A colleague of mine here at work passed away over the weekend. He was one of my company’s close vendors. He would regularly come to our place to help out with designs or efforts. His company is integral to the way we do business.

It’s an odd feeling when someone who you’d only met with a few times, but knew well enough to wave as they passed in the hallway, passes away. It feels empty, but not debilitating.

I suppose that’s often the mark of death - a feeling of emptiness. Let’s not stress on his not being here anymore, let’s celebrate the fact that he was with us for 50 or so years and made a impact even on those who he’d only worked with briefly.

Here’s to you Ed.

After reading the fun Schenk interview, I thought it might be fun to interview our MikeDiDonato.com readers so that we can improve the community here. We’ll all learn a bit more about each other. I asked Kurt if he’d be willing to be the first subject. So here we go!

MD.com: Kurt! Thanks for your willingness to be our first interview victim here at MikeDiDonato.com. Tell us a bit about yourself and your family?

Kurt: How bout we switch this around and start with my family. They may be the coolest people on the face of the planet. Starting with my wife Shauna, who has put up with me for going on decade now, I think she can be classified as Insane in 37 states for dealing with me.
My Parents, Mom and Dad, once drove up to Worcester from Rochester, NY to come to a Halloween party we were throwing in April without telling me. So you might say thats where I get my “unique” personality. My brother, Andy, and my sister, Katie, are only lightly less cool than I am just because I’ve been around longer. My whole family is pretty important to me, it really took alot to move out to Boston away from all of them, but with the invention of the Internet (Thanks Al!) and the Telephone the hundreds of miles seems alot shorter.

Now as for that little bit about myself. I’m a biologist by schooling and a Nerd by choice. I like the planet earth and while I may not be a hippy, i try to do my part to keep this place clean. I’m currently a lab rat, pouring over tubes of science and microscopes of data. Tons of little bugs live and die under my tyrannical thumb. In my off time I enjoy reading, books, magazines, rule books to games, and whichever catalog is sitting in my “office”. I’ve dabbled a bit in pretty much every facet of nerdom that there is (MMORPG, Table Top wargaming, Miniature painting, P&P D&D, CCG, Boardgames, etc etc.) and I must say anime is the wierdest.
Some people might call me extroverted and sometimes they are right. IT takes a little while for me to warm up to new people, but once the gates are open they can’t be closed.

oh yeah I like Mayonnaise.

MD.com: What was the last book you read?

KO: Well I’m currently reading A Storm of Swords, but prior to that I read A Clash of Kings. Both by George R.R. Martin they are part of an ongoing saga that he is writing. If you like intrigue, Kinghts, or a Medieval themed story with a dash of magic being thrown in, this series of books is for you.

MD.com: What first attracted you to the fantasy sci-fi sort of genres?

KO: Well, in ninth grade we needed to read a book over the summer before classes started to write about when we started up, and I was looking over all the books and they all sounded so boring. The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks stood out as sounding exciting, so I got that. I had never read anything so large before, I think the largest book I read was maybe 200 pages up to that point, but this was 700+. I moved on to the rest of his books and just never stopped.

MD.com: how’d you meet Shauna?

KO: We met at Work. We both had the same workstudy job in the Bio Prep lab. So we knew eachother about a year before we eventually started dating. She wouldn’t let me copy her Chemistry lab and i was upset about that, so I would continually threaten to put her in the autoclave. Not very nice, but apparently it worked. So guys…if you like a lady threaten to cook her at 121 degrees celsius at 4 atmospheres of pressure. It Works!

MD.com: If you were a superhero, what would you want your superpower to be?

KO: Flight. Most definately. Most people may not know this but I’m not a good flier. Some people may call it Terrified. If I had the power to fly myself I think that would help me overcome one of my few fears.

MD.com: Scared of Flight? Interesting. When was the last time you were on a plane?

KO: Last March when we flew back from a Cruise we went on with Friends.

MD.com: What are your biggest goals and aspirations?

KO: Thats such a tough question. Like for right now? For the next five years? Ten years? Lifetime? I mean there are things I’d like to do like see the Grand Canyon, visit all 50 States, stuff like that. But nothing really earth shattering. I find it difficult to try and quantify your life in a set of goals, because so many things could happen when you least expect them that it makes your goals impossible to achieve. I just try to keep my wife and myself happy, in that order, and everything else seems to have a way of working itself out.

MD.com: How soon can we expect to see Kurt Jr. and Shauna Jr. running around the new house?

KO: You try this every time we have a conversation and I tell you the same thing every time.

MD.com: ASAP?

KO: No.

MD.com: ha ha. Lets end with this one: What’s your favorite MikeDiDonato.com post?

KO: Well I have a ton, so how bout I give you my top 3.

3. This would have to be When you shaved your head. That was really brave of you.
http://www.mikedidonato.com/2006/04/01/a-life-changing-experience/

2. Skylines. I really liked the Skyline challenge and was saddened when they fell by the
wayside.

1. Wish Corruption. I thought that was a ton of fun!

MD.com: Thanks for being the first interview Kurt! Rock on!

If you don’t mind being wigged out by some alarmingly scary art photography based on childhood fears, then check out this link.

Because it’s AMAZING.

Miracle Fruit alters taste of Sour Foods.

Dear Friends with Allergies,

In all the years before Connecticut, I only had a vague idea of what this whole ‘allergy’ thing was all about. Slightly stuffy nose? yeah. Occasional sneezes? sure.

I had no idea.

First the eyes. For those of you in industry, it can be as bad as welders flash. Unbearably dry itching death. Like someone cleaned your contact lenses with a fine sand before you had a chance to use them. Who knew pollen could be so irritating? not this guy. that is certain.

The description ‘runny nose’ doesn’t do this ailment justice. When the armies of pollen come out to fight you can’t use tissues fast enough to stop the floodwaters.

The Sneezes are persistent. Not constant for me, but still notably annoying.

Ears. I don’t think this is common: I get a perpetual sound of wind in my right ear. It’s very subtle… unless I’m trying to sleep. Then there’s a freight train on my pillow.

Hopefully this rain will crush the allergen front and soon we’ll be living in healthy allergy free bliss once again.

Yours,
Mike D.