I don’t know why I haven’t made mention of this sooner — but Geoff has released his newest Flash game onto the web. It’s entitled “Urban Chopper Rescue” and is somewhat like Choplifter, except you have to put out fires started by meteorites and save people from burning buildings. It’s rad (and I helped)! I made the chopper noises (we recorded them at his desk), helped out in the scoreboard area, and I did a lot of play-testing as you might imagine. Hence, my awesomely great high-score! Geoff really outdid himself this time. Go and give it a play, whydontcha?

The flight-model on the helicopter is kinda hard, but you’ll get used to it. Here’s a hint: fly fast, and put out as many fires and rescue as many people as possible in each round, but try to finish the round with at least half of the time remaining!

12 hours and 4 houses later, Kelly and I have returned home exhausted and both sad and happy that Christmas is over for this year. We had a great time at each house and are glad that we got to see everyone. Many presents were exchanged, though the I’m glad to know that we not only gave gifts to the Angel Tree program this year, but also helped out Hunter with his “Books for Caritas Kids” thing at B&N. It feels better to give back to those who have so little, and books are often the perfect gift.

Tomorrow we plan on doing nothing save for meeting the long-lost and far-flung friends at Wick’s Pizza on Baxter.

Merry Christmas all, and to all a good night.

With Ben’s recent passing, among other things, it has struck me that things have changed. Stepping out of the workaday I’m in and looking back down the hallway of my life (that’s how I visualize time past and time to come) has allowed me a bit of perspective. It feels to me as if I’ve just changed rooms — a door has shut behind me with a thud that surprised me. I remember a similar feeling in early 1997, the day another friend of mine committed suicide. I felt then as I do now that I’d changed rooms. The comfortable uncomfort of high school was a thing behind me — death and those it that it touched was and were real, and I better get my head on straight.

This last nearly 8 years were ones where I think I found myself — where we all found ourselves in one way or another. The fluid uncertainty that is growing up and out of high school and into college gels into what we are now. It is a time of serious stresses, new boundaries and slowly settling uncertainties. Morals and ideals begin to align themselves like iron filings in the presence of a magnet. Grief and resentment come with the realization that time has passed beneath your feet and behind your back, and it’s all a little bewildering. Eventually I found my feet. That me in that when is now looked back upon with amusement, wonder and occassional disappointment. I’m happy with what I’ve become, and I don’t regret as much as I used to. I am comfortable with who I am, partially because I know I’ve changed for the better. I made it through that time of uncertainty, fear and change, and I’m a better person for it.

However, as I sit here on what I assume to be solid ground, I look back through those doors and I see those who I left behind, those who stayed behind, or those who just didn’t make it. Ben didn’t make it, and as much as I’d like to drag him into that next room, I know I can’t. He’ll have to remain back there a constant reminder of closed doors. A piece of me stays behind in each room, too, and as much as I’d like the old me to come along, that me in that when and me here, we both know where we stand and where we need to be. And that is something I learned not too long ago. Perhaps that bit of knowledge allowed me passage on, I don’t know.

Like looking across flat land on a clear day, I think I can see far down the hallway now, but there have been times in my life — darker times — when it’s hard for me to imagine what will be coming, what is in my future. I can’t say how far away the next door is, or really what is across it’s threshold, but I have ideas. I wonder what I would see had I had been in Ben’s shoes. From what little I knew of his state of mind in the last couple of years, I understand that he felt under great pressures to succeed — academically and personally, and I think I can understand some of those pressures. Marriage and work and the loss of friends, the rest of your life now solely in your hands, all things that lay waste to even the strongest of people. The last few years of my life have certainly been challenging ones, ones where I certainly felt lost and in the woodwork. Each one of us, friends and family alike, have a separate path in life that may lead us further away from one another, but in the end we are never so far away that our bonds are not worth testing.

Julie Hoover has made a tribute video for Ben Edelson. A series of photos set to Coldplay’s “The Scientist” (how appropriate!) There are two version, a large (19 meg) broadband version and a smaller (~2 meg) dial-up version. Download either of them here:

Ben Edelson Tribute by Julie Hoover – broadband (19 meg Windows Media)

Ben Edelson Tribute by Julie Hoover – dialup (1.5 meg Windows Media)

I got the news tonight that Ben Edelson passed away some time in the last couple of days. Ben was a friend during my high-school years (actually only my senior year, 1996), a fellow Quick Recall teammate, fellow Downtown YMCA alarm-tripper and fellow guy named Ben. He was and still is the nicest genius (certifiable!) I ever knew. That was the thing about Ben — he was easily the smartest guy I’ve ever met, and yet despite all of the scholastic triumph that was always lumped (deservedly) upon him, he was a respectful friend to many. That is what I loved, and I think the thing everyone loved about Ben. He was incredibly smart (1600 on his SATs, winner of the 2000 Hoopes Prize for Undergraduate thesis while at Harvard), but despite his educational superlatives he was engaging, funny, filthy and always eager to please. I rarely saw him in a bad mood and he hardly had an enemy. As Hunter put it: “He’s the guy you’re supposed to hate, but can’t help loving”.

