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R.I.P. Steve

So I'm a little in shock here. Steve Jobs is dead at 56.

I'm not surprised per se. He had a rather nasty form of cancer, and it was not being kind to him. He had the "good" form of pancreatic cancer, but that's kind of like saying you only broke 5 bones in a fall rather than 7. I've lost a rather huge swath of family to cancer, so no, i'm not "surprised" in that sense.

But I'm still surprised, because fuck, it's like he gave everything he had to Apple, and like John Henry, died of it. He hadn't earned that, you know? To me at least, he'd earned some serious back yard time with his family. Maybe he still got that, I'd like to think he did, but it still wasn't enough. It never is.

The thing is, it's really hard to talk about how Steve loomed in my world. I mean, as guy who's been into computers for as long as I can remember, Steve entered my world when I was ten or so, and he's been there ever since. I mean...shit, I dunno, only Neil Armstrong may loom larger in my world than Steve did, and he pretty much had to walk on the moon to do that. I had a chance to actually talk to him once, but he was busy and I respected that and left him alone. I don't regret doing that now, I still think it was the right thing to do. I more regret never having had a chance to actually talk to him though.

I do know, having heard from some sources that I'll deem reliable, that he had read a few of my ravings here, mostly the Flash ones from what I understand, and he had a chuckle over them. I'll take that and be happy with it. If I amused him a bit here and there, that's probably more than some forced "Hi, I'm cocking up your morning and I have nothing to say, but you were RIGHT THERE, so I decided to barge in on you." thing.

Still...not enough time to enjoy this world he helped transform.

You know, I owe a lot to him. His work helped me, and a lot of people do good in this world. Not just computers directly, but I look at the books I've written that wouldn't exist without him and Apple. The friends I've made because of him and Apple, the family I've made because of him and Apple. I know my compatriots at Macworld magazine are saying the same things, I'm watching it go by on twitter. I kind of think I now have a grip of what folks must have felt on 22 Nov. 1963. It's not the same of course, but it's close. This guy who shaped an industry, shit, shaped THREE...who helped change the world not once, not twice, but three times. Four if you count the iPad. And now, between one minute and the next, he's gone.

Life is fragile, I know this. But everytime someone who was in my life, on really any level goes, i'm reminded that it is fucking fragile. And yet, people are not. Life is fragile, people, people are tough as hell, and given how little time he had post-Apple, I imagine Steve was crawling through metaphorical glass by the end of his tenure, to get as much done as he could. Steve Jobs was one tough sonofabitch, he showed that in how he pushed for his vision, in how he refused to accept bullshit or settle. I admire that, I always did.

I hope it was as painless as possible, I hope it was quick, but not so quick that there was no time for the people who needed to be with him to get there.

When I was at that 9-10 stage, I was just discovering that my dreams of being Chuck Yeager were done. Hereditary myopia killed them, and I was as broken-hearted as a kid that age can be. It was profound, what that had done to me, and for a while, "what do you want to be when you grow up" was a shattering question, I didn't have an idea. I didn't want to be a fucking fireman, or a cop, or any of that. I wanted to be a test pilot, then an astronaut. In that order. That was what mattered to me. USAF -> NASA. All gone after a goddamned eye exam.

But then the little storefronts with Apple IIs and the like showed up. Suddenly, places like Computerland existed, and Radio Shack had this stuff, these computer things. Within a year or so, I had, maybe, another dream. To do something with these computers. Fuck if I knew what, at that time no one knew what the fuck you did with a computer. But I was going to do something with them. Didn't know what, but fuck yeah, something. For the first time, that pain I felt about dreams was not so bad.

So in a real sense, Steve gave me back my dreams. He gave me a new world to replace the one that had been taken from me, and this time, neither crappy eyes, nor being poor, nor being a fat little smartass could take it away. There was nothing in my life so bad, so awful that I couldn't go wander by all the places with computers, and lose myself for a few hours either on computers, or reading books about them, and none of that science fiction shit. This was real.

There aren't words to describe how grateful I am for that, or how Steve loomed in my world because of that.

So yeah. Shit. In shock.

Thanks Steve. Thanks for all you did, thanks for who you were.

And to all my friends at Apple, I got nothing but this, and how sorry I am that this couldn't have waited a decade or three.

