bersl2's Journal: Eulogizing (as best I can) a fellow geek

It is difficult to overcome a legacy of social isolation and the problems it creates. For instance, I am always the very last person to hear things.

And so, this morning, I set out for lunch at eleven, and ultimately for my Music Theory exam at one. Along the way, I ran into the younger brother of one of my classmates.

He asked me where I was going. I told him I was going to lunch. He asked my why I wasn't at the funeral?

My face said, "What funeral?"

"Didn't you hear?" he asked. "Rick died."

I don't remember quite what I said after that, with the exception of "That sucks" a whole bunch of times; maybe it's the only thing I said after that.

It's now five fourty-five as I type this sentence. Sure enough, his obituary verbatim, courtesy of nola.com:

Richard ""Rick'' T. Posin passed away on Sunday, May 23, 2004. Age 18 years. Beloved son of Daniel Q. Posin and Kathe Tyrrell Posin. Brother of Kimberly Posin and John Posin. Paternal grandson of the late Daniel Q. Posin, Sr. and Frances S. Posin. Maternal grandson of Frederick Tyrrell and Audrey Tyrrell. Rick juggled to entertain sick children at Angel's Place and Ochsner Foundation Hospital, both before and after his liver transplant. He received several awards for his work. Rick was a member of Metairie Ridge Presbyterian Church and attended Bible Study Fellowship for several years. Relatives and friends are invited to attend the funeral service at LAKE LAWN METAIRIE FUNERAL HOME CHAPEL, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. (in Metairie Cemetery) on Friday, May 28, 2004 at 11:00 A.M. Interment will follow All Saints Mausoleum. Visitation will be held Friday, May 28, 2004 from 10:00 A.M. until time of service. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Angel's Place, 4323 Division Street, Metairie, LA 70002, Attn: Lee Hoffman.
Published in The Times-Picayune on 5/26/2004.

It's better that I didn't go; supposedly, the visitation was open-casket, and I don't like that because I don't think I handle it properly. In fact, it's funny how I can consider my open-minded moral values (if everyone involved consents, and if they're not doing it to you or yours, then you have no business) to be a sign of maturity, when I can't handle the idea of dead people. I suppose they both have more to do with personality.

Anyway, in lieu of actually observing in real life, where my feelings might betray me, I am going to try to dump all of my memories of and commentary on him, on various aspects, here, on Slashdot. I'm pretty sure he would approve. Though, I'd give myself extra credit if I did this on Freenet.

Rick came to my school in 8th grade. I don't know where he went to school before that; it was probably still in Louisiana, but I really don't know. The school put him in my advisory group, so that's how I got to know him. I remember that it, in usual "me" fashion, took a few weeks to really notice him. I learned that, like me, he liked programming. Finally, someone like me.

He was very well accepted by our grade, fitting in nicely because he was weird. We have a great appreciation for weirdness.

He made invaluable contributions to my grade's unique lexicon (which I must document one day, before I forget). Although all of them are currently deprecated or out of use (such as his favorite, which was to randomly interject (definitely not as a juvenile retort, just randomly) "Your mom"), he helped create expressions such as "trice yee", which is a direct descendant of "ah, yee[!?]", which is currently in use. But enough of that silliness! The nickname he earned was "Dick", not only because it rhymes with "Rick", but also because he'd make all these playful allusions to (homo)sexuality. But whatever. I'm not going to be in the business of exploring that.

Maybe I should tell you why it's so goddamn funny that, as the obit says, he juggled. Because outside of juggling, he was the most uncoordinated person I have ever seen! Yeah, I saw him do it, and he was pretty good. He was tall and lanky. When he walked, his arms didn't move, and they just hung there; when he ran, it looked downright ugly; I saw him swim once, and I think I've forgotten what it looked like on purpose.

I suppose that one could have seen this as an indication that he wasn't the healthiest kid in the world. Ah, but hindsight is 20/20. After the first semester of Freshman year, the Freshman class traditionally goes to Washington, D.C., for obvious reasons. We do this the week after Mardi Gras break. He was even going to be in my room. I don't remember whether it was on the trip or the week after that we were told that Rick was, um, "sick."

I never found out definitively what afflicted him. Some say that his liver was failing; some say that it was the treatment for another serious illness that made him need a transplant. What ever the reason, he indeed received a transplant organ; and because this was months ago, I don't think the liver was rejected. I'm not even going to begin to guess the COD.

To inject some randomness, I've been looking around for some old messages from him. I found the address for Ninja Instant Messenger, a modification of an AIM dll that makes the program ninja-themed.

And, from our last set of emails, some humor: "I've been learning more and more stuff about electronics, in the mean time. I found out how many electronic components work. There is "magic smoke" inside, that does whatever it's supposed to do, using its own magic. When you run too much current past it, you see a puff of magic smoke escaping, and so the component no longer works. Though this doesn't answer the question of how/why a smoke/fog machine works..."

And his closer: "And gee, I like that niceness. On a stick."

In that series of e-mails, I even offered to mention him in my part of the yearbook. Can you imagine if I had done that?

Of course, he shouldn't be in a cemetery. He should be preparing to graduate, right now, in five days. He never got to experience that.

In the time after he was forced to leave school, when he was well, he was home-schooled. How crappy is that? Your educational experience is partly environmental. How perverted is it to live to see your younger brother (by three years) progress further in high school than you did? And I'm not going to even mention all of adulthood! (Secretly, I really want to use the line "Here lies Beavis -- He never scored"; I can't help thinking he'd find it funny.)

But I digress. (And aren't you glad...)

His matter is motionless, his energy flux is zero, but sentience is somehow more than matter and energy.

And he's turning in his grave because I said that.

OK, now, for real: I have within me his voice, his face, and the small things that complete his memory.

Things like, how we're on the Northshore (for non-Louisianians, that's the area above Lake Pontchartrain, which is the big lake in the toe of the Louisiana boot), being driven back from a programming contest by the infamous Beverly Rice, the most bizarre-in-a-bad-way person ever, how she tells us to call our homes using her cellphone (which, by the way, was still a briefcase), and how Rick goes, "Well, maybe I should also dial-up 1-900-HOT-SEX!" and I say, "Rick, that's only six letters." "Oh, well, maybe there are two T's, or two X's."

Or how one time, we were sitting in the computer lab, and somebody asks Ms. Rice to reset his password, and Ms. Rice goes, "OK, James, your new password is 'temp'---that's T E M P 'temp'." Rick and I both look at each other, then run to the nearest computer. And in memory of this event, for at least an hour, all of my boxes' root passwords will be set to "temp". No, I'm not telling you my IP.

Next, for the full "Rick the Dick" experience, please use your favorite browser or P2P program to download the Dead Alewives' Mama Rap.

I'll probably update this JE a few more times.

And let us say, "Your mom. On a stick."