There’s a tradition at my workplace to decorate for Halloween. So around September of 2014, Mark told me he had an idea for a decoration for our office door, but he wanted to make sure I was okay with it, because he knew I am very squeamish about some things.

“What would you think if I printed out & hung up the image from my bone scan?” he asked, referring to the full-body bone scan that initially indicated that his cancer was metastatic at diagnosis. “Because that’s sure the scariest skeleton I’ve ever seen!”


I wasn’t sure if I’d be too squeamish for it, and said maybe I could see it first and then decide? And he didn’t do it, after all. But I was heartened by his ability to find that dark humor in it.

Happy Halloween, Mark.

On the terrace outside the cafeteria at STScI, there is a tree surrounded by flowers planted in a large circular raised bed. Under the tree is a plaque. On the plaque are the names of all those who have died while they were employed there.

As soon as Mark was diagnosed, I started thinking about that plaque.

We didn't talk about it much, but it was often on my mind. You can see it through the glass walls of the cafeteria, where the soda and snack machines are, where our afternoon breaks frequently began or ended.

Just once, when I met Mark by the vending machines, he was standing there, looking out at it. I stood next to him, and looked out at it too.

He looked down at me, and said, "You'll see I get my plaque, right?"

I looked back up at him, and nodded, with a lump in my throat.

He took a deep breath, and sighed. And turned around, and we went back to work.

Repeat after me: we get to keep the gifts he gave us.

It doesn't feel like it helps to repeat it ... but I do it anyway. What else can I do?

my thoughts are wild, like a blizzard

I try to catch even one, to turn it into words

but even touch it and it melts away, like a snowflake

but curiosity

there is a gift that Mark gave us all -- the enormous pleasure of watching him live a life of curiosity, sharing his curiosity with us -- his glee

the first book Mark ever gave me

"1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Science"

so much to tell about this

but thought blizzards, words, melting snowflakes

so many gifts

but I want him here, with me, with us all

Tuesday, August 15, 2017 is the second anniversary of Mark’s death.

I spend more time thinking about him now that he’s gone than I did when he was alive. That’s a sad reflection on the way we live our lives, I guess. We just assume that the people we care about will be there when we want them to be. Mark would probably suggest that I concentrate on the folks who are still alive.

I am taking Tuesday off from work. I am dedicating this day to memories of Mark. I will partake in activities that Mark would have enjoyed, and I will reflect on Mark’s memory and try to see the world through his eyes

We plan to do a beehive inspection in the morning. We have invited another new beekeeper to share the experience. She will be taking pictures, while we’re all suited up. I suspect that the bees will be very aggressive and there will be stinging and swearing and laughing and running away. Mark would have loved it. I know that he would put on a bee suit and sit next to the hive watching the bees do their thing. He would have questions. He probably would have some really good ideas about how to put fiber-optic cameras inside the hive.

In the afternoon, I will go to the County Fair. I will look at animals and technology and do some people-watching and just spend the day filled wih curiosity and awe.

In the evening, I will be staffing the table of the Montgomery County Beekeeping Association. We will be talking with people about the wonders of beekeeping. We will have a demonstration hive, and we will encourage people to watch the bees do their thing, and help them spot the queen.

At night, even though it will be late, we’ll have a toast to him ... out next to the beehive.

He would have loved the “bee fountain” that we have every day in the backyard.

This Saturday (July 1, 2017) will be the two year anniversary of Mark's goodbye to his work colleagues. As I enter this season of death and intensifying grief I am drawn back to his final email to those colleagues.

He died six weeks after sending this email. He thought he might have a year yet. It was like getting hit by a freight train for those of us who survived.

from:

Mark Sienkiewicz

to:

ssb ,
Dave Liska ,
Mark Calvin ,
Shane Wolfe ,
Jim Palmer ,
Corey Richardson ,
Jamie Lipinski ,
Tony Darnell

date:

Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 10:40 AM

subject:

Goodbye

tl;dr - cancer sucks, not working any more

Over the course of May and June, I had some considerable setbacks in my health. I am now using the last of the systemic therapies available to me, a second line chemo agent called cabazitzaxel. I am about to start spot radiation against a 6.5 cm tumour on my rib.

