapolis area. I met her through what I refer to as the Minnesota Underground - a network of old Minneapolis folks that help each other get acquainted with the Bay Area. What's amusing is that, while meeting her went through a friend of a friend of a friend, she turned out to live just across the street from me, and work on my campus. It's still a small world out here in the Bay... She and Ahibijay recently moved down to San Jose, so they're no longer cat-watching buddies; but they're still close enough that we go out and eat with them on a fairly regular basis.

Katie Bonn - Bay Area

Katie feeds me. Sure, there are plenty of things that are, at heart, more important than that; but it's really hard to argue with "I show up at her place, and she gives me food" as an important motivator. That's not to say that this is *all* that she does, by any means; she is also a great sounding board, a great source of interesting stories, and generally keeps track of me at the same time as Dave when it seems like a good idea. And she's one of the first people to figure out that, if you're having problems with me in conversation, the correct answer is to *tell me that*.
But, really? Mmm, Indian food...

Dave Dash - Bay Area

Dave (along with his wife Katie) is probably my closest friend out in the Bay. Part of this is that he lives around the corner from me, and it's nice to have somebody to easily hang out with; but more of it is that we were both happy to discover a friend of old living nearby in this new and different place. We met in Allen Hall, back when I was a junior and he was a freshman; while we didn't interact much, he was one of my "adoptee freshmen" for a time, and remembered me fondly for it. Running into him again was one of the great acts of karma I'm likely to get in my life. Now we go to CostCo together, see bad movies, watch over each others' cats, trade stories about technology and old times, and generally act like old-time buddies. It's nice.

Allenite

Dave Eisen - Bay Area

Dave is the patriarch of my primary gaming group out in the Bay. I'm pretty sure I met him on my third day out here; if I didn't, I was at least at one of the events that he was in charge of (Silicon Valley Boardgamers, which meets on Tuesdays at the local community center). After being confirmed as a relatively sane and social gamer, he added me to his more personal gaming group; and nowadays we can even talk about more than just games. Thus, friendships are made. Whee!

Sarah Eismann - Bay Area

Sarah is an old New York girl that somehow managed to end up in the Bay at the right time to meet me. The short version of this is that she married Al, who's a friend of Dave from back in Minneapolis; the long version involves complicated courtship procedures and some travel to Apple Valley. Regardless, it was quite fun hanging out with her while she was out here; her energy and happiness to share her love of theatre really made for a happy room. Sarah recently moved back to New York in order to get her Masters at Columbia; I hope I get to see her again before too long.

Klara Kim - Bay Area

Klara appeared on my radar many moons ago, through an email praising my web page. We got to know each other pretty well over the next few weeks, but it petered off as school got in the way and age differences became apparent. At the time, I thought this was the end of it; but the world turned out to be more interesting than that. I met her again later on, when she started growing into my main circle of friends in Champaign; and this time we *actually* became friends, with her attending Monday Movies and making interesting costumes for my Halloween parties and otherwise playing off of me at many opportunities. And then, most oddly, she followed me to the Bay - not literally, of course, but her job took her to a nearby suburb. Now we see each other every few weeks, watch strange television shows together, and are (as far as I can tell) still bemused at how the years keep putting us back together again.

Post-Allen; Monday Movies

JC Lawrence - Bay Area

JC is the Alpha Gamer in the area - he writes his own games, he spends an obscene amount of time mastering the ones he enjoys, and his preferences tend to influence those around him (if not directly, at least in terms of offering a navigation point as to game style). I met him at one of the early gaming events I attended out here in the Bay, and was... well, overwhelmed, at least to start with. It took me a while to get over it, but eventually it worked out; and now I'm one of his go-to guys to play games with at most events. He introduced me to 18xx a few months ago, and that's been the focus of my gaming ever since. I'm still a bit intimidated... but I do beat him every now and again.

Azurdee "Az" Miller - Bay Area

Az is, to date, the primary bright spot I have found in an otherwise dreary world of online dating. I met her on OKCupid; and while things didn't head anywhere in the normal way, she turned out to be a worthwhile friend and a fun person to hang out with. We talk online on a regular basis, and I try to make it up to the city when I can to hang out and watch movies with her.

Maryam Mohseni - Bay Area

It took me until 2006 before I actually met Maryam in person. She briefly attended UIUC before returning to her home in the Washington, DC area back in 2004; and while we talked about meeting up before that point, it never happened. But we did add each other on LiveJournal and kept track of each other that way; and when she and her husband Kaiser moved out to the Bay Area in 2008, I suddenly had another pair of friends in the area! Sure, she decided to live in Oakland, which is far enough away that seeing each other isn't all that common; but she comes to parties, and every now and then a good excuse for gathering comes along.

Andrea Moran Brown - Bay Area

Andrea and her husband Army are an interesting part of my social life out in the Bay. I see her at a lot of social events, and we tend to laugh and joke with each other quite a lot when it happens; but somehow, neither of us tends to actually initiate events that the other would be interested in. It's a weird relationship, which is nevertheless one of the better ones I have out here.

Becca Tortell - Bay Area

Becca was the first person in my Bay Area gaming group that I could reasonably consider a friend. This primarily happened because she also happened to work at Stanford; therefore, she was somebody that I could have lunch with as well every now and then (at least once she confirmed that I wasn't attempting to date her, at any rate; being a girl in a guy's hobby can be a tricky thing). It's been interesting watching her figure out what she wants to do with her life; since her job was never really very satisfying, she decided to apply to grad school and learn a real trade. And now, she's doing it, and doing well at it.

UIUC - the Allen Hall Era

It has become more and more difficult to divide up my friends over time. Rather than try too hard, I have decided to just merge several classes of my college friends into a single group: Allen Hall and the Associated Empires.

Jenny Albrich - Allenite

I met Jenny through Eva - they'd known each other virtually from birth onwards, and so she was inducted into the Gang as soon as she showed up. She's a Disco alumnus of three years, Caitte's ex-roommate, a biochem major who's attending UIC's Pharmacy school. She was also my first real girlfriend; it only lasted for six months or so, but it fell apart fairly gracefully, which is really all that you can ask for sometimes. She's still a good, if absent, friend - mostly because she lives in Zurich, and only appears for weddings. She got married back in 2006, and has spent most of the time since in various odd countries around the world. I'm just happy that she's stayed in touch for it.

Eva Gang; Like Disco (Fall 1996 - Spring 1999); Girlfriend (August 20 1998 - February 10 1999)

Sarah Auvenshine - Allenite (by Marriage)

I met Sarah through Mel; she was a fellow civil engineer at the time. Within a week of my meeting her, she was dating Jesse. I never actually worked out the details surrounding that; regardless, it was a nice change. Sarah's a quiet, friendly woman that holds her own in the geek conversations; if nothing else, she'll add a bit of CE talk. She and Jesse got married in November 2004, and they're both currently living in Kansas near the army base where Jesse works. Hopefully she's found herself a good job by now... but it's tough times for Civils.

MelFest

Jessica Barwa - Allenite

Jessi was the first RA that I really befriended, and the only one for which this happened while they still had their job. She never really appreciated it when I called her The Enemy, of course, but she took it in stride; after all, while I was fighting the system, I did avoid her room with my wrath. Jessi was the 2S RA during my junior year, and an RA in ISR the next year; for all of that time we stayed in contact, mostly because she and Chris counted themselves as married ("WIFEY!" It doesn't help that I gave them the official approval of the ULC). I'm not doing a good job of keeping up with her for some reason, but hopefully finishing off this friends page update will give me the necessary incentive to get back to her emails... but that's what I wrote the last two times, so what do I know? In fact, getting an email from her kindof sets off a friends page update, interestingly enough...

Helen Benner - Allenite

I'm not really sure when I met Helen. I'm pretty sure of where - it was in Allen, while we were both living there. But the time - it's all mixed up in a huge series of fights, arguments, and shared responsibilities. Regardless, Helen is from Tuscola, is a CPA for a local accounting firm. She was friends with both Danny and I back in college, when she was willing to come out of her work and talk; but she was difficult to keep track of over time. For a long time she was mostly out of contact; but when I ran into her with Danny at Wal-Mart once, we convinced her to come out a bit more. She met Chrispie at one of Darren's parties, and they started dating almost immediately; and as a side result, she got interested in board games as a good hobby. She became a part of the main group, and I saw her very regularly until I left town. Now that she and Chrispy are married, the two of them have moved to a condo in Chicago; so I wouldn't see her that much even if I was in town. Sad.

Thursday Games; Sunday Games

Kerry Blasingim - Allenite

I met Kerry at the start of my senior year, just before he started dating my sister for nearly two years. During that time he looked to me as much more of a mentor than I really deserved to be; in return, I tried to look after him, even as it became apparent that a CS career was not going to work. We essentially lived together for the year before he left school; then he left, and I started seeing him much less. I'm still not sure what all happened there, honestly. Kerry eventually got his degree in English (it suited him better) from SIU-E, to which he commuted from home; then he went off at grad school in Ohio, with one advanced degree already and another coming eventually.

Like Disco (Fall 1998 - Fall 1999); Roommate: BASL (Fall 1999 - Spring 2000)

Chuck Bohall - Allenite

Chuck is James' brother, and generally did his best to follow in his footsteps. He's began college as a Civil Engineer; he used to live in Allen with first Bryan Kieft, and then with Belle's brother Doug, and during all of this he was in Like Disco. Really, he's far too much like his brother, except that he spends more effort on religion than James, and has a different set of neuroses. While we were fairly close during college, we grew closer afterwards, as he used me to keep up with the rest of our crowds; and after he left town, I was one of his major contacts whenever he found an excuse to stop by again. Having finished (more-or-less) his MS, Chuck moved back to Champaign, got a job with the USGS in Champaign, and got married earlier this year. I still have a few thousand pictures to label and get up there...

Like Disco (Fall 1997 - Spring 2002); Eva Gang; Monday Movies

James Bohall - Allenite

I met James early in my freshman year, when we both joined Disco pretty much by accident; we stayed good friends for the next couple of years, sharing leadership of Disco for a while and generally acting like a good pair. Finally, after the years of keeping each other sane and entertained, we decided to live together with Caitte for a year - and it was interesting. (In the Chinese sense.) Still, he was a great roommate the whole time, and we got along really well. He even gave me someone to watch movies with. James now works for the Army Corps of Engineers in Florida, having left Davenport, Iowa shortly after he got married to Jeanie (I got to stand up in his wedding!). I really do miss seeing him, even if it was just once every few months; nowadays we mostly see each other at weddings. Hopefully we'll move somewhere near each other again some day; I love the fact that his family loves me.

