- From: Hugo Haas <hugo@larve.net>
- Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 09:14:58 +0200
- To: public-memoria@w3.org
Many great memories of Alan that have been floating in my head every day since I learned the sad news. Alan was my first manager at W3C. When you arrive at a new job and you're pretty young like I was when I arrived at MIT, you're always intimidated by things and people around you. Alan made me immediately feel at home. I discovered little by little that Alan was more of a geek than I was. It's strange as I never thought that somebody above 50 could be a geek, like people were losing this attribute after a while. I remember preparing to stay late at night with Eric to work on something and us proposing to Alan to stay up with us. Alan said something in the spirit of: "Oh, I've done my fair share of stuff like that. You guys go and have fun without me." Whatever we were about to do, it seemed like Alan had already done it. Alan also made sure I was not going to miss out on this American tradition that Thanksgiving is. I went twice to his home for this celebration. I met Daryl and Leah, enjoyed Judie's excellent cooking, and really felt welcome and part of this American tradition. Alan, of course, told me the history of Thanksgiving with his one-of-a-kind humor. These Thanksgiving celebrations are some of the best memories I have of my time in the Boston area. The first year I was there, I timidly asked Alan: "I read on the Web that you invented the joystick. Is that true?" Alan explained that it wasn't accurate, that he had merely been working on adapting something, and that NASA, if I remember correctly, had something very similar at the same time. This is the funny thing with Alan: he did plenty of great things, more than one could remember, but was a very discreet and modest person. The last time I saw Alan was in Boston about a month ago. We were trying to go to a Red Sox game, but didn't make it. A few hours before I had to take the plane back to Paris, I discovered that I had the wrong booking and that my ticket was sending me back to Nice. As I was frantically trying to solve the problem without much success, Alan arrived in the office. He was amused with my situation, and proceeded to telling me a very entertaining story about a plane mishap that happened to somebody on the W3C team. Alan always had entertaining stories to tell you. He then continued saying: "Anyway, if you don't manage to fly back tonight, give me a call and I'll be happy to have dinner with you." I am now sorry I manage to get on the right plane, not knowing it was my last chance to chat with him. It's thanks to him that I know what it means when the light at the end of the platform of the Red line train is turned off at the Park Street station. I had the feeling that there was no question he did not have the answer to. I could go on and on. All those traits of Alan made me feel over the years that, when I was growing up, I wanted to be like him. You will be missed very much, Alan. -- Hugo Haas - http://larve.net/people/hugo/
Received on Sunday, 4 June 2006 18:05:09 UTC