Categories: Other

Posted by John C. Welch at 20:28 | Permalink

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So I'm a little in shock here. Steve Jobs is dead at 56. \n\nI'm not surprised per se. He had a rather nasty form of cancer, and it was not being kind to him. He had the \"good\" form of pancreatic cancer, but that's kind of like saying you only broke 5 bones in a fall rather than 7. I've lost a rather huge swath of family to cancer, so no, i'm not \"surprised\" in that sense.\n\nBut I'm still surprised, because fuck, it's like he gave everything he had to Apple, and like John Henry, died of it. He hadn't earned that, you know? To me at least, he'd earned some serious back yard time with his family. Maybe he still got that, I'd like to think he did, but it still wasn't enough. It never is.\n\nThe thing is, it's really hard to talk about how Steve loomed in my world. I mean, as guy who's been into computers for as long as I can remember, Steve entered my world when I was ten or so, and he's been there ever since. I mean...shit, I dunno, only Neil Armstrong may loom larger in my world than Steve did, and he pretty much had to walk on the moon to do that. I had a chance to actually talk to him once, but he was busy and I respected that and left him alone. I don't regret doing that now, I still think it was the right thing to do. I more regret never having had a chance to actually talk to him though.\n\nI do know, having heard from some sources that I'll deem reliable, that he had read a few of my ravings here, mostly the Flash ones from what I understand, and he had a chuckle over them. I'll take that and be happy with it. If I amused him a bit here and there, that's probably more than some forced \"Hi, I'm cocking up your morning and I have nothing to say, but you were RIGHT THERE, so I decided to barge in on you.\" thing. \n\nStill...not enough time to enjoy this world he helped transform.\n\nYou know, I owe a lot to him. His work helped me, and a lot of people do good in this world. Not just computers directly, but I look at the books I've written that wouldn't exist without him and Apple. The friends I've made because of him and Apple, the family I've made because of him and Apple. I know my compatriots at Macworld magazine are saying the same things, I'm watching it go by on twitter. I kind of think I now have a grip of what folks must have felt on 22 Nov. 1963. It's not the same of course, but it's close. This guy who shaped an industry, shit, shaped THREE...who helped change the world not once, not twice, but three times. Four if you count the iPad. And now, between one minute and the next, he's gone. \n\nLife is fragile, I know this. But everytime someone who was in my life, on really any level goes, i'm reminded that it is fucking fragile. And yet, people are not. Life is fragile, people, people are tough as hell, and given how little time he had post-Apple, I imagine Steve was crawling through metaphorical glass by the end of his tenure, to get as much done as he could. Steve Jobs was one tough sonofabitch, he showed that in how he pushed for his vision, in how he refused to accept bullshit or settle. I admire that, I always did.\n\nI hope it was as painless as possible, I hope it was quick, but not so quick that there was no time for the people who needed to be with him to get there. \n\nWhen I was at that 9-10 stage, I was just discovering that my dreams of being Chuck Yeager were done. Hereditary myopia killed them, and I was as broken-hearted as a kid that age can be. It was profound, what that had done to me, and for a while, \"what do you want to be when you grow up\" was a shattering question, I didn't have an idea. I didn't want to be a fucking fireman, or a cop, or any of that. I wanted to be a test pilot, then an astronaut. In that order. That was what mattered to me. USAF -> NASA. All gone after a goddamned eye exam. \n\nBut then the little storefronts with Apple IIs and the like showed up. Suddenly, places like Computerland existed, and Radio Shack had this stuff, these computer things. Within a year or so, I had, maybe, another dream. To do something with these computers. Fuck if I knew what, at that time no one knew what the fuck you did with a computer. But I was going to do something with them. Didn't know what, but fuck yeah, something. For the first time, that pain I felt about dreams was not so bad.\n\nSo in a real sense, Steve gave me back my dreams. He gave me a new world to replace the one that had been taken from me, and this time, neither crappy eyes, nor being poor, nor being a fat little smartass could take it away. There was nothing in my life so bad, so awful that I couldn't go wander by all the places with computers, and lose myself for a few hours either on computers, or reading books about them, and none of that science fiction shit. This was real. \n\nThere aren't words to describe how grateful I am for that, or how Steve loomed in my world because of that. \n\nSo yeah. Shit. In shock.\n\nThanks Steve. Thanks for all you did, thanks for who you were. \n\nAnd to all my friends at Apple, I got nothing but this, and how sorry I am that this couldn't have waited a decade or three.