Like Disco (Fall 1995 - Spring 2000); Eva Gang; Roommate: BASL (Fall 1999 - Spring 2000)

Erin Burns - Allenite

I met Erin when she showed up for a South Park showing in my room, and for whatever reason she decided to join our crowd - maybe it was my scaring her by figuring out her phone number with ph too quickly, maybe it was just my strange personality, who knows. She was a theatre major that hated acting, and instead concentrated on set design and such; I guess that worked out for her, anyway. She lived in Allen primarily because her sister had before, but it wasn't really for her; she quickly took off for apartment pastures, where she lived until she graduated. Now she's in New York City. I last saw her at Mel's wedding, and otherwise only interact with her online.

allen19

Erin "Wolf" Chambers - Allenite (Associated Empire)

The Wolf was an offering of Ray to the Quad, after he left - a rare species of student known as a "female CS student", they'd known each other in high school and gotten along far too well. She turned out to be custom made for the Quad, which was proven when she showed up for an Empire Records showing and knew the lines better than us. Still, she turned out to be elusive; she cared too much about her classes to really play with people. Monday Movies was made so that she'd be social; it didn't work that well, I suppose, but it was still fun.
Erin theoretically changed her name when she married Jeff back in 2003, but nobody really believes it yet; we still call her Wolf, and I doubt this will change. She currently works as a professor in the St Louis area, and her career seems to going pretty well; how this will translate into trips in the Bay is yet to be seen...

allen19; Buffy Crowd; Monday Movies; Sunday Games

Grace "Mort" Chambers - Allenite (by Birth)

Grace, better known as Mort (her middle name is Moriarty), is the first child of Erin and Jeff. She's an absolutely *adorable* little child, and blessed with a collection of aunts and uncles that don't particularly want kids of their own at the moment, but are happy to dote upon the New Cute Thing. She has, of course, grown out of the two onesies I bought her - one of which was Trogdor! - but instead she's capable of rudimentary speech and impressive cunning. She's going to be a smart little kid, that one...

Sunday Games; Sortof-Niece

Moshen Chan - Allenite

Moshen was my next-door neighbour for a year and lived three doors down the hall for another year; he's also a townie, which I knew for years (we BBSed together back in the days when such things existed) but never got around to doing anything about until we popped up next to each other. I officially met him at The Etc with Karen Day (proving once again that you always know somebody at The Etc), and we've been friends ever since; after all, he's a fellow computer geek, he likes good music, he'll talk about just about anything, and he never gets in the way even when he's hanging around at strange times. He dated Rachel for a couple of years, which was interesting. He graduated eventually, and currently works in the Bay Area with a lot of that old crowd.

allen19; Bay Area

Dan Chen - Allenite

I met Dan when he joined Disco at the beginning of my senior year; he seemed pretty quiet and fairly shy, but, hey, it's not my place to judge such things - after all, I've only recently done things any differently. He's gotten a whole lot better over time, though; eventually he even started talking with us. It got a lot better when he, Kerry, Pat, and Charles Bank moved into the 3N Quad together, and we had a few more things to talk about; now he even occasionally asks about schoolwork, and I get to see if I can lead somebody on a more successful path of ECE than I've had. All in all, a good guy. He got married a few months back, eloping with his girlfriend Sarah in order to avoid wedding stress; I have to admit, it's not a horrible idea. I'm still confused why I don't see him more, though; he had to fly out to Yahoo! headquarters for work on a fairly regular basis, and that's just down the street...

Like Disco (Fall 1998 - Fall 1999); Monday Movies; Sushi Club

Anatoly Delm - Allenite

Having joined the Gang through his connections to Andrew, Toly was our resident Evil Empire representative - he interned for Microsoft for two summers, and we all thought he'd end up working there when he graduated. He changed his mind, though, and just went to Chicago (to work for Motorola, IIRC). Through all of the evil, though, he was a good guy - terrible at Starcraft, the mortal enemy of Caitte, always fighting on Usenet, periodically Libertarian, and generally friendly whenever he gets the opportunity. Now if we could just get over his former evil.
Toly currently works for Motorola, where he's working on an upper-management track with Marketing. He seems to be doing well for himself, anyway. He also recently got married to Sonia, a nice girl that I've only met a few times; it was certainly a nice wedding, and I suspect that the marriage itself will do as well.

Eva Gang; allen19; MeatNews

Amber Donner - Allenite (by Relationship)

Amber is Jacob's wife. I met her when the two of them were working at the American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI; Jacob was a sound engineer, and Amber was a costume designer - a match made in heaven! She's a strong-willed girl, who has put a lot of effort into making sure that Jacob will talk; and she has seemed to fit in pretty well with those of us that have been able to meet her. Jacob and Amber moved to Denver a while ago, and got married about a year ago now; and I'm still honored to have gotten to be in their wedding. Even if she almost got me killed.

Belle Drake - Allenite, Deceased

It has been three years since my friend Belle died of liver cancer in July 2004. I had, at that point, known her for nine years; she was the oldest Eva Gang member, having graduated in Summer 1997 (and she was already older than usual for that). Belle was one of the most cheerful, optimistic, *friendly* people I ever had the privelege to know; and I'm proud to say that I stayed close friends with her for as long as I knew her. She still remains an inspiration to me; she knew she was dying, but she pressed on anyway, buying a house and working through a year of vet school through it all...
I miss her. And I don't think I can ever be as eloquent as I am in the above link.

Eva Gang; Monday Movies

Randy Duax - Allenite

I never would have guessed that Randy would be one of the old Ground Southers that I'd truly stay close with. Back in the day he was our floor troublemaker, and hilarious at it; and much as his antics were legendary, he was just as good at telling the stories of others. I always pegged him a a writer; instead, he went to New York and started working as a truly excellent HR guy. And more surprising, he stayed in touch! I still talk with him online on a fairly regular basis, and truly value his advice and friendship; and I would be happy to have my life enlivened by having him move out here some day.

allen19; Like Disco (Spring 1999)

Shaun Edmonds - Allenite

I met Shaun back in college, where he was one of the most flamboyantly gay people I knew - which was saying something, given where I lived. After leaving Allen, he spent some time in Japan being a half-Otaku; and once he returned, he seemed to be much more low-key, which saddened me a bit. Until recently, Shaun helped run the product testing group at Volition Software in C-U; for a long while I would see him semi-regularly on the bus to work, until he got himself a car and didn't have to deal with that anymore. But now the company has laid off most of that division, and he's decided to go back to school. Here's hoping that works out for him.

Jon "Hippy Jon" Fisher - Allenite

Jon Fisher was dubbed "Hippy Jon" when he lived in Ground South with us my junior and senior years; it's never been *entirely* appropriate, but at least it differentiated his name from the rest of the Jo(h)ns of the world. Outside of his name, he's never had a reason to worry about it; he is truly a unique individual. Jon is a devout vegan, and the founder of the Campus Vegetarian Society (who, as president of Campus Carnivores for Christ and such I regularly fought with in college [ritualistically anyway]); he loves cooking, video games, and generally carrying on silly with as many friends as possible. Our social groups have tended to mesh pretty well, somehow, even after he moved to Washington DC; and years later I still get to see him more often than I'd expect. And every time, I can live in awe of his 8-bit skillz...

Jeanie Froman-Bohall - Allenite (by Marriage)

Jeanie is James' wife. I could tell all sorts of stories about her - how they met (James' odd courtship procedures paid off!), about her family (on the last plane out of Vietnam before the war), etc - but all I really have to say about her is that she's incredibly friendly, sharp, and fun. James did well for himself, and I'd say that Jeannie did well to snap him up. I should also note that I am proud to have been in their wedding.

Erik Gilling - Allenite

I met Erik in my Math 242 class, but it took me a few weeks to realize that he was a fellow Allenite and lived next door to the GS Quad. When I found this out, and threw in his geekiness and other credentials, he rapidly became one of my best friends - and he probably should have been for years before, if our schools had just meshed or we'd at least been paying attention. He never actually graduated, instead heading to San Francisco to enjoy the night life and technology companies. I finally ran into him again last year, at a party for a friend up in the city; he's apparently working at Google now, just down the street, and I *still* don't see him. Aah, life...

allen19; Bay Area

Aaron Gutierrez - Allenite

Aaron started hanging around the Quad after his girlfriend dumped him; after all, he lived just down the hall, he no longer had anything better to do, and that's what the Quad is there for... He really was a worthwhile addition to allen19, taking to heart our anti-Coke stances, understanding how the sleep schedules worked, and always willing to bring us more video games to play and music to listen to. Besides, listening to him rant about his roommate Mike was loads of fun, and he actually guarded the room well when necessary.
After living in the House of Ground South for a while, he moved out to the Bay Area a few years ago. I didn't see him for most of this time, until I moved out here myself; and now I still don't see him that often, but I know that he's around. Hmm. I wonder if he's employed yet?

allen19; Bay Area

Rene Hendrix - Allenite

Rene is pretty hard to describe, because she changes her personality radically every now and then. For a while, she was a typical SanFran techno-girl, working for Sun/Cobalt with Erik and Moshen during the day, but that didn't really cover it. None of it changed her basic personality - a female computer geek that constantly manages to get herself into trouble by trying to do too much. It was almost fun trying to de-stress her occasionally. I've seen her once since I've come out to the Bay, and I don't know if I expect much more than that. She's still alive, that much I know.

allen19; Bay Area; Roommate: h0l (Summer 1998, Summer 1999)

Dan "Dannyman" Howard - Allenite

Dannyman is an interesting individual. Originally a CS major, he finally graduated after five years with a degree in Rhetoric; the change was, as far as I could tell, made to give him bragging rights over the rest of the CS majors in the area. Like me, Dannyman tended to spend his life fighting the system for no particularly good reason, though he doesn't tend to get in as much trouble as me; instead he just gets people ticked off for a while and then they give up and forgive him (this includes me). Interestingly, just as this has petered off in my life over the last few years, he seems to have gone the same way; maybe we're just both getting old? I saw Dannyman a few times once I moved out to the Bay, but he recently decided to follow his girlfriend to New York City.