Between the effects of the cancer progressing and the effects of the treatments, I was eventually unable even to telecommute a few hours a day, beginning in mid June. The various effects affect the brain as well, and I found myself unable to concentrate and think as clearly as I should.

I've been out sick long enough that AURA wants me to claim short term disability. I've completed the paperwork.

In spite of it being "short term", I don't see a path where I improve enough to return to work. This cancer is particularly aggressive, and I can read the papers about the various treatments as well as the next guy. Well, better than the next guy judging by my support group. The doctor won't make estimates, but my estimate is that I have about a year, of which the last third or so is pretty awful.

Space Telescope has been the longest that I've been at any job. Apart from the advantage of the job not just disappearing one day :) , it is also a pretty nice place to work. I already miss being there.

Goodbye to you all. It has been nice working with you.

Some final arrangements:

If you think to ask me a question, ask Christine or Joe. They know a lot, and like me, they know how to figure things out.

If you want to contact me personally, use coot@toast.net.

I will no longer be reading my work email.

I can make an effort to answer question from time to time. I appoint Christine and Vicki as gatekeeper. Talk to one of them and maybe they will call me.

Goodbye,

Mark S.

p.s. If there is someone else who should see it, please forward it. Accept my apologies if brain fog kept you out of my list.

Sometimes, when I start something new, I think about what it would be like to tell Mark all about it.

Unlike many science and engineering types, Mark was not lost in his own head and personality all the time. He would always listen to people talking to him, he would always be engaged and interested and let them speak their piece instead of interrupting and arguing and talking over you to try prove that he was the smartest man in the room. I'll never know whether he just knew that he was, or more likely, he didn't care what people thought about his intellectual prowess. He wanted to learn things and solve problems and have deep conversations with other deep-thinking people ... even if his own world-view was totally different. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that he was such a knowledgable and wise man. Instead of trying to make people hear what he thought, he listened ... he learned ... he processed. He would politely wait until all the non-stop talkers had to take a breath, and then he would quietly explain things the way they were.

So ... we would probably be sitting with Mark and Carolyn, and he would ask "so what is new? I heard that you've taken up beekeeping. Tell me what that's about." And then I'd bubble about how interesting it is and how much I enjoy it and how our bees are doing and what our bees are doing. And then Mark would ask a very interesting question about the bees, or maybe he would ask what got me interested in bees, or somewhere. I would invite him to come visit the bees, or show him videos because between bees and cats, visiting Stately Jenson Manor required much pre-medication.

I am missing him. I think that he and his memory inspired me to explore something new that I would really enjoy, instead of something purely pragmatic. So, his influence lives on in me.

I hope that if he continues to exist in some sentient state (not that either of us believed in such, but we both agreed that we could be utterly wrong about an afterlife) that he can enjoy our new experiences with the bees and all the other good stuff that is happening right now. So, I'm posting a picture of me posed next to our new hive.

At about this time every year, JHU has a weekend "Spring Fair" on campus that starts on Friday, and one year, on one of our walks across campus on a breezy afternoon, Mark and I wandered across it. There were various food vendors, including one for funnel cakes, and Mark decided to get one.

So he waited on line, and came back with a big smile and a funnel cake heaping with powdered sugar.

"You should probably walk upwind of me," he said, "in case the wind kicks up, or this powdered sugar is going to get all over you."

"Okay," I said, and started figuring out what that meant. "Upwind" is one of those words whose definition doesn't make sense to me, so I have to parse through a scene from a fantasy novel: The hunters stay upwind of the animal, because they don't want the animal to scent them, and that means that upwind is in the direction that the wind is coming from: ok, got it.

While I was still working on it, however, the wind kicked up. I quickly ran a few steps in front of Mark... straight into a cloud of powdered sugar. Both of us burst out laughing, Mark turned and bent protectively over his funnel cake while yelling "No, the OTHER way!", and I tried running a few steps behind him instead... which was almost right, except I ran through the downwind direction again in order to get there.. it was hilarious. We were both laughing too hard to speak until the wind died down again.

