RIP, Jimmers...

I got word today that a coworker, Jim (or Jimmers as we called him) was in a coma and not expected to make it past the night.

Jim was a consultant for the college I work for, doing network security work. He also ran some other businesses, including GoJimmers, the hosting provider for madanthony.net.

A few months ago he was diagnosed with cancer. The original prognosis wasn't good, but then he seemed to be fighting back. But evidently there were some complications with some of the chemotherapy drugs.

Jim was a great guy - smart, friendly, always willing to help. He did a lot of interesting things, including spending time working for the White House while Reagan was president, and always had a ton of stories. People often throw out the phrase "living life to the fullest", but he definitely did - he was an avid motorcycle rider, target shooter, and airplane pilot.

There are certainly a lot of people who were a lot closer to him than I was, but I talked to him enough times - at work and at the occasional after-work outing - to know him well enough to miss his jokes, his comments on politics, his stories, his ability to crack a tough network issue. Plus, he was the only person at work to have a cubical that rivaled mine for sheer amount of crap crammed into a small space.

Like many people, I struggle with the meaning of existence, of God, of wondering if the events of life are random or part of something bigger. Things like this make it even harder to figure out.

But they also teach us of the shortness and fragility of life, of the need to not always put off things we want to do or spending time with people we care about. One of the things Jimmers would do is get groups of people together to go to a cabin he had in the woods and, well, shoot stuff. The last one was Memorial Day weekend, and I was invited to go, but declined - there was a hamfest, and some other stuff, and I figured I'd go to the next one. Now, I wish I had gone - had known that there isn't always a next time.