Darren Hron - Allenite

For about five years I lived with Darren, and we managed not to kill each other. Given our significantly different personalities, this was no small feat. Mind you, we're still pretty similar - Darren works for CITES, the main campus computer organization, as a Windows admin (compare to my Unix); he was my successor as the director of Like Disco; he even took my place in the Quad when I left. But he's neater than I am, psycho about different things, and... well, the differences were profound. Still, most people referred to us as Hetero Life Partners for a few years there...
Since I moved out, though, we've stayed pretty close. We had to learn to run our social groups separately, and he got even more into board games after he had more space to store them; those seem to be the major changes. Well that, and Hannah moved in and took over the place, brought her cats, and they got engaged... Okay, maybe those are big ones.

Like Disco (Fall 1996 - Spring 2000); Buffy Crowd; Monday Movies; Sunday Games; Thursday Games; Roommate: BDOD (Fall 2000 - Summer 2001), BTOD (Fall 2001 - Summer 2002), Darren's House (Fall 2002 - Spring 2005)

Sarah Ibis - Allenite

I met Sarah during our sophomore year, when she joined Disco in order to get more theatre experience than she was going to get as an English major. A good friend of Valerie's, she was already a member of the Eva Gang at the time but I hadn't really dealt with her much; the Disco experiences got me talking, though, and our friendship was cemented pretty quickly. Years later, I still try to talk with her whenever possible; we may not have that much in common *directly*, but instead we're just always happy to chat, laugh about old times, and just be happy to have close friends from so long ago. She and Sean got married a little while ago (after ten years of dating!), and are currently looking for a good place to move to; I still hope they decide that the Bay is the right choice.

Eva Gang; Like Disco (Fall 1996 - Spring 1997)

Andrew Kaczorek - Allenite

Andrew was one of the original core of the Eva Gang, since he lived with Rachel's then-boyfriend Ed; he's also one of its oddest members, and one of its biggest computer geeks. He was a fellow CS major that was, if anything, more into electronics than I was; amongst his possessions at graduation were two NeXTs (twice as many as me!) His sense of humor is about as warped as mine, too, as shown by his originating the Big People project and finding Captain Pecker to order.
All that said, I never really saw Andrew enough post-graduation, especially given our previous physical proximity; I just didn't get to Indianapolis enough.

Eva Gang; allen19

Nicole Kaczorek - Allenite (by Marriage)

Nicole is Andrew's wife, and is one of the biggest sweethearts I've ever known. I met her at some Eva Gang event or another, and was instantly impressed; it's rare to have someone act so friendly to strangers. We became fairly close, staying over at their place in Indianapolis whenever it seemed appropriate; certainly, they were a good place to stop at whenever I was running through that city, at least for long enough to get Skyline Chili together! That said, I still haven't seen their new house, since Indiana is a bit further away now. My main contact with her lately has been the wonderful cute sushi-shaped toilet paper cozy she knitted for me a few years ago - so cute! - and a number of weddings that I've seen her at.

Amy "R-A" Katscher - Allenite

Amy RA (Rosenblatt-Andris, when I first knew her) was a long-time Allenite that left after Winter 1997 due to continuing sickness and a certain desire to get the hell out of Champaign. Her purpose at Allen was to get us all sorts of Toyz and Candy from catalogs (well, and to be friendly to everyone and stuff, which she was actually pretty good at), and to remember the old times about as well as me... oh yeah, and to have an email address without vowels.
Amy got married in 2001 to Chris Katscher, and moved to first Arizona, and later to the LA area. She's got family up north of the Bay, though, so every now and then she and Chris drive through; and with any luck, I get to meet up with her when that happens. It's nice staying in touch, even so randomly.

Bryan Kieft - Allenite

Bryan is He-Who-Laughs, a naturally cheerful guy that I met early in my sophomore year (his freshman year) when he joined Like Disco and started hanging around a lot. And then I killfiled him. It was such an auspicious start to a friendship... He eventually got better, though, and started making friends with whole bunches of my friends - and so we got to actually talk, and it was good. And so over the last few years I've watched him change majors, come out, live with Chuck Bohall and my brother (separately), become an RA (Allen 3 Center), fight with his family, get the cover story of the local newspaper, go for boys and sometimes succeed, try to learn real responsibility and leadership skills - and so forth.
If nothing else, Bryan is a kind of embodiment of what college was all about for me, though I doubt he understands why. Just to top it all off, he even recently figured out that having a University full-time job was a good idea; and so now for the first time in his life, he is happily employed.
There are some rumors that his sister is going to be moving out here shortly; hopefully he'll be able to visit occasionally.

Like Disco (Fall 1996 - Spring 2000); Buffy Crowd; Thursday Games

Jacob Krimbel - Allenite

Jacob is a quiet-but-not-unassuming IMSA graduate, and quite possibly my best friend. I met him during my sophomore year, and we became friends if for no other reason than he would occasionally talk around me; to others he was always just silent, looming, and omnipresent, and most of my friends were scared of him. But he eventually got himself into the allen19 crowd. He eventually moved into the Quad with me, and we addicted each other to video games and comics and what have you as we wreaked havoc throughout the dorm. A year later, he failed out as a result. He came back as a History major, and really did pretty well at it by completely ignoring it - he worked for CCSO, and spent his spare time doing lights for various local shows. But he still didn't talk. He lived in the New Quad with Ray, Mel, and Jesse/Chris for two years; then he spent a couple of years in a Virginia theatre troupe, and then in Wisconsin in another one, where he found his future wife (Amber) and, as far as I'm concerned, had his life put together. And while things haven't always gone as he was hoping - almost dying at his bachelor party, for example - it's nice to see that his life is going well. And it was an honor to stand next to him at his wedding.

allen19; Monday Movies; Best Man; Roommate: allen19 (Spring 1998, Fall 1998 - Spring 1999)

Matas Morkevicius - Allenite (by Marriage)

Matas is the man that caught Valerie. Unexpectedly, he did it with a long-distance relationship - he and Valerie met in Lithuania, and dated by phone and internet for several years (with a few trips here and there, to be fair) before finally getting married in 2004. Matas is an Medical Doctor, and works as a general practitioner (I think) in a Chicago hospital; the two of them don't get to see each other enough, apparently, but it's not by too much. He certainly loves his two daughters, and is waiting patiently for Valerie to find a good job offer so that he can follow her.

Valerie Morkevicius - Allenite

When I first met Valerie, she was older than me - or, at least, that's what I thought, since I didn't have any conception that people were allowed to counsel me and not be older. As time went on, though, and I became the counselor, I began to spot the fact that she's actually a year or so younger than me. Valerie graduated from UIUC in Japanese and French, after a year-long trip to Japan and one final year in Allen living with Eva; now she's finishing up grad school in Chicago, where I haven't seen her enough. But given how our group works, this hasn't made our friendship any less bright; it just flares less often.
Valerie got married to Matas a few years back - I got to participate as a candle lighter - and currently has two children, Emilija and Ingrida. With any luck, I can make it out to Chicago often enough to be a part of their lives; at the very least, Val is encouraging it.

Eva Gang

Jesse Olson - Allenite

For my first couple of years in Allen, Jesse was my best friend - a nice psychotic kid from Minnesota that was oddly attractive to women and more than a bit obsessive, and just someone I was always willing to talk to about anything. He was a CS major, too obsessed with the machines for his own good - which, considering that he really wasn't the best with them, didn't serve him well, and he began to slip. Then he dropped out and joined the Marines. He finished training after a year, and was then stationed in Okinawa Japan for another three; now he's back in the States, living first in the New Quad and then a house with Ray and Mel (as he got himself two BS degrees from UIUC; he done good!), and then in Chicago and New Mexico. In 2004 he married Sarah Auvenshine; while I still regret not being able to make it to his wedding, I maintain that it would have been a lot easier if he'd told me more details than "Las Vegas" and "Sunday." *sigh*.
Jesse has recently finished his training with the Army, and is now a professional helicopter pilot. He is currently stationed in Kansas, which is where I hope he remains.

allen19

Lavesh Patel - Allenite

Although Lavesh started to live in Allen Hall at the same time that I did, I only really met him when Toly moved in during our Junior year; and by that point, Lavesh was moving out. So weird! That didn't mean he'd moved on, of course; much of his last year here as a business major was spent studying in Allen, or at least hanging around and talking about The X-Files with me and anybody else that was interested. He was never quite a member of the Eva Gang, but he was close; and when I see him nowadays, it tends to be at Eva Gang events, such as Toly's wedding (where he was Best Man).

Gautham Rao - Allenite

Gautham is one of the guys in the Gang that I never got to know all that well, mostly because he spent all of his time studying in his room - a different situation than the rest of the compulsive studiers, because he wouldn't hang around in the Commons like the rest of us. He always said it was because we were too much of a distraction, which of course we were, but that's unfair anyway... He was Sean's roommate for two years (1996-98), during which most of the times I saw him were when I was looking for Sean, trying to invite Gautham along for something, when we were watching The X-Files (the one distraction he allowed himself), or on his birthday, when we'd all drag him out to some fun place and actually force him to have a good time. Oh yeah, and when Eva would talk him into studying in the Ice room.
Gautham has been at Yale for the last several years, and I think that his time there is almost at an end. I've seen him at a few weddings; and I know that he's okay because he's still in pretty close contact with Eva.

Eva Gang

Bill Renner - Allenite

Bill was one of my more prominent allen19 friends; he was quiet, out-of-the way, and very good at Starcraft, but mostly he just listened and occasionally acted in some subversive manner - like, say, bottling Tunji's soul. For some reason, this led to us becoming fairly close friends; he quickly became one of my go-to online friends. He's currently living in Champaign, but I don't expect this to last too much longer; he just has too much wanderlust. He works as a freelance web designer, so he can end up wherever he wants to; where will it be next?

allen19; On-Line

Pat Sanders - Allenite

Pat came to UIUC as an ECE freshman, wide-eyed and open and wanting to do all the theatre stuff that he saw - something fairly well after my heart, considering how I turned out. He joined Disco, he did some computer stuff, he made a lot of friends - and then left, and didn't come back for several years. When he got back, his life was definitely back on-track; he worked at Cheddars for a while as he went to Parkland. While back here, I came in close contact with him again; he spent a year living with Vered and Stuart, before settling down in Bloomington in order to go to ISU. While there, he would visit us much more than we would visit him; there's just more to do in C-U, I guess... Pat is currently teaching in Korea, and things seem to be treating him pretty well over there.