I was wearing a bright pink knitted sweater, which now looked like it had snow all over it. We made a beeline towards the nearest trash can (after Mark carefully arranged us so that I was, in fact, walking upwind of him) so I could try to brush it off. By the time I'd gotten most of it off & gave up the rest as a lost cause, he had finished his funnel cake, so tossed its paper plate in there too.

And we wandered on, still giggling.

(Note: I always go to evening services on Ash Wednesday.)

Every year on Ash Wednesday, at some point or other during the day, Mark would come back to our office and say to me something like,

Is today Ash Wednesday? Because I was just at this meeting sitting across from so-and-so, and it was really distracting. I kept thinking "Dude, did you forget to wash your face this morning, or what?"

Eventually I noticed that the dirt was sort of vaguely cross shaped, and I remembered he was Catholic - so it was ashes, right?

And we would laugh, and I would confirm that yes, it was Ash Wednesday; and then we'd talk about religion some more, until we had to get back to work.

There's a story for this.

There's a story for this.

There's a story for this.

There's a story for this.

There's a story for this.

I will always remember two things Mark said. Particularly striking for me.

One was how he would occasionally look at me, wonder on his face, and say, "I never knew I could be this happy. I never could have imagined it [our love] could be like this."

The other, is how a friend related to me that he had told her (I'm paraphrasing):

"You know the worst thing about cancer? I used to wake up in the morning and the first thing I would think was: Carolyn. Now the first thing I think is: oh. Cancer."

I love you, my schwee. I miss you. I keep waiting for you to come home. I will wait for you until the day I die.

Mark took this picture of me.

Our friendship was forged in long walks around campus, talking about anything and everything under the sun... and beyond it, too! We had long paths and short paths, usual paths and occasional ones, with places to sit and talk along the way.

Shortly before his first chemo treatment, I asked Mark if we could bring a camera with us, and go to all the places we used to go, and take pictures of the two of us there. He had a better camera than me, so he brought it in and we used its timer to take a number of pictures of us together, in all those different places.

I didn't realize he was going to take pictures of the paths as we walked, too. He took a few: a stand of pretty wildflowers, the bricked paths spreading out ahead of us.

And this one.

I don't know if it was accidental; maybe I just walked into his field of view as he snapped the picture. But I love this picture, because I know what I was thinking at that moment, and the composition captures it so well: I was thinking that, one day, too soon, I would be walking these paths without him.

I miss you, Mark.

Today is the 53rd anniversary of Mark's birth. We all miss him so much.

I still have trouble speaking and writing, so I haven't been able to share much in the way of stories.

But some words are needed to reflect on Mark, on the wonderful day he was born. A most special thank you to Mary Lou and to Mark Sr. for creating and nurturing such a uniquely beautiful man.

I also thank our team of helpers that got us through to the end:

Vicki Laidler

Rob** and Paula Jenson

Christine Slocum

Jean and Danielle Thierry-Mieg

with **double thanks to Rob** for his tireless dedication to being where ever we needed him, when ever we needed him ... even doing it hobbling around on a boot because he was about to have foot surgery.

Now to borrow some words from others.

From Vicki Laidler, an extraordinary friend of Mark's, a blog post she wrote a week after he died:

Requiem for a Never-Ending Conversation: Remembering Mark

And, for those in pain from the loss of Mark, or pain from other losses, here are a couple of links that speak about grief that I am particularly identifying with at this point in time. They may or may not speak to you.

the nameless things death takes away

comes around: grief & the elasticity of time

In the spring of 2015, Mark's branch chief nominated him for an STScI Achievement Award for the work he had done over the previous two years on the webserver for an Exposure Time Calculator for the James Webb Space Telescope, a software application which is at this writing still under development. The award was given to him posthumously; he had died the month before. Carolyn attended the awards ceremony and accepted it on his behalf.

This was the last software project that Mark worked on. He knew that it would be, and he knew that he might not have time to finish it. This is the project into which he poured his professional and intellectual energy in the last two years of his life. It was very important to him.

This software tool will be used for years to come by astronomers all over the world who want to apply for observing time on the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's next Great Observatory and the successor to Hubble. JWST is still under construction; it is scheduled to launch in 2018.

The text of the citation follows.

