Boy, do I miss Dave.

I don't write often about my friendship with Dave. Mostly cause I don't want to jinx it.

I'm very honored to know the personal side of Dave. Some of the best experiences of my life have been watching my son and Dave interact (often with "R" ratings -- my son loves to count the number of times Dave says a George Carlin word. The fact that my eight-year-old son knows most of George Carlin's words is another story altogether).

Aside to focus on myself for a minute. The last year in my life has just had a lot of shit.

It's like God (if I believed in such a thing) was slapping me.

The laundry list gets longer. 9/11. Divorce. Career troubles (some of which were with Dave himself). Grandma dying. Car accident. And now my friend is in the hospital and I can't talk to him or even read his weblog.

God damn it, why can't Dave's hospital have WiFi?

Why doesn't the doctor who's treating him have a Weblog? Why doesn't his family have Weblogs? Oh, yeah, privacy. I guess if I were in the hospital I wouldn't want you all to look at video or commentary about my condition either.

Crap, but this is the Weblog age: I want facts, photos, anecdotes, information.

If Dave weren't my friend I might just do some social engineering and find out what hospital he's at. Journalism school taught me to do the dirty work. I bet that within 30 minutes of calling around I'd figure out where he's at.

Hell, I'll bet Dave would be dialing hospitals right now trying to figure where I was if I was in the hospital.

Onto the weirder thoughts I'm having.

I wonder if his plants need watering -- Dave is particularly proud of how his garden has been doing this year.

I wonder how UserLand's employees are taking it (their weblogs have been interestingly silent today, although I note that Jake did ship some cool new features in Radio UserLand today).

Did I mention that I miss Dave?

Just two weeks ago we were hanging out on his couch watching a movie on his beloved Tivo. Patrick was tackling him and giving him heck the way only an eight-year-old can.

I can't wait until I get to hang with him again. I can't wait until I see his page update on Scripting News again.

So, back to the theme. What is a friend? Seems that Dave has lots of friends. I go over to John Robb's site. 160 posts in his comments so far. What great comments.

Dave has a lot of friends. Many were instant messaging to me today or writing me email. "What the hell's going on with Dave?"

He's in the top 10 twice on Day Pop.

Anyone who's missing Dave or Scripting News today is Dave's friend.

I miss you Dave and wish you a fast recovery. I'll never take our friendship for granted again, that's for sure.