Like Disco (Fall 1998 - Fall 1999); Buffy Crowd; Monday Movies; Sunday Games

Jen Schneider - Allenite (by Marriage)

Jen is Jimpy's wife. I met her when I was dating Jenny and hanging out at the ASL; she seemed friendly and cheerful, and definitely the center of Jimpy's world. They got married reasonably quickly, the first of our social group to do it; then we didn't see them much for a while, as they established themselves in the world. I've begun to see Jen more often over the last few years, mostly at weddings; she seems to have gotten fairly close with all of Jim's friends, which is good. It's been a pleasure to see the two of them.

Jim Schneider - Allenite

Jimpy is a nice, normal looking tall guy that, while he was at the U of I, worshiped Winnie the Pooh, collected Kraft Macaroni and Cheese boxes, acted, spent his life at KCSA (Krannert Center Student Association - theatre major wannabes), and just plain radiated an air of "I'm kindof strange, follow my example". But when he graduated in Electrical Engineering and Math, he took a decidedly more normal path - he moved in with his girlfriend Jen and proceeded with wedding plans. Jim and Jen have begun to reconnect with our group over the last few years, throwing parties and coming to ours. Now we just have to make it up to more of their events!

Eva Gang

Don "Smoot" Smoot - Allenite

Smoot was a Math major from Boston that managed to appear on our floor and quickly gather a following, if for no other reason than the beauty of his name - "Smoot" just has such a nice ring to it, and even has some important cultural significance for us geeks (an MIT bridge was once measured in Smoots). He was quickly assimilated into Quad culture - a bit too well, in fact, considering his tendencies to not sleep. Aah, well. He's a good guy, a source of a large car, a great fan of The Matrix, somebody easy to order around, and a useful person to know. And he's got a great blanket which he doesn't get too overly offended when we steal it. Yay. Smoot eventually moved back to Boston, and we only see him for weddings and parties.

allen19

Eva Sueto - Allenite

Eva, leader of the Gang, never thought that she was going to be in charge of a group of people like what she got - she was just setting up a small list, she claims, why would it turn out to be a group that would virtually take over Allen for a while? Little did she know originally that I was going to get involved, and how I would react to being in such a group - I was a latecomer to the group, having met Eva my freshman year talking about gg's roommate Todd, and through her involvement in my life I managed to actually make myself social. Really - she was it! All that follows in my life is because of that time. She's currently working in a Chicago blood bank after finishing two Bachelor's, which still seems a bit...overeducated. Accursed economy! I'm still in close contact with her, and hope to continue that way for a long, long time.
I was honored to have Eva stand up with me at my wedding. In fact, I'm still honored that she was so willing to do it. For whatever reason, I figured she'd be the most difficult to convince; silly me.

*Also, she made him learn to use chopsticks*
Eva Gang (Leader)

Dave Terrell - Allenite

Dave is an old UIUC student that left school and went to California to find his fortune. It worked pretty well for him, as he kept his job through most of the Tech Bubble Bursting, and quickly found himself another job in Chicago when it became a problem. I knew him as the patriarch of h0l: the guy that made the parties happen, gathered the technology to make it interesting, and generally was in charge of its social circles. He was also the one that invited me to live in the h0l, an experience that I still treasure.
Dave currently lives down in San Jose with his wife and two kids. Weirdly, the only time I've seen them since I've been here was when he was just visiting; I did run into him once at the train station, so I know he just works in Palo Alto, but we haven't actually gotten together yet. Small worlds have deep holes...

MeatNews; Bay Area; Roommate: h0l (Summer 1998)

Tunji Toogun - Allenite, Deceased

Tunji was Allen19's younger brother, the kid that was trying to learn the ropes but gets made fun of all the time for it. He was really a pretty nice guy - he started out terribly obnoxious, when he lived in the 3N Quad his freshman year (1997-8), but we all grew to really enjoy his antics, and enjoyed watching as he grew to bring his oddness to the whole campus instead of just our floor. His accent was amusing (he's Nigerian), and he had a tendency to be belligerent for no reason, but that was just charming. And once he gained a position of seniority in Allen, he was truly a force to be reckoned with - and befriend. Of course, by the point he got there I already owned his soul seven times over... After his undergrad, he began a PhD program in Molecular and Cellular Biology; he was originally expecting to take just three years, but this increased over time, like with all students. And while I mostly fell out of touch with him once he hit grad school, I did still see him around town, almost always on the arm of ~3 attractive women...
All was looking good for him when I last saw him at my wedding - he was graduating soon, and was planning on leaving town to find a job or a postdoc or whatever seemed likely. But one evening in August he fell into a lake and drowned. And the world just seems smaller now.
The above link points at his eulogy.
I miss him.

allen19; Like Disco (Spring 1999)

Aaron Vanderwerff - Allenite

Aaron lived across the hall from me for my freshman year, and basically taught me the ropes of a lot of Engineering (e.g., "these classes are hard" ). While he was here he was a major Babylon 5 fan; through his work he managed to move me up from Lurker to Fanatic status, by introducing me to Peter Baer. That, and he was part of the Eva Gang before it officially existed. Aaron spent several years in Burkina Faso with the Peace Corps for a few years, before returning to the states - and specifically the Bay Area. There's an Allenite just over in Oakland! He teaches high school Physics, is married to a wonderful woman named Jeannie, and recently had his first child (Tova).

Eva Gang; Bay Area

Laura Walker - Allenite (Associated Empire)

Laura was one of Caitte's Speech Geeks - or at least the role that I primarily knew her as. As far as she was concerned, the Computer Engineering major here seemed to be a bigger deal. She lived in Busey-Evans and worked as a NetTech, and between that and her major was an excellent example of the elusive Female Geek. She also seemed to look up to me for much of this period - something that I never quite understood, but certainly appreciated.
Years later, I see Laura at pretty much every wedding that anybody throws. It turns out that she was friends with at least as many people as me. I've used her as a good source of counseling through the years, and she's always there to provide her unique viewpoints on life. I always kindof hope that she'll move nearby, so we can blather at each other on a more regular basis.

Brian "bwang" Wang - Allenite

bwang (the best login name on campus) showed up in Allen as Jimpy's roommate my sophomore year, an old friend from home that quickly insinuated himself into Allen culture and, of course, the Gang. He was a CS major, always overworking himself at the task; because of that he was always a good study partner, and, when we had time, video game partner. I'll never forget our nights of CS225 MPs, working until 5am twice a week on some piddling little bug that refused to budge, with bwang occasionally taking time out to go beat up a post in the Commons... bwang moved out after his sophomore year, and nobody really talked with him much for the rest of his college career; he just playd too many video games to keep with, and of course had to graduate and all. Last I hear he has recently stopped working for CITES in Chicago, and is now doing consulting work (as I understand it).

Eva Gang

Dave Watanabe - Allenite (by Marriage)

I actually met Dave on my first day of high school, where he was a few years ahead of me. He introduced me to Battletech, interestingly. Fast forward about a decade, and he began hanging around Allen Hall, having met Karen, his future wife. Now, a decade after that, we're still in touch, albeit primarily when I make it to town and we're both at the same general board gaming event.

Uni High; Sunday Games

Karen Watanabe - Allenite

Karen entered my social circles in Allen early in my sophomore year, when she made her way over from Boston to go to UIUC in the theatre department. Like many people, the department didn't treat her all that well, so she jumped to a more standard LAS major and proceeded to put her life together pretty well. She found her future husband, Dave, while hanging out in Allen, and after college I lost track of her for a while; but we eventually re-entered each other's social orbits through the industrial scene, and we have lately grown very close through a combination of playing board games together every Sunday evening and attending each others' parties. She's a strong-willed friend, and I'm honored to have known her for as long as i have.
I should also note that Karen enjoys knitting. I wouldn't normally report this so clearly, but the little nautiloids for Mort were so *cute*!

Sunday Games

Dave "DB" Weber - Allenite

DB was my next-door neighbor in Ground South for the 1997-98 school year, until he graduated and moved out; before that he had lived in FAR for two years and, then the 1N Quad. I think he enjoyed our floor more - Ground South is just better for a strange guy like DB, who tends to wander around screaming "POOP!" a lot just for the fun of it. DB is a Mac geek, to the extent that he quit his job with a local ISP because they wouldn't give him a G3 for his desk. He works for CITES/DS, where he is partially in charge of the Turing Mac Cluster (poor soul) and a lot of the data backup work. He married Raché about a decade ago now; and it's been fascinating to watch DB mellow in response to his son's shenanigans...

allen19; Monday Movies

Lance "OC" Weber - Allenite (by Birth)

Lance is DB and Raché's first child, and the first child of our social group. He was born on 18 Nov 2004, the day after my birthday; by that time I had already named him ("Oyster Cracker"), bought him a children's version of Settlers of Catan, and been proclaimed the Official Uncle of Giant Robot Play. I also lent his parents a camera so they could chonicle his growing up... *smile* To think that there is now a next generation! It's been great fun watching him grow up, following much the same path that I did when I was his age (poor parents!), and taking pictures every step of the way. Visiting him and playing Uncle is always one of the highlights of a trip to Champaign.