When developing a web application, the user interface typically gets the most attention, because that's what everyone can see and manipulate. For an application like the JWST ETC, which will compute scientific results, the computational engine also gets a great deal of attention. The web server itself, running invisibly behind the scenes, rarely gets any attention at all. But the server is the heart of the application: passing information between the engine and the UI, storing and retrieving data, and managing multiple processes to simultaneously support many users.

Last summer's successful demonstration of the new JWST ETC to the SWG was powered by the design and initial implementation of a web server that possesses a number of features more commonly seen in commercial applications.

Its scalable architecture allows for transparently adding more computers to the system, without interruption or downtime, as needed when the number of users, and the number of calculations performed by each user, increases. This feature will be particularly valuable during the week or two before the proposal deadline!

It is designed for high availability, to minimize the impact of any problems. Failures will generally result in a temporary loss of connection for some, but not all, system users, who will see an alert popup on their screen; clicking the popup will promptly reconnect the session.

It makes use of access control lists that will allow users to manage read and write permissions on their ETC workbooks, so they can be shared with collaborators during proposal preparation, and with contact scientists as needed after acceptance.

This server also interacted with the Single Sign On (SSO) system through a custom designed & built helper tool even before it was rolled out; and of course, it also provided system interfaces between the UI and the engine, while both were (and still are) under very active development.

Mark Sienkiewicz designed and partially implemented this powerful resource, which allows continued development in an unstable, uncertain environment in which other STScI resources needed for this ETC are still being developed.

This achievement becomes even more impressive knowing he did it all while fighting insurmountable health problems.

On the bow you can see the name of our boat, COOT.

Inside the 'O's are cartoonish images of what coots look like.

See the next installment for a real live coot.

(Mark was always taking these little 30 second videos -- that was all our camera could do back then.)

And this is a coot, the bird our boat was named after.

It's 7 months today since Markie died, and I still think about things that I wish I could share with him- a funny cartoon that nobody else would get but I know he would remember and laugh at, or when the phone rings and I wait for the machine to say "Hey, it's Mark". So many memories...

In order to appreciate this story, you have to know that one of the things that Mark and I had in common is that we're both very near-sighted.

In the fall of 2013, due to assorted water damage and other issues, I was having my bathroom remodeled: completely demolished, rebuilt, and redecorated. This meant I spent a lot of time searching for exactly the tile, flooring, vanity, light fixtures, etc etc etc, and Mark spent a lot of time hearing about it. I wanted wallpaper on the bathroom walls, and I particularly wanted wallpaper that would evoke a sort of rainbow mist.

Alas, few other people share my decorating tastes, so this was very hard to find. I was going through wallpaper books and sites marking anything that might possibly be acceptable, even if neither rainbowy nor misty, when I finally found a pattern online that looked promising. That weekend I went out to the wallpaper store to see it in person -- it looked even better -- and I borrowed its wallpaper book to bring home and look at in the space.

On my way home from the wallpaper store (and the tile store, and the other tile store, and Lowes), I stopped by Mark & Carolyn's house to rest, recuperate, and show off my samples. Wallpaper books are heavy, so I left those in my car, and when I was ready to head out, Mark came out to take a look at them, and I opened the book to the pattern I liked and triumphantly showed it to him.

He looked at it; tilted the book a little bit to see it better; took off his glasses to look at it up close; emitted a little interested Huh!; and put them back on again to look some more.

"Well?" I said. "What do you think? Isn't it great?"

He replied, "You've managed to find a wallpaper pattern that looks the same both with and without glasses."

I thought this was hilarious - especially because of course, we agreed, if there's one room in the house that you'd want to be able to appreciate without your glasses on, it's the bathroom! And I packed up and drove home, still giggling.

I was reminded of this story yesterday while looking at my bathroom wallpaper (without my glasses on), and thought I'd share it here. So typical of Mark, to look carefully enough to notice the optical resolution of the design, and then remark on that rather than its aesthetics. :)

I remember one time my wife and I were having dinner with Mark and Carolyn at their house.  I mentioned something my wife and I had heard about and tried at our home -- grape racing.  You lubricate the floor plate of your microwave (and keep it from rotating if possible), then put one or more grapes in near the rim with the stem hole pointed outwards.  When you turn on the microwave, the heated grape vents steam through the hole, hopefully propelling the grape slowly across the oven.