He went to Harvard after high-school and then went to CalTech, and received a number of accolades there, and occassionally we’d hear reports from the west coast of Edelson and his adventures. The last time I saw him was probably well over a year ago, but when we did meet it was always a good time. He was, to many of those who knew him, a true inspiration not only scholastically but personally. He was always interested in not only knowing more about the world around him, but the people around him as well. He was truly an independent in my book, one that I’ll never forget.

Ben, where-ever you are, find me out again someday.

update: Julie Hoover’s Livejournal Entry

further update:Gary Spillman’s blog entry for Ben Edelson

funeral arraignments: Meyer Funeral Home (see Ben’s obit here). Funeral services will be held Friday, December 10th, at 11:30 a.m. with interment following in Cave Hill Cemetery – Temple Shalom section. Visitation will begin after 10:30 a.m. Friday. (Meyer Funeral Home, 1338 Ellison Avenue, Louisville KY 40204, 502.458.9569). Map here.

This is the text of an email from a friend of mine (who is gay) in reaction to the Kentucky Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment which passed this last Tuesday…

Friends:

As most of you are probably aware, the majority of voters in Kentucky, along with 10 other states across our fine nation, just placed a ban on same sex marriage into the state constitution, effectively endorsing discrimination as a model practice. I am sitting here very nearly in tears right now because what this means is that the state that I was born in, and spent the first 24 years of my life in, has decided that I am not entitled to the same respect or the same sense of basic human dignity that 90% of the country’s population is automatically accorded. What this means is that my monogamous relationship with my boyfriend of three years is worth less than my father’s less lengthy relationship with a woman from another country; it is worth less than the second marriage of my mother; it is even worth less than a 55 hour practical joke perpetrated by Britney
Spears. It is, in fact, worth nothing in Kentucky.

What this means is that I cannot, and will not, ever be a resident of Kentucky again.

Maybe this seems a bit extreme to some of you, but I’d ask you to try to see this from my perspective. The state I have spent the vast majority of my life in, the one that educated me and collected my tax dollars, has now decided it knows better than I do when it comes to my relationship. All I can think is “What right do you have to tell me who I can marry? What right do you have to determine that my relationship is worth less than your own? What right do you have to presume to speak for God?”

Many people, maybe some of you, think this fight was about giving special rights to gay people. This could not be further from the truth. It was, and is, about affording equal rights to every tax-paying citizen of this country. In fact, the only people with “special rights” in this respect are heterosexuals: straight people have the right to marry, gay people do not. Straight people have the right to inherit property from their significant other, make medical decisions for their significant other, take care of the person they love most in the world; gay people do not. I do not. I am not equal.

So, it’s time I drew a line for my basic sense of self-respect, and sadly for me, that line must be abandoning the state I once considered my home.

First up, the photos from our annual Huber’s trip have been posted into the 2004.10.16 Hubers! gallery. Some great duck photography there, if I do say so myself.

Secondly, before the 2004 DESS Handlaunch competition, Bruce, Brian and I went to see Richard Harker‘s giant home aquarium. He built an addition onto his Raleigh, NC home for a 2,000 gallon saltwater reef tank. It is truly a sight to behold. You can behold it in the 2004.10.22 – Giant Home Aquarium gallery.

Geoff and his girl Anne invited Kelly and I to go to the Louisville Science Center on Saturday. Geoff captured lots of photos. We also saw Space Station, the first-ever IMAX film shot in space! It was awesome to say the least. Then we grabbed a bite to eat at Saffron’s a tasty Mediterranean restaurant on Main Street. Thanks Geoff! Thanks Anne!

Hey! It’s the birthday of my favorite Japanese native ever! That’s right -Mayumi’s birthday today. Apparently, November in the late 70′s was a hoppin’ time for many of our parents, and out popped Eve, myself, Nick, Mayumi (among many others, no doubt). Anyway, give Mayumi a shout-out today and wish her a happy 26th birthday!

Her birthday also occurred last year, on this very day, and i made a note of it. You may also want to search the gallery for photos of Mayumi.

To round it off nicely, I had some of my office-mates pitch in to help say “Happy Birthday Mayumi”. The resulting images can be found here: Happy Birthday Mayumi gallery.

I gots lots of cards and gifts and shouts-out over the past couple of days for my own birthday, but don’t forget that we’ve got two birthdays coming up — N. W. Smith on the 21st of August (tomorrow!) and Jackson Jacksonius Cooper on the 23rd of August. Let ‘em know that theys old when you get the chance.