Nephew (Adopted); Nephew (Adopted)

Rachel "Raché" Weber - Allenite

Raché was Ground South's resident female computer geek, fish maniac, and general purpose silly person for the entire duration of her Allen Hall career - two years, to be exact, before she graduated and went off to the Real World. This was plenty of time to become close friends, especially since she stayed in town after graduation and was married to DB, who I saw fairly regularly in a work context. She worked as web designer for a few years, before taking some time off to have and take of their son, Lance; once things had settled down a bit, she got herself a job working for the Education department.
Wow, that's a short version. It really doesn't get much of the point across that Rachel is actually one of the best people I know at both understanding and running with my sense of humor; and that I'm always amazed at the kinds of hobbies she has time for. She's always fun to see, and it helps a lot that I get to play with her son at the same time.

allen19; Monday Movies

Jeff "Duck" Williams - Allenite

Duck (a name that nobody's been able to explain to my satisfaction) came to the Quad as part of a mix-up between Joe, Ben, and the rest of us. He fit in remarkably well, for all that; along with being a fellow Battletech and miscellaneous RPG geek, he had a good amount of strange things to bring to the room, didn't mind having people in the room at all time, and was able to actually keep up with me in willpower. While there, he managed to convert everybody into enjoying Battletech and soccer, never interrupted anyone's movie watching even while he was almost dying of pneumonia in the corner, and dealt with as much personal drama as any of us could imagine - and then he stayed for another year. Of course, Duck eventually graduated, and works for a civil engineering firm in Chicago. And as of a few months ago, he even got married! I really should have taken Bill up on his offer to be his date...

allen19; Roommate: allen19 (Fall 1998 - Spring 1999)

Sean Willis - Allenite

Sean is a quietly insane person that manages to get a lot done in his quest for silliness; an Aeronautical Engineer shouldn't have the time to put up a "Ask Shatner" board on his dorm room door, but, hey, this is Sean... He's actually fairly similar to me - his recreational reading is similar, he watches the same kinds of movies and TV shows, he cares about politics and has some similar leanings, he enjoys causing trouble every now and then; I guess the real difference is that he's a lot more diplomatic than me, and therefore gets himself into less trouble. That's probably a good thing, since his major didn't allow him much time for that trouble.
After graduating, he worked for a while at a car dealer, then at CCSO for a year; after that, though, he decided that he wanted to actually go after his chosen field, and moved up to Chicago to work at it, while also incidentally letting him move in with Sarah, who he had been dating for about six years at that point. The two of them are married now, happily. The recent downturn took its toll, though, and now he's looking for work again; here's hoping he finds something out here in the Bay.

allen19; Eva Gang; MeatNews

Rachel Woo - Allenite

Rachel is fairly quiet on the surface, but tends to shed that demeanor as soon as she's around people she actually wants to talk to - which is actually fairly often. She's been in C-U for years; she started college before I did, and after graduation she's spent probably half of her years there. As such, she's effectively come and gone in my life to at least some extent; but given that she's also in the Eva Gang, she's always been at least partially there.
To me, her greatest accomplishments have been introducing me to Space Ghost ("You say potato, I say cheese!") and forcing me to learn to use chopsticks. She wouldn't feed me until I used them, you see...

allen19; Eva Gang

Dan Wright - Allenite

Though he was never particularly Goth, Dan was once known as GothDan; he wore Goth clothing, and he was one of far too many Dans. I met him early in his freshman year - he was in the class just below me, and lived down the hall - and determined that we had way too much in common. We ran the College Libertarians together, we shared music every now and then, and I talked him into following me to Ground South the next year. We later worked together as Unix admins at CRHC, and he later even worked for my old boss' wife; such a small world!

allen19; Co-Worker: CRHC

Hannah - Allenite (by Relationship)

Hannah is Darren's fiance. She appeared in our lives during Darren's bout with pneumonia following our cruise in January; Darren likes to joke about how he woke up and had a woman. Hannah is an ABD English grad student, one of the teacher-types that actually enjoys waking up in the morning. She's got major dietary restrictions, which have led to two things: she can't eat what everyone else eats, and she's learned to be a really good cook. Mmm for all of us! She's also more addicted to board games than even Darren, and has been directly feeding Darren's interest in buying and playing games, which works out well for all of us. She's definitely been a fun addition to our social group; subconscious-Darren did well. Now, if I can just convince her to come to the Bay once she graduates...

Sunday Games; Thursday Games

UIUC - the Post-Allen Era

After leaving Allen behind and beginning work at the University, I still met a large number of people that have influenced my life. This is a reasoanble collection of them. (Note that many of these 'Post-Allen' people actually *did* live in Allen, but it wasn't until I had left.)

Amanda Beltramini - Post-Allen

Amanda is another in a long line of ex-directors of Like Disco...but not Really. She's a small, expressive girl that never lived in Allen but kindof acts like she does; and in the line of what I've already said, she did a great job just keeping the troupe together and moving. I mostly saw her at parties and improv shows, but we actually seemed to enjoy talking when we do see each other, so she gets to be here. Plus, she's extremely photogenic... especially with Ryan. Amanda recently graduated from OSU (as I recall), and I keep up with her life over LJ. Like everyone else.

LDBNR (Fall 2001 - Spring 2004)

Stuart Broz - Post-Allen

When I met Stuart all those years ago, he seemed so old and wise; looking back, it's hard to remember that there's any age difference at all. How's that for perspective? He came to Champaign with Vered, who he was dating at the time; over the years he went through a variety of jobs, most of them involving social work and grant writing. Now he's engaged to Angela, and has moved to Washington DC.
None of this really does a great job of explaining why he's such a good friend to me. I trust Stuart implicitly; he is kind, pleasant, thoughtful, and experienced in a wide variety of matters that I haven't yet had to learn. He shares several interests with me, including role-playing and science fiction. And I think that we both look to each other as a good person for counsel and advice. I'm honored to have Stuart as my friend.

Buffy Crowd

Jacen Burrows - Post-Allen

Jacen is a comic artist in C-U, who works with a lot of the big names and is generally pretty impressive in the field. I met him as he entered my social circles through Vered; it also turned out that he already knew my brother at this point, but that was a bit more awkward. Still, it worked out and we became friends. He's a fun guy, if still a bit confused about how to be over 30 in this town. He's fun to rant with, get gossip from, and just generally hang out around.

Sean Busbey - Post-Allen

Sean magically took over Allen 19 after Darren and I had both left. No, really, it was magic; one day we were worried that the room was going to be absorbed by less-subversive factions within Allen, the next day we find out that there was a Mortal Kombat II stand-up arcade machine in the room. How else can you explain it?
Past that, it turns out that we actually got along pretty well. I don't know when were formally introduced, but it certainly happened; and he even started coming to parties periodically, or I would visit him when I visited DC (when he lived there) or UIUC (when he lived there). Now he's off for a tour of duty in England, which I hope treats him well.

allen19

Jan Busby - Post-Allen

Jan was the person that convinced me to start going to BTCU. I had never really been interested in the idea, for some reason; but that changed when I was offered rhubarb cake just for attending. I like rhubarb. So I went, and I met Jan in person, and we talked and had a good time and all was good. She moved away a long time ago now; I still feel a bit bad that I missed her wedding to Sam Atlan because of the simple problem that it was in France. She and Sam recently had a kid, and interestingly her social life seems to have grown more active ever since. I still see her online on a regular basis.

BTCU

Ryan Byers - Post-Allen

Ryan was essentially my successor in Allen Hall for a year - well, not in all ways, but in plenty. He was in charge of Like Disco and a few other groups, he dealt regularly with the politics of the hall, and he kept himself busy with more stuff than any one person should be involved in. After spending a year as an RA in a Champaign dorm (boo!), he went off to law school in Michigan; and then he graduated, and return to Illinois to be a Small Town Lawyer Type. I talk to him less often than perhaps I should, but I have managed to see him on most of my trips to town.

Like Disco (Fall 2000 - May 2003)

Eamon Caddigan - Post-Allen

Eamon is a uiuc.test regular that one day started working with my old research group. He worked with John as a graphics programmer for a a little over a year, before taking off to get a real job downstairs and, later start as a grad student in that group. At that point I stopped seeing him quite so regularly - he didn't even make it to BTCU - probably because he was busy with the whole grad school thing, along with taking care of his son. He visited the Bay recently, and is talking about spending a year out here; I hope that works out!

BTCU; Co-Worker: TCBG, Feb 2003 - Jul 2004

John Dodd - Post-Allen

When I was feeling depressed about leaving Allen at the end of my (first) senior year, some guy from FAR offered to take over the dorm for me. John was good to his word, and did what he could to keep track of Allen for me, sharing the work with others whenever possible and generally keeping me in the loop where possible. Of course, he eventually moved on too; he even went on to go to law school, and now works as a evil lawyer in Illinois. He also married Missy last year; sadly, I was unable to attend the wedding. Silly Christmas weddings!

Like Disco (Fall 2000 - May 2003)

Missy Dodd - Post-Allen

Missy laughs. Oh how she laughs. It's something generally on par with Bryan's laughing - loud, silly, and infectious if you can figure out what she's laughing at, which isn't necessarily common. I met Missy at Allen, shortly after I moved out and when she joined Like Disco; but I've gotten closer to her in the last few years, since she started working in my Dad's lab as his grad student.
Missy is currently attending Vet School at UIUC. She also recently married John, which made her last name *oh* so much easier to spell. (Skowronski. Wow!) She's still close with my family, and particularly with Margaret. And I'll still be lucky if I ever get another picture of her even half as good as the one here, even if this is hardly a piece of art...

Like Disco (Fall 2000 - Spring 2002)

Wendy Edwards - Post-Allen

Wendy is a part of the local computer crowd, specifically the political wing. I think I met her through BTCU back in 2004 or so, though I had probably seen her posting to the local newsgroups before that; she was shy, but friendly enough once you got past that. She was a regular at Movie Night, and always brought food, without fail. Wendy is currently working over at NCSA for one of our competitors, and I think we both like hearing what's up in the world from each other's perspective.

BTCU; Monday Movies

Chris Gressley-Ruppel - Post-Allen

Chris was the Beckman Institute's head sysadmin for many years, several of which were while I was working there. This made for an interesting professional relationship; she knew me from my earlier college years, when I was much more of a pain in the butt, but I really did make her life a bit easier within the building. It only took a little while for our interaction to move from "adversarial" to "friendly", and soon all the way to "direct allies". I think it helped when I got her a Red Swingline Stapler for Sysadmin Appreciation Day one year...
Chris and her husband Rick bought up the old Drake house a few years ago, where Doug and Chuck had lived immediately before. This turned our friendship on an even stranger path, as suddenly she was encountering parts of the rest of my social existence. Even after she left Beckman (she wanted to start having kids - she and Rick now have two cute girls), I still stayed in contact with her; and my leaving didn't really change that much. I still try to make it to her annual bonfire if I can help it; and it looks promising this year...

Chrispie Hutchens - Post-Allen

Chrispy is a good example of how an age gap can shrink over time. We knew each other from high school, where he was a freshman when I was a senior; we still talked at the time, but it seemed a large difference for being friends. We lost track of each other for a while after that, until he got involved with a new Allen Hall crowd that I was spending a lot of time with. He moved to Chicago after graduation, where he worked as a software developer; but then he re-appeared on my radar with a vengeance when he started dating Helen down in Savoy. Now that the two of them are married and back in Chicago, we're back to the situation where we only see each other every now and then - but is that really so strange when I'm all the way across the country?

