Thursday, April 5, 2007

R.I.P. Jake Wood Sailing Scuttlebutt has the sad news that one of my old sailing buddies, Jake Wood, passed away today. The Scuttlebutt forum has a few remembrances. I was part of Bill Lee's story about visiting Jake's factory; I distinctly remember Jake talking about how many of his lock nuts were in a 747, and finding Jake himself tossing lock nuts into the cadmium plating machine. So I'm off to L.A. for the service on Saturday, and hoping to catch up with old gang. Follow-up and correction: The trip to L.A. for Jake's service didn't do my cold any good, but I had to be there. Seems he actually passed away on March 29 in Oklahoma City while on a trip to spec out a new Gulfstream. His doctor had warned him off of making a trip to Australia in January, and he had recently put the Big Red Sorcery up for sale, which suggests to me that he knew that the end of his life was near. The highlight of the day's events (church, graveside, and reception) for me was when Jake's son (also Jake) asked his sailing friends to identify themselves by a show of hands, and then to bid farewell with a group "Aloha!" That felt good, and appropriate. For so many of us, memories of Jake Wood are tied up with Hawaii and Tahiti and big-boat sailing war stories. Aloha, Jake! 8:53:53 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Vegas redux Really, I'm really really going to try to get to the next BayCHI meeting: BayCHI talk next Tuesday: Las Vegas and Lifestyle Design. Next Tuesday, on April 10th, BayCHI will host two speakers who will talk about design from very different perspectives. Kelly Goto will talk about Designing for lifestyle while Dan Saffer will talk about Learning Interaction Design from Las Vegas. RSVP on Upcoming if you are planning to come by (though you don't have to). Some of us might head out for drinks later if you want to join us (email me about that). [Rashmi's Blog] If I can just relax a bit and get some rest, I could be up for the late night that BayCHI meetings mean for me; they usually run to or past 9:30 p.m., which puts me home around 11:00. Too many nights like that, coupled with release deadline stress, make me sick. . . as I am now. But there's a weekend ahead to get well again. 3:47:24 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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