Naturally Mark was intrigued, so we tried it in his kitchen, with good results.  Of course Mark had to analyze performance, and so we discussed (and experimented with) what shape the stem hole had to be, and how deep, and the orientation of the grape along the thrust axis.  I remember how amusingly surreal it was to be discussing grape rocket nozzle geometries with an actual, honest-to-goodness rocket scientist.

I'm still amazed at my luck at ever having known him. 

Mark filmed these swans when we were stopped for a couple days in Solomon's Island (MD) ... on yet another of the millions of creeks named Back Creek -- this one goes into the Patuxent River near where it meets the Chesapeake Bay.

You can see Mark's jeans and his deck shoe now and then. He loved filming and photographing birds.

And just a little more. (a special fond sighting of his shoe some more)

It may look warm but it's not. It's the last week of December, on the Atlantic Ocean about 120 miles off of Cape Hatteras (because doesn't everyone want to be on the Atlantic in December -- wait -- it gets even better in February!).

Still, the ocean was as calm as could be and Mark was delighted to get a short movie shot of some graceful dolphin friends who came to check us out. To their regret, we were not, in fact, fishermen -- so they left fairly quickly.

While cruising, at about mile 247 on the Inter-coastal Waterway, we stopped at Swan Point Marina. We walked around the lovely little town (I think it's called Snead, NC) and happened upon a courtyard where there were domesticated ducks, of multiple breeds, nesting under various bushes -- all with their own little broods.

We watched as one duckling broke away from its family, ran across the courtyard and tried to duck (no pun intended) under a different mother duck. It wasn't her baby and she knew it. She would have none of it and started to attack the duckling. Mark decided he would fix this. He scooped up the duck and had me snap a quick picture of him holding it before depositing it back with the right mother.

I remember he looked very beatific standing there, holding the fluffy, stunned little creature ... like he couldn't possibly be happier than at right that moment with this little life in his two hands.  ;> 

So. When you're a sailor, you start to see every surface as a potential sail.

One year while cruising, when we were wintering on the Ashley River in Charleston, S.C., our boat was docked as far out in a marina as we could get. We measured it and it was about one quarter of a mile from the land to where the boat was tied up. 

We had little tiny fold-up bikes that we kept lashed to the fore-deck and they came in very handy for getting around small towns and in Charleston, back and forth to shore (and laundry, etc). 

On nice windy days (a sailor's favorite days), we enjoyed sailing our bikes. Just hold out your jacket (wind direction for beam reach is best) and go! 

Now it's important to stop and not fall into the water but that's another story.

Unfortunately, Mark was the picture/movie-taker (not me) so I never achieved much facility with the camera -- but you can still enjoy the pleasure on Mark's face.  ;>  The sound is the sound of a windy day.

No, my camera-use didn't really improve ... maybe a little less shaky, but always nice to see more of Mark.  ;>

And yes, we were so far out on the dock that the gulls and plovers mostly just ignored us and couldn't be bothered to move. 

So how do you say goodbye to a person who made you laugh for the first time?  Mark/ Markie is my cousin and he is 7 years older then me.  He and my sister Mary were blowing bubbles with their straw the first time I laughed.  Mark has always been a part of my growing up as my mom is close to her sister Aunt Mary Lou.  I remember his wit and sincerity at holiday dinners, I remember spending a week in the summer at Aunt Mary Lou's and Mark and Matthew not making me feel like a littl e pest but Playing Dungeons and Dragons with me and actually explaining the rules.  Mark was a superior intellect but he never made me or anyone feel beneath him.  Which he could have done to a "little cousin" . I am happy that he found Carolyn as that was the happiest I have ever known him! I love you and will miss you, you were an asset to the world. Love, Elizabeth

Mark's favorite music video (you can see on Youtube -- link below in yellow). The vibe of this song probably most reflects his time working on the Zeno experiment which flew on the Space Shuttle. He loved to sing-along to this --- especially the "yeah, yeah, yeah" part.