Uni High; Thursday Games

Greg Koenig - Post-Allen

I met Greg through Sid, and later started seeing him at BTCU far more regularly. Later, he became one of my users. And with that, I'd say that there's more than enough to add him to this page. He's a nice guy, older than most of us but generally friendly. And he at least once offered me the compliment "you run the network how I would run it"... I still see him at BTCU pretty regularly, where we rant about computers and grad school and all that kind of stuff. I assume that will end as soon as he finally gets to deposit his thesis, but that seems to be taking a while.

BTCU; Co-Worker: TCBG (User, Sep 2003 - Dec 2004)

Mike Lockwood - Post-Allen

Mike was one of my regular lunch-mates back at UIUC. He's a friend of Jim and John's through Dancing Illini; he worked elsewhere in the Beckman Institute, doing a more audio- and EE-related job than I have, at least until he got sick of it and decided to go into business for himself making large mirrors for telescopes. He recently bought a house, he's a major audiophile, and he can once again stand Longhorn. Those are the kinds of things you learn at lunch... He's currently dating one of the Lisas (that John used to date; not Lisa Hoppe), and continues to work on telescopes and other home improvement projects. And I've found it fun to talk to him for years.

Danielle McKay - Post-Allen

I met Danielle through Beth, as the two of them were best friends. She's as art history graduate, and acts like it - she has lots of piercings, varied hair colors, stuff like that. I befriended her fairly closely over the years, both because she was the right kind of social and because, eventually, she moved into my house for a semester. It turns out that she really was an excellent roommate...

Roommate: The House (Jan 2007 - Jul 2007)

Rebecca McNulty - Post-Allen

It's interesting to realize how long I've known Rebecca. I remember when I met her - she dated my ex-roommate for several years, and coaching him through it remains a fond memory. She was a smart, dryly humorous History grad student at the time, her life together and her goals set for a bright future. Over the years, I've watched her put her life together - going on extended research trips, finishing up her PhD, getting a real job, deciding that it wasn't for her. And even as things didn't always go as she wanted, she remained that person that I trusted and admired. And now, as she's heading back to school for a better degree (Library Science), I can proudly say that she is a closer friend than ever. It certainly wouldn't have predicted that all those years ago...

Thursday Games

Tony Meizelis - Post-Allen

I've never been entirely clear on how to describe Tony. He was the co-director of LDBNR for a while, the only one at the time that actually lived in Allen. He's a bit of a computer geek, though not necessarily logically so. And... well, I dunno. I never did know enough about him, but we still stay in contact anyway. So goes life. He did give me a Summer-Fun Cuddly Cthulhu plush toy many years ago, which continues to live on the shelf and confuse all comers (especially those that don't understand about Cthulhu in the first place).

Kevin Miller - Post-Allen

Kevin is a social scientist that works for a non-profit organization in Washington DC. I met him back when he was an Psych/PolySci undergrad at UIUC, and he lived with first my then-girlfriend and later Sarah Scott; over the years we bonded over politics, Babylon 5, and general campus silliness. He wasn't the most responsible person at the time, so it's been interesting watching him change along that axis over the years; mind, I've been watching this primarily online, so I don't know if I get all of the details. We still talk over LiveJournal pretty regularly. And I'm still amused that he's started playing real board games lately.

Like Disco (Spring 2001 - Spring 2002); Monday Movies

Vered Miller - Post-Allen

Vered is one of the most strong-willed women I've ever known. On the surface, this makes her come across as caustic; but in reality, she's really a very kind, loving person who has her own very definite sense of right and wrong, and the willingness to let other people know about it. It takes a little while to get used to, but it's well worth it; if nothing else, she is one of those rare people that I truly feel that I can trust. She moved away a few years before I did, but I manage to visit her every time I'm anywhere nearby; I just hope that it continues more often lately. Life without her just isn't the same.

Like Disco (Spring 2001 - Fall 2002); Buffy Crowd; Monday Movies

Celeste Nafziger - Post-Allen

Celeste is Danny's girlfriend. She's a fellow veterinarian, the two of them having graduated in the same class before moving to Arizona together. She seems to be able to properly handle him, which mostly consists of knowing how to keep him in line; that's an important trait for those dating Skirvins. *grin* I've enjoyed having Celeste around; of course, I don't see her too much anymore, but hopefully I can get my butt out to Arizona sometime soon to visit the pair of them.

Angela Rose - Post-Allen

Angela is a quiet, excessively apologetic artistic type, specializing in fantasy sculpture. She's an extremely self-deprecating person, probably more so than is really healthy; after a few years of work, Stuart and her friends have at least managed to convince her to stop saying "I'm sorry" for saying "I'm sorry" too often. *shrug* I met her through a Werewolf game, which was the only real role-playing I've done in the last decade or so; it was fun playing with her.
Angela and Stuart got engaged a few months back, and moved to Washington DC together. I've heard from Stuart during this time, but not really Angela. Hopefully I'll hear more before too long.

Dan Sachs - Post-Allen

I met Dan working at CERL between my freshman and sophomore years; while we didn't exactly stay in close touch after that, we still continued to see each other around town and our circles continued to intersect. Eventually we settled into a comfortable pattern, when we both attended BTCU on a regular basis - at least until he left, and shortly thereafter I did as well. But we still seem to read each others' journals with interest, which is something.

BTCU; Co-Worker: CERL

Emmy Schroer - Post-Allen

I suppose that I could say that I have known Emmy for most of our lives, but it's not entirely true - I knew her back when we were little kids (her older brother went to nursery school with my younger brother), but there was a 15 year gap in between then and when I actually started hanging out with her. I re-met her through Randy and Smoot early in 2003, and started talking with her online; soon enough, we knew each other well enough to honestly call each other friends. She currently lives in Urbana, which she has more of an attraction to than even I do; and while we don't talk all the time, we do tend to get a lot out of those conversations we can pull off. If only I saw her on IM more of the time!
...aah, who am I kidding? I call her Em.

Sarah Scott - Post-Allen

Sarah is a very close friend that I somehow never expected to stay close to. She was a Music major back in college, and right away was one of the most friendly, cheerful, and downright *nice* people that I knew; but at the time our paths only seemed to meet casually, and I always expected her to head away as soon as school was out. But she never really left, and over time we started hanging out quite a bit; we watched the X-Files and Sex and the City together, we played with each others' cats, we went to plays together, and we found excuses to travel to Chicago together every now and again. Even when I left Champaign, she's been willing and able to call me periodically, to keep me informed on her life and to keep up on mine, and to generally just treat me as a friend. And so, all of these years later, I *do* expect that I'm going to stay in touch with her for the rest of our lives.

Like Disco (Spring 2001); Monday Movies; Sunday Games

Dana Stodgel - Post-Allen

Dana is an IT project manager at UIUC. I met her through Beth, but we were somehow a good match ourselves, based on occupation and temperament. Dana is a low-level TV otaku, really caring about cult shows like Supernatural and Doctor Who; and as a part of this, she has become a part of the general Fan Community, which means that in many ways, she's more net-savvy than I am. Luckily, all of this is well-balanced with taking care of her son, Jack, who is definitely the point of her existence. I've been impressed on those opportunities I've had to actually work with her professionally, and more impressed when I see how she deals with her personal life with similar care. She's an impressive woman, and I'm glad to still be in touch.

Jack Stodgel - Post-Allen

Jack is Dana's son. From when I met him, I started acting in many ways as "the cool uncle-like guy that has a lot of video games and toys" in his mind, which is a fun position to be in; but really, it's just been a joy watching him grow up and, where possible, to help in the process. I'm especially amused to watch how he gets his way, and which efforts at needling his mother are effective - which turns out to be a fairly small count. And it's always amusing to see how much larger he's gotten when I come to town.

Zeb Tate - Post-Allen

Zeb was a random ECE grad student when I met him at UIUC. We started hanging out to watch and laugh about movies and television shows; he became pretty good friends with Rob, and dated Klara for a couple of years, so the connections just became stronger. When he graduated, he moved to Toronto as an assistant professor; sadly, it seems that he's had a hard time really making friends out there. I certainly empathize, and I try to talk with him when I get the chance. But really, I just want my Samurai Movie buddy back...

Monday Movies

Josh Tolbert - Post-Allen

I met Josh at BTCU, and as has happened several times before in my life, I've wondered why it is that I hadn't met him before. He's a local geek, like me, working for the USDA instead of the University property; unlike me he's a car and sports fanatic, more like a regular guy. While I was in C-U, we tried to bring each other into the others' social groups wherever it seemed logical; this worked at least a little bit, but mostly it just gave us some good context for ongoing conversations. He still runs BTCU, and I make it a point to stop by whenever I'm in town; but more of the time, we just keep up with each other over AIM. And I feel bad that we didn't go out shooting more...

BTCU; Monday Movies

Erin Zaletel - Post-Allen

Erin is one of the many hardy souls that left the bounties of Illinois in order to pursue her dreams in the icy wastelands - or, in her case, Seattle. Okay, maybe that's not so icy. She's currently working as a school teacher, she seems to be doing well, and she's the person that finally got me to go ahead and start working on this web page again.

BTCU

Amy - Post-Allen

Amy was our waitress at the Office for BTCU from well before I started attending until she graduated and left in July 2004. She actually seemed to enjoy us, if not entirely understand us; we were regulars, we were weird, and we were most certainly not dangerous. BTCU lost a lot when she left, and it never really got much of it back. Amy, we salute you! Cheers!

BTCU

TCB Group

These are my co-workers at the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group, or at least the ones that I've felt close to through the years.

Jacob Beacham - TCB Group

Jacob was my fourth assistant; he worked concurrently with Erik, though he tended to be around slightly more. Like most of my assistants to date, he was an IMSA grad; I'm not really sure how I found them that way, but it certainly worked out. Jacob was a bit quieter than the rest of them; he was also especially interested in the job itself, and did an excellent job with limited information. Definitely an asset. Jacob graduated in 2006, and moved out to Seattle to work for Amazon; I haven't heard from him for a while, but I hope he's doing well. And I still owe him $10.

Co-Worker: Assistant, Mar 2005 - Dec 2006

Rosemary Braun - TCB Group

Rosemary was one of *my* grad students - that is, she was one of the few grad students that I could order around, albeit in extremely limited ways. She's a New York native, rather short (Caitte-height, to be exact), and the co-president of the GEO, the Union for campus graduate students. So, yeah, she was a good person to know.... She was also somebody that I've kept in touch with after she graduated and left; I see her at conferences and miscellaneous events every now and then, plus she maintains an amusing academic LiveJournal. (Hmm. That sounds like it should be peer-reviewed.)

