The Milker. Our friend.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I have been trying to write something about him for two weeks. He is impossible to describe. We had his funeral / celebration at Pindustry last night and I swear 150 people were there over the course of the night from all the decades in his life. And you start talking to people and he just... didn't repeat himself, is the amazing thing I took last night.

If I have a joke that is based on current events that I think is ok I'll try telling it to 3 or 4 people before moving onto the next thing. He had no concept of that, he had no concept of trying to be Mr Ha Ha Funny Performer Guy, he just was silly from moment to moment. He must have asked me 100 times, "Heyyyy bud what are ya wearing?" but that is not something he did for everyone. I was hearing different kinds of opening sentences from him. And unlike the 14 year old MySpace girl who is omg so random he wasn't ever trying to impress anyone. I have seen insufferable people over the years talk about their own taste in music and they'll start a sentence like, "My playlists are so eclectic..." and of course everyone is right to roll their eyes at such a tryhard statement. Randy is the only person I can think of who would talk this way but not in a way where he was trying hard. And it all basically came down to him trying to get to know somebody or cheer someone up or start a pleasant conversation. You or I might say, "Hello. How are you doing today?" And the response might be, "Doing well, how about you?" He didn't do that, he would instead say, "Hello Chili Cheese Dog Dinner, How's Your Donner Party?" but he was asking how you were. He wouldn't have been aware of the "Yes and" improve thing but he usually added to whatever you said.

And of course, as soon as a meeting started at work he would adhere to the Agile Principle of standups where he said what he was doing, what he was working on and if he was blocked with proper, professional consistency in a way that - when other people would hear how it was supposed to be done and still fuck it up by going on long tangents or some kind of UMMMMMMM WHAT DID I DO YESTERDAY... I DUNNO HEH! TODAY I'M GOING TO thing it would make me appreciate him even more. Like Christ, the man just did the format right, the one spouting the most nonsense and jibberish in the previous two minutes before the meeting started showed you how to do it. (NOTE TO PINBACK - this is a thing I observed before we started working together for the most part.)

I have been thinking a lot about voices and original minds. My nephew is an original mind because he's two and mashing everything he hears into his own toddler pidgin, maybe he grows out of it. Randy cannot fit into any kind of standard eulogy. Last night there was a patio filled of people who all "got it" and if you went downstairs and took a random person and tried to explain who were were all celebrating upstairs they would think you were crazy and get mad at you. I can't believe he's gone.

[raecoffey]

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss.
You have my condolences.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Thank you so much. I'm just rambling but I don't even really know if it's hit me. I miss him so much.

[pinback]

Randy was the most annoying person I ever worked with.

The first time I met him in a professional capacity was, I had just joined the company ICJ and Milker were working at, and they brought us all out to Denver for a week of on-site work. There wasn't much room for all us outsiders, so I got sat on a bench next to him. This was my first time in a QA job, and my first time meeting all these people, so I was pretty focused on showing I could get the job done.

Meanwhile the entire time I'm sitting there trying to work, he's singing little songs to me, and sharing videos and just doing everything he could to get my attention and make me laugh, and I'm like, holy shit dude, can't you see I am very focused on this very important job QAing this very important stupid fucking website or whatever it was? He could not. He could not see that, and so the songs and jokes continued.

As we moved from company to company, it was always the same. I'm trying to get this super-critical ticket done so we can clear our super-critical stupid fucking product to production, and he's sending me audios of himself singing about me and calling me ham sandwich and just the most random fucking shit you've ever heard. It would have been hilarious, except Jesus Christ, that's cute and all, but this very important product and my very important job had to come first.

You had to clear out the first and last few minutes of a meeting because you knew he was gonna do his thing and make us all try to be happy before we could get down to business. One time I needed a break from it and just took a walk down to the mailbox, where there was the latest episode of Mad magazine waiting for me, because he bought me a subscription. There was no escape.

Eventually, and in my case far too late, you started to hear the message, and the message was, you were the asshole all along. You were the asshole, because you were putting off laughing and being happy until your super-important stupid shit which nobody will care about in a year was all situated. You were the fucking asshole, because the message was:

There is no time to wait. You have to be happy, now. You have to laugh, now. You have to express joy and love and everything wonderful in this world now. Nothing else is more important. It absolutely cannot wait another second. You used to know that, when you were a kid, but you forgot, and got confused, and thought all your stupid super-important fucking shit was actually what mattered.

He was here to remind you. To point you back home.

Man was that annoying.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I'm going to read this a thousand times.

[Casual Observer]

I wish I'd known that guy, he sounds awesome.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

You would have loved him.

He created at least three haunted houses I am aware of and I haven't had a chance to talk about that part of it yet!

[bryanb]

RIP, Milker. He and I had a knack for being on the same websites for years at a time and never, ever interacting, but his energy -- nay, his AURA -- still definitely left an impression. We lost him too soon. Best wishes to Robb, Ben, and everyone else who is grieving.