Engineer's Rap

Here's Mark tempting out our resident groundhog (who sometimes lives under our shed) with a delicious Campari tomato. (See "part the second" below.)

(Click on photo for caption.)

And then, the groundhog, of course, enjoys the treat.

(Click on photo for caption.)

It was July, and all Baltimore broiled under a hellish sun. When my husband, Mark, came home to our sailboat from work, the cuffs of his white dress shirt were unbuttoned and rolled back on his forearms. He climbed on board and dropped onto a seat in the cockpit. Pulling off his floppy white hat and tossing it aside, he plucked at his shirt to keep it off his skin. He reminded me of a baby pelican roasting in it's nest, all gawky wings and long neck, throat fluttering in an effort to cool off. We sat in the shade beneath the bimini where, fortunately, there was a good cross-breeze.

“Guess what?” he said. “This morning when I walked through the park on the way to the street parking, I heard this weird buzzing sound right behind my head. I thought maybe it was a big bug or something, but I didn't see anything – except maybe a bird flying by. But tonight, coming back through the park, I heard the same sound. I looked back and up, and I swear it was that same bird, coming right at my head.”

“What kind?”

“I don't know. Black.”

The park he referred to was a sliver of land between a condo tower and new waterfront row-houses. What was previously a waste land strewn with beer bottles, had been groomed by residents and the city into a naturalistic oasis, and a miniature ecosystem had sprung up as the plantings filled in. In this toehold, sparrows and red-winged blackbirds flitted about between bushes, tall grasses and cattails, while upended ducks dabbled among the mossy rocks and sunned at the water's edge.

“I watched it fly off, then when I started walking again, it came at me, at the top of my head.”

“What did you do to make it mad?” I teased.

He began fanning himself with his hat. “Nothing. I was just walking along the sidewalk,” he said, a bit exasperated.

“Are you sure? Did you look at him funny? Insult his mama? Look at his woman the wrong way?”

I knew he wasn't kidding, but it sounded a bit bizarre. And pretty cool. One of the perks of the outdoor life of sailing and/or living aboard is the abundance and variety of birds in the waters and the marinas, and to me, the only thing better than his story would be to see the bird in action (after all, it wasn't my head getting pecked at by the beak of death).

“I've got to see this.” We had some dinner and waited for the evening to cool before heading to the park.

As we neared, Mark pointed out a bird sitting atop a light post. We walked ahead into the park and, sure enough, it flew down and flapped like crazy right behind his head, which set up a loud, buzzing of its wings. I was fascinated, but alarmed. Yes, it was just this mid-size bird, but it was different up close and personal.

We stopped for a few seconds then resumed walking. This time the bird brazenly strafed him, flying in low and fast from behind and threatening to sink his claws through Mark's hat into his scalp. (Okay, so maybe I exaggerate. It was the adrenaline, you know?)

We beat a hasty retreat to the edge of the park and looked back for the bird. There he was, back atop the light post. His sentry position, I decided.

“Maybe it's your towering height,” I suggested, being nine inches shorter than Mark. “Or maybe he just doesn't like the way you look. Let me try.”

I walked to the other end of the park and back. The bird did nothing. I was somewhat miffed as well as mystified. Wasn't I worth hassling? Do you have to be “this tall” to ride the bird-attack feature?

We stood and speculated why the bird had singled out Mark. “Well I can't make myself taller,” I said. “You're taller and narrower. Your hat is eye-catching because it's white and up high on top of your head.”

“Do you think it could be the hat?”

“Let's try it.” I put on his hat and set out for another stroll to the other side of the park and back.

Watching the bird as I went, I'd barely passed the light post when our feathered curiosity launched himself in my direction and buzzed me. I stopped and regathered my nerve. I wondered if he felt threatened because I was watching him, looking him in the eye. I walked back to Mark, eyes on the ground, definitely not challenging the bird. It didn't matter. If anything he dive- bombed me even more boldly this time.

“He seems to not like the hat,” Mark said. Each of us took a turn crossing the park without wearing the white hat. Nothing happened.

Back on the boat we sat in the cockpit beneath a sky bathed in the gold and pinks of a Chesapeake sunset. Just off the starboard side, a cormorant silently surfaced and examined its surroundings with a brilliant azure eye before gracefully slipping beneath the water to continue its fish hunt.