Co-Worker: TCBG

Robert Brunner - TCB Group

Rob was the group Mac expert. He was hired about the same time as me, as a programmer for the BioCoRE project; unlike me, though, he came in with the full requirements of a PhD, save for a weird problem with his Masters Thesis. I was always the least-educated one... Rob's most important feature, at least on my front, was that he was from Ohio, and therefore a Skyline Chili fan. Well, that and he really liked to grill.

Co-Worker: TCBG

Gila Budescu - TCB Group

For the first three years of my career, Gila was my boss, and somehow also became a friend. I still find this odd. Part of it was that there were other odd connections - she was also the mother of my brother's roommate's then-girlfriend (which is closer than you think), and as such there got to be some periodic interesting conversations between us about her daughter. She was a good boss, really, if a bit odd in her requests at times - but that's what comes of being an administrator and not a techie, I guess. Aah, well. She left for Northwestern back in 2003, and started throwing periodic parties at her place; but since she moved to New York for her most recent job, I haven't seen her. I'm glad I'll get to see her at the reunion.

Co-Worker: TCBG, Boss, Mar 2000 - Jul 2003

Markus Dittrich - TCB Group

Markus was probably my most reliable grad student sysadmin. A Physics student, he's still more than willing to learn about whatever computer-related issues need to be worked out, as well as helping people out with their problems proactively... It was selfish of me to hope he never graduated, but oh well, it happened anyway. He currently works out at the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center. Amusingly, he's married to the sister of an old Ground Souther. I love this town.

Co-Worker: TCBG (Jan 2001 - May 2006)

Joanna Francis - TCB Group

Joanna was my assistant for the first couple of years working with the TCB Group. I wasn't really sure why I came into a new job as the junior member of the staff, and immediately had an assistant; but it turned out to be a great thing, because she was able to teach me a lot of the ropes and keep the work from being too overwhelming.
Joanna went to IMSA, but somehow didn't know about the Uni High/IMSA rivalry; I've always chosen to not dwell on that too much. She was a combination Computer Science and Aviation major, and somehow managed to make Bronze Tablet while doing both (so yes, she was brilliant, why do you ask?). The last I saw her, she was working for American Eagle as a pilot out of Boston; but it has been a while.

Co-Worker: TCBG (Assistant), Mar 2000 - Jun 2002

Justin Gullingsrud - TCB Group

For approximately three years, Justin was one of my users, and one of the most friendly ones. He was a Physics grad student that spends most of his time programming; he was also one of the more social and active of my users, and so I hung out with him occasionally in other contexts. It's fun to get my butt kicked in some video games anyway... He currently works in New York City for one of Klaus' competitors.

Co-Worker: TCBG (User) Mar 2000 - Sep 2003

Barry Isralewitz - TCB Group

Barry was the primary sysadmin for the TCB Group before me, and was on my sysadmin team for several years before finding out that he didn't have to be. Hey, I enjoyed the extra manpower while I had it... Really, it was all because of Barry's short attention span; he would be easily fascinated by something and put in effort to understand it, but would rarely finish his projects. This worked out well for small sysadmin-y things; it worked out less well for his thesis, which I believe took about 10 years to write. But it did happen!
That said, Barry is also the student that I knew the best outside of work. He is good friends with Sarah Scott, and has known many of my other friends as well; somehow, our circles keep on colliding. This is fine by me.

Co-Worker: TCBG

Jerry Jaskierny - TCB Group

Jerry was my second assistant. He worked for me for about two-and-a-half years; during the last few months of it, we also become friends outside of work, at least in as much as we both hang out at BTCU. If nothing else, he was always full of amusing stories - amusing landlord troubles to speak of on a regular basis, random biases against other runners (he did lots of cross-country in high school), etc. I'm still in touch with Jerry, and expect to be for the immediate future; apparently the professional relationship struck just the right balance.

Usenet @ UIUC; Co-Worker: TCBG (Assistant), Sep 2002 - Feb 2005

Marilyn Lynch - TCB Group

Marilyn was our group secretary, essentially the one that takes care of us all. She brings us food, organizes our lives, and knows what's going on in general. And I'm happy to be the sysadmin that she's liked the most through the years (which is mostly because I'm a generally nice person, unlike most sysadmins...) Marilyn retired a few years back, but has still been coming back to do miscellaneous work every now and then when necessary, and has managed to make it to a large number of miscellaneous group events. It's nice to not entirely lose track of her.

Co-Worker: TCBG, Mar 2000 - Dec 2004

Jo Miller - TCB Group

Jo was the Resource publications manager, and another one of those people that really kept the group running. She was with the group for longer than just about everyone else, and knew where everything is kept; she's also bright enough to know when to stay out of things. As such, it was a little bit of a shock to hear that she was retiring just after my last visit! I think that she's going to help out now and again, but her time is up...
Jo is also the highest-ranking Republican I know, which makes things interesting at work every now and then. I think we both like making fun of each other over politics.

Co-Worker: TCBG

Jim Phillips - TCB Group

Until recently, Jim lived a couple of blocks down the street from my parents - it's one of the stranger parts of working in C-U, let me tell you, to have everybody just around like that.. While working for Klaus, Jim was one of my closer friends and allies; he was a programmer by trade, but had a fair bit of sysadmin experience in his background and seemed willing to use it to defend our overall setup whenever it was logical. We also had some contacts outside of work, which helped matters more, and we went to lunch together a few times a week. I'm still trying to figure out if I can make it to his wedding in October; I suspect that it's not going to work out, but it would be nice...

Co-Worker: TCBG

Klaus Schulten - TCB Group

Klaus was the head of our research group, and basically gave me my break. He is a senior professor of Physics in a field that is both rapidly advancing and actually matters; this makes for an interesting research regimen. He's driven, sometimes scary, and quite often a lot of fun to work for. If nothing else, he understands that he's not an expert on everything, so he hires technical people to advise him. The group is successful, so I guess it works... now if we can just get him to listen to us a *little* more often.

Co-Worker: TCBG (Group Head)

John Stone - TCB Group

John is the TCB Group's Official Hacker. His official work is with VMD, the molecular dynamics visualization program that is by far the best of breef; but he tends to have plenty of time to work on other side projects as well. He was one of the people I would consult with the most when I worked there, both because his work would be influenced the most by any changes and because he had a good background in the areas that needed to be discussed; we *mostly* got along, but it was enough to get by.
John is also the worst gadget gatherer I know, which sometimes scares the hell out of me; he has more DVDs than me, more machines, more books, more everything. Or at least that used to be true; I'm curious if his recent marriage to Nicole changed the game somewhat.

TBL; Co-Worker: TCBG

Emad Tajkhorshid - TCB Group

From when Gila left in August 2003 until slightly after I left, Emad was nominally the boss of the group when Klaus isn't around. He's really a scientist, and would much rather being doing science work, but them's the breaks; and at least he eventually got some extra grad students for his trouble. He is quite a nice guy, and fun to work with, so I'm not exactly complaining; we tend to have a lot to laugh about, which makes life much more amusing around here. His son Navid is also quite fun, and my parents like to laugh as they watch him in stores growing up on the same paths that I went on.

Co-Worker: TCBG

Kirby Vandivort - TCB Group

Kirby was a Research Programmer from UMR, another convert to the ways of computer science after failing to find a career in Nuclear Engineering (this apparently happens all the time). He was essentially in charge of the BioCoRE project for as long as it lasted; nowadays he does other miscellaneous programming/science interaction coding, which I am no longer privy to (not being a member of the Resource any longer). Personally, Kirby was the one that finally convinced me of the ways of the TiVo, for which I am quite thankful.

Co-Worker: TCBG

Elizabeth Villa - TCB Group

Betsy was one of my more amusing users; she was active, funny, and generally good about not asking for the impossible even if she needs it. More than that, she enjoyed just sitting and talking on a semi-regular basis; she just generally wasn't too busy to have a good conversation. Of course, like all students she eventually graduated and moved on; but I can still think back as to how she's the kind of user I'd like to have more of.

Co-Worker: TCBG

Erik Volkman - TCB Group

Erik was my third assistant in the TCB Group. He was an IMSA graduate (as usual), and an undergraduate in Computer Science (also usual); and while he was generally quiet around the office, he definitely had a nice air of quiet self-assurance and confidence. I believe that he should have finished off his CS master's by now, but I haven't actually heard what he's doing nowadays; I suppose I should look into that one of these days.

Co-Worker: TCBG (Assistant), Feb 2004 - May 2005

Mark Wang - TCB Group

Mark was an anomaly as an assistant, inasmuch as he came from Uni instead of IMSA. He mailed me one day fairly out-of-the-blue and asked if he could work for me unpaid for a while, since he knew that I needed somebody; I took him up on it, and he turned out to be very good at the job and reliable. The original goal was to keep him on for his entire college career, but that fell apart when he got an excellent scholarship at Harvey Mudd; and so I only got him for that one year. I at least got a ping from him a little while ago, so I know that his academic career is continuing.

Co-Worker: Assistant, Jun 2006 - Aug 2007

Other

These are the people that didn't get a more specific category for some reason.

Ben "Dover" Brenner - Childhood

Ben is one of Danny's close childhood friends, the ones that he's very likely to stay in close touch with for the rest of his life. I started to get to know Dover (he's really okay with that nickname, I swear) when he started bringing over Euro-games such as Settlers of Catan to the house; this was back when I was still in college. In his own way, he introduced me to the hobby; I didn't even known it was happening! He lives back in C-U, and I still mostly interact with him through my brother; but that somehow turns out to be fairly often anyway.

Sunday Games

Beth Dillman - Ex-Wife

Beth is my ex-wife. Yes, that's already listed in the 'category' field, but at this point it's the defining characteristic of our relationship; and it turns out that this isn't entirely a bad thing. We were once in love, and then it stopped; we got out before we hated each other, and now we're still friends.
Beth currently lives back in Champaign, and has finally gotten a job that she's happy with, working with a local non-profit publishing company associated with the University. She still reads too much, hangs out with as many people as possible, and spends her time worrying about anybody that's gotten close with her. And, with any luck, she'll find her own happiness someday.