[Casual Observer]

You would have loved him.

He created at least three haunted houses I am aware of and I haven't had a chance to talk about that part of it yet!

Whoa, was he the guy with the awesome haunted houses you posted about? Amazing stuff.

Not sure if it's bad form but as someone half dead myself is it wrong to ask how he died?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

All good. It should be illegal to talk about someone's death under the age of 70 without stating the reason why. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April, unfortunately. I was aware how awful and deadly it was but not truly aware. It's gotta be up there for the worst disease in the world.

[Casual Observer]

All good. It should be illegal to talk about someone's death under the age of 70 without stating the reason why. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April, unfortunately. I was aware how awful and deadly it was but not truly aware. It's gotta be up there for the worst disease in the world.

Wow so sorry to hear. Thats such a horrible disease, partially because there aren't lots of symptoms until its way too late. Condolences guys.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

This weekend, the Milker's wife invited some of his friends to their home, as she wanted to give away some of his items. I wanted to write about it here. So I can remember.

The thing about Randy is that he was a bit of a shopaholic. He also took better care of his stuff than anyone I've ever met. He had a "style" and I think that part of that style meant getting really good items. There is a Reddit post that gets made every 2 seconds about a quote from Discworld about how it's expensive to be poor. Well........ Milker bought the best of things and bought them to last. Then he bought 50 of them.

The man had at least 100 pairs of shoes. He put wooden shoe horns in most of them! And left the wadded up paper that shoes come in for others. All of them spotless. His wife said he would spend mornings just cleaning them. He had beautiful sweaters, in fact I am wearing one now. It does smell a tiny bit like him. I am sure this is too much information, but it's comforting. Smell is strongly linked to memories.

He sold me his Nintendo Switch, and then his wife said he bought too more (oh, if anyone wants to buy one at what I am sure is a good price, let me know). He also had a plastic chili cheese dog that I was given, and is now on the door for our mud room. That was one of his conversation fillers and conversation starters, he would call someone that and be off to the races. She also had one of his hockey jerseys for me - I now have a #92 Colorado Avalanche Gabriel Landeskog jersey. Plus some "City of the Dead" hats and the like.

I hope when I go you guys divide up my stuff. It's weird at first because you're like, "ohhh I can't take that" but you can. For him, for me. Please do it! My clothes are not as nice as his, so maybe not that, but otherwise. You remember and learn a lot about your pal when you do something like this.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Oh, his birthday was Saturday too.

This is the first picture I ever took when I had my Canon Mark IV delivered to me at work. He was always into what you were into - I decided I was going to make photography a hobby, so he was just as excited as I was when it arrived and we went up a few stories in the build we worked at so I could take a picture that allowed me to blur the background. He was a good sport about everything. But not even that, he wanted to be the dude to collaborate with ya on stuf.



I would not be surprised to learn that I've taken 90,000 pictures with this camera -- I have not checked the internal counter -- but for me the most important one was literally the first one.

[Roody_Yogurt]

That's a great picture.

And I haven't written this down anywhere so my family doesn't know yet, but I've always assumed that you will outlive me and I have been planning to have my family send some of my interactive fiction stuff to you. So you are forewarned.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I'll do the same and if we both go at the same time that hopefully creates a postal vicious circle!

[Tdarcos]

I have my keyboard on my bed in my lap. It's a very nice one, wired USB - I've had problems with wireless keyboards and mice - so this one has a very nice feature:the keyboard is backlit, so even if it's dark - and especially if it's dark - I can see the keys. Twenty bucks on Amazon. Well, my computer is on the floor next to my bed. Because I always have more things to plug in than I have USB sockets, I have a powered hub, 7 data/power ports and four power only ports (very useful for charging phones and cameras.)

Figuring the cable wouldn't reach, I have a USB extension cord (that cord is plugged directly into the computer) with a small, unpowered 4-port USB hub at the end. I have my keyboard, mouse, and headphones plugged into it. I have no trouble with this from my headphones, works perfectly. I have a little bit of a problem with the mouse, occasionally it will "go dark" like it was unplugged. So, I just have to remove and reinsert the mouse plug, and I'm back in business.

But the keyboard, I can never get it to register and operate; the keyboard lights dim or flicker, sometimes it's at full brightness, even though it's not getting a data signal. (I routinely leave NUM LOCK activated so that, if I don't also notice the NUM LOCK or CAPS LOCK indicator on, I know it is not getting a data connection.) And it's pissing me off.

So my roommate Leslie suggests I try plugging the keyboard into the powered hub. I wasn't sure it would reach. It does, and guess what? Flawless performance for more than three hours.

So it wasn't the keyboard that was the problem - I knew that already - it was the flaky USB hub I am using. Flaky is good for cherry pies. For electronics, not so much.

[AArdvark]

Awesome keyboard story! Want me to move it over to the keyboard thread?