We sipped our drinks and theorized over the animal behavior we'd observed. Our speculations moved quickly from the practical concerns of a bird's survival, to bird as fashion critic. Would the bird dislike red hats? Yellow hats? Was it maybe the style rather than the color. How would he feel about top hats, straw boaters or berets? We floated the idea of experimenting, but never did.

We knew all we needed to know for now. If you're wearing a floppy, white sailing hat and want to cross through that park, be sure to remove your hat in deference or suffer the wrath of the angry bird.

Super story (below), Dodge. Thanks so much for sharing it.

I could see this moment through your eyes (though, of course, I wasn't there) and it brought me great joy!

-- Carolyn --

I worked with Mark at Network Flight Recorder from 1997 until he left, which I think was around 2001. During that time, he patiently taught me an awful lot, and I distinctly remember his humor. At a meeting where he described the nearly impossible task he'd been assigned (with an outright impossible due date), he cheerfully concluded the task's description with "Then again, monkeys might fly out of my butt. Stick around for the show, folks, it could get interesting."

Mark was among the best software engineers I've worked with, which is a pity because we need a lot more as good as he was.

Markie told us this story.

Mark and Carolyn had a  sailboat that was moored in Baltimore at the Inner Harbor.

One day while they were sailing they came upon a motor boat that had either broken down or run out of gas-I forget which.  Since their boat had a back-up motor they offered to tow the motor boat back to the dock.  In the harbor they passed a tour boat and heard the guide say, "Now there's something you don't see every day-a sailboat towing a speed boat!"

I still remember how he laughed when he told us this story.  He got such a kick out of it,

Almost every afternoon, weather permitting, Mark & I would go for a walk around campus and discuss philosophy. At least, that's what he called it: it was our shorthand for conversation that ranged widely through ethics, evolution, theology, sociology, morality, science, science fiction (especially Star Trek) and beyond. We were always sending each other email with ideas or links to articles that would make good "conversation fodder." Sometimes we'd send each other email as soon as we got back from our walk with a "conversation marker," a brief reminder of what we'd been talking about so we could pick up where we'd had to leave off because it was time to get back to work.

We'd walk for a a while, then sit, then walk some more, talking constantly. After a few months, we had developed several paths through campus that passed through a few good places to sit. We always looked for places that had adjacent sunny and shady spots, so I could bask in the sun and he could avoid it. There was one bench on campus that, if we timed it right, was often half sunny and half shaded by the tree behind it; and it was at a good location on all our paths, too, roughly equidistant from the other stopping points.

During the years of our neverending conversation, Mark and I spent hours and hours sitting on that bench, talking philosophy, exploring ideas, challenging each other, working through implications, finding ourselves back on familiar ground, and delighting in new conversational trails to follow. We came to think of that bench as ours.

Some institutions have an endowed philosophical chair. Mark and I had a philosophical bench.

On June 1, 2014, Mark and Carolyn invited a few friends to join them to celebrate a "fractional birthday party" for Mark. They were concerned that Mark would not be well enough to celebrate his birthday in September, so we did it in June.

There was food and drinks and cake and we had a wonderful time. The highlight of the party was to be the launching of the lifeboat from Coot. Mark explained that lifeboats have a "shelf life" and when they sold the boat they kept the lifeboat, since the next owner would have to buy a new one anyway. He had no idea whether this one would still inflate, but he wanted to see.

Mark set up the lifeboat in the middle of the back yard ... had us all stand a safe distance away, and then pulled the ripcord. The attached video shows the inflation of the lifeboat. My apologies for the poor quality of the flim, including a close-up of my thumb for a few frames. I believe that there is a better-quality version taken by Carolyn that may surface.

After the lifeboat inflated, Mark proceeded to tell us all about what the escape procedure would have been ... cutting the lifeboat free, how to use it. Then he offered us samples of the decade-old survival crackers.

This was classic Mark ... playing, teaching, doing things because they were fun, making us all forget, at least for a little while, about the "Banana of Damocles" hanging above his head.  But that's another story ...