Wife (19 May 2007 - 07 Oct 2008); Fiancee (10 Oct 2005 - 19 May 2007); Girlfriend (08 Feb 2004 - 10 Oct 2005)

Rob Dillman - Ex-Brother-In-Law

Rob is Beth's younger brother, by about 3.5 years. In many ways, he's reminded me of myself at his age - starting out somewhat awkward and not entirely sure what to do with himself, followed by getting his act together and finding a few areas of focus that he's proud of and suit him well. Sure, his areas involve anime and tournament fighting video games, but is that all that bad?
I don't really talk with him all that much since the divorce, but that seems to mostly be because of the different coasts thing. We're still friends, and I hope that we remain that way.

UIUC Working Era; Roommate (May 2007 - Nov 2008); Bridesmaid

Chris Gurney - On-Line

Chris was our lab consultant during my freshman year, and for whatever reason I decided to meet her, bother her and make her a friend. It worked. I even figured out that she was a fellow Libertarian, made her get into Babylon 5, and generally interesting-fied her life... Of course, she then graduated in Spring '96 and moved back to Chicago - which kindof put a damper on things. We're still talking to each other, though, a bunch of of years later; it's the penpal-style by now (short letters with random information that don't come anywhere near often enough). And I think it's probably my turn to get back to her. In fact, it's almost always time for me to get back to her...

Paul Kennedy - On-Line

Paul used to work in the Beckman Institute as part of Beckman System Services, the guys in charge of the building network. I had already known him before he started here, but I got to know him better over time, as we comisserated with each other about the state of the building and our jobs. It was fun having an ally down the hall, and we both took advantage of it. He eventually moved out east, where he teaches at Georgetown University and just generally seems more relaxed; and I still get to see him on the occasional trip out there.

Jason "Linky" Lindquist - On-Line

Linky is one of the few friends I've got that I've really never known; I only met him about 2 or 3 times before he graduated, and only a couple of times since. Still, I knew him through Usenet - he read and posted unihigh.* during its heyday, for starters, which thoroughly impressed his image on my brain. I still think he thought of me as his protegé, the one that would take over Usenet after he was gone, even if he denies it; little did he know how far I would take that role... After that, I saw him fairly regularly for a while when either he would come back to C-U for a visit, or I would head out to San Diego for a conference or convention. But those have dried up lately, so our relationship has remained online. Still, it's nice to have someone to talk to that isn't actually around, and who really has his head on straight. (Or at least can help me get mine on straight, anyway.)

MeatNews

John "Dirt" Phillips - Childhood

Dirt has been Danny's best friend since they were in second grade or so. He's a really friendly, competent, *random* guy that has managed to stick around town doing various volunteer things forever, like us. He married a girl that I barely knew - Polly Mae - but Danny assured me it's a match made in heaven, and time seems to have agreed. Certainly, she also appreciated the Urkel doll that Danny gave them as a wedding shower gift. I started actually thinking of Dirt as partially my friend when I started working at the Center for Women in Transition (where he's the Director of Children's Programming); so now he makes it to the page, where he belongs. Dirt lived in Santa Cruz for a while, but moved back to the Midwest a little while after I got here; I hope he's not just trying to avoid me...

John Reskusich - MelFest

John is Ray's older brother. He's a friendly-but-quiet kind of guy, with the standard similar-but-different brother thing going; he's more cheerful and open, but generally just as passionate. Ray and John tend to follow each other's hobbies, too; John's more into comics and movies, while Ray's into computers, but still, it's similar. Since Ray and Mel moved to Seattle, I've seen him significantly less than I'm used to; he didn't even make it to our wedding. But I have no doubt that the next time our paths cross, things won't be much different than when I last saw him.

Emily Weber - Childhood

Emily is my oldest non-family friend. We met when we were in preschool; I was 1, she was 2. We fought and argued, and generally she got along better with Danny than with me, but childhood bonds sometimes endure. Now, nearly three decades later, we're back in contact. I ran into her at a job interview a few years back, and managed to cause her car to die on the highway into New York City; somehow, that became a nice little bonding experience. She recently graduated from med school, and is currently doing an internship up in Portland. I really have to remember to say hi when I'm up there this November...

Jane Weber - Childhood

Jane is our official Old Family Friend. I've known her since I carpooled with her daughter (Emily) to nursery school back when I was two years old; she moved away when I was in the sixth grade, but she's stayed in close contact with Mom anyway, and we see her once or twice a year on when she comes back to C-U to visit. I've been to Europe with her, and it wouldn't surprise me that much if I went again in the future. And she's taken to coming to San Francisco in January every year, so I should have that chance to see her regularly for a while.

Charlotte White - MelFest

Charlotte is Mel's younger sister, which makes her my sister in some strange way that's not quite as strong as the bond to Mel. She's an odd girl, very much into world travel and pseudo-hip stuff; we get along quite well, almost to official sibling levels though I'm not sure how close of friends we can really be said to be; it's an odd dynamic.
Charlotte tends to spend a lot of time traveling the world; she's spent a year in both Australia and Korea in the time that I've known her. I really don't see her enough anymore; hopefully she'll make it to the next MelFest!

Mike White - MelFest

Mike is Mel's Dad. He's the primary force behind the White Family Memorial Day Party, which has been going for more than 25 years, and that was the context in which I met him, years ago. Over time, I've grown to enjoy hanging out with him more and more; he's always fun to see at various parties and events, and of course every year down in Murphysboro. It still seems odd that I'm probably only going to see him once a year from now on; but even so, we've made it a date. Mike and Mattie (his new wife) recently had a kid - Scooby - and he's adorable. It should be fun watching him grow up out in the mud...

Pets of Friends

I'm only allowed to have a couple of animals at a time, but the animals of those around me are almost as satisfying.

Dante Bonn - Pet (Friend)

Dante is Dave and Katie's cat. He's a mostly-white long-hair that's social without actually being a lap cat; and while he superficially resembles Jesse in all but color, he doesn't really act much like him. That doesn't mean I don't treat him the same, though... I cat-sit for Dante on a fairly regular basis, so he considers me a part of his family - albeit one that tends to show up at rather odd (if opportune) times.

Gandalf "Quarter Pounder" Scott - Pet (Friend)

QP is Sarah's first cat; I helped her pick him out at the local Humane Society back when she adopted him in November 2003. He's a big, grey cat, always energetic and wanting to go play outside or do something else that he's not supposed to. Sarah is convinced that his name is Gandalf ('the Grey'), and has admittedly done a pretty good job of arguing with me about it. But I still think of him as Quarter Pounder.

*Why does he name cats after fast food?*

Gimli "With Cheese" Scott - Pet (Friend)

Gimli is Sarah's second cat, a big, orange, rough-playing guy that tends to do what it takes to get what he wants (in a way past what most cats do - for instance, he'll bite your nose to wake your up). He's always fun to play with, because he's dangerous; he might be rolling around in ecstasy one moment, before reaching over and biting you the next. But unlike some cats with such personalities, he's not evil or broken, just... himself. I'm fond of him.

Deceased Pets

I miss my old friends, but this is what comes of short life spans...

Bridget Norton - Pet (Family Friend), Deceased

Bridget was Margaret's dog and constant companion for her entire life. She was a large Yellow Labrador, stereotypical in every way, if perhaps more energetic. I knew her from when she was a puppy; as she grew up, we spent a lot of time playing pulling and dragging games, that left her with her gums bleeding and me with my arms nearly pulled out of their sockets. The games settled down as she aged, but she didn't settle down herself for most of her life; and so it was always pleasant to see her and play with her when they came over for dinner.
Bridget finally had to be put to sleep back in 2008, effectively due to old age. It was hard to see her getting old; I'm glad that she's at peace now.

Bullwinkle Skirvin - Pet (Personal), Deceased

Bullwinkle was my pet blue-tongue lizard in Australia. We got him from a friend who found him in a field; because we couldn't find a heat lamp, I generally carried him around in my shirt. He was a wonderful lizard, and one of the few things I liked about the place at the time. But he died about three days before we left Australia to return home. I'm not sure if I've ever been that heartbroken since...

Frank Skirvin - Pet (Parents), Deceased

Frank was the family cat when I was born. She was a beautiful long-haired calico, one of the prettiest I've ever seen - but she was also a *cranky* cat, and not just because I picked on her as a child. She hated everybody except my Dad, Uncle Tim, and Grandpa Bob; for some reason the Alpha Male of the house appealed to her, as well as the massively allergic. We got rid of her when I was about two-and-a-half because she had taken up trying to bite my eyes out rather than look at me. I missed her then; now I just think of her as excellent story-fodder.

Joel Skirvin - Pet (Personal), Deceased

From March 2001 to December 2004, Joel was the family cat. We adopted him from Danny's vet clinic; he was left there for several months by his old owner, until they finally decided that someone had to take him because it was just cruel to leave him locked up. After a short period of adjustment, he fit straight into the family. Joel was an orange tabby, fairly normal looking but far friendlier than just about any cat I've ever known - not in the standard "pay attention to me" way, but instead just always wanting to be around and near his pets and visitors. It was extremely endearing. Sadly, Joel was never a healthy cat; he had a heart murmur when we got him, and just deteriorated from there. But no matter what it took to keep him going, he seemed happy and loving up to the day he died, in our arms at the vet clinic.

Sherlock Skirvin - Pet (Personal), Deceased

Sherlock was the family cat from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s. We adopted him from my Dad's secretary when I was 9, to be used to take care of me through puberty. Sherlock was a dark grey cat with white boots and muzzle; he was also a remarkably scared cat, always worried that my Dad was going to kill him at a moment's notice. He was a great cat, as good as I could ever want; I was the only one that he was allowed to play rough with, and that was enough to pay back for being used as an older-kid teddy bear when I was young. Besides, cats love that stuff. He spent a lot of time fighting with rabbit's feet too, and sitting on the porch and on laps. He finally died of old age when we'd had him for nearly 14 years, making him about 16; it was sad, but it was his time. I still miss him, of course. He was my cat.

Riley White - Pet (Adopted Family), Deceased

Riley was Mel and Ray's dog. Mel had him since he was a puppy, only living apart from him for the couple of years that she was in the dorm; as soon as she was able, she moved out in order to keep the two of them close. He was a large Irish Setter mix, always enthusiastic and puppy-like , even as he got older. He loved cats, his tail was always a thing to be reckoned with, and he was one of the most comfortable cuddling dogs I've ever known. And back in 2008, his old age finally caught up with him. He was a good puppy.