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It has been sad-sack city for several days after having lost another valued member
of the OS/2 community. For those who didn't know him, Dan Casey, was a general-contractor
in the suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana. The ultimate hardware man's dream - get
paid for building erector set's! He just happened to find OS/2 was his "kind"
of OS. Rugged and Dependable, just like the man he was. It is with a very heavy
heart I type this out today. I haven't figured out the high-ASCII code for a tear
drop so I will leave those out. Dan would prefer I didn't drop any on my keyboard
anyway. I digress from my original intention of writing this article, and for that
I apologize, I miss my friend very much and writing this helps.. a little.
Dan was instrumental and one of the main forces behind a project a few of you
know as Warp Doctor. The current site is mostly his design and mostly his html.
He "whipped" this out while on vacation in Florida after having read a
book on html. The Warp Doctor project is stagnant again today. "WD" was
a later title for an old idea to "revive" the old warp pharmacy. After
having met Dan in Chicago and having several exchanges via e-mail with he and Dr.
Terrell a "Warpdoctor" mail -list was formed several years ago. The project
at first seemed to take on a life of it's own and things progressed. We even had
a different "front-end" and a java back-end. For whatever reasons ( I
know what they are and they are petty) development stopped.
I for one support memorializing people and dedicating buildings and literal works
and the like in memory of well-respected and valued members of society. Mr. Dan
Casey is more than worthy of all of these. It was an honor and privilege to know
such a nice, fair and humane individual. His spirit and his knowledge blessed us
over the years. Let us never forget. I laughed many times with Dan in visits on
IRC, various telephone conversations and in person 3 different years at Warpstock.
The memories I have of him are precious and I hope I never forget his smile nor
his positive impact on everything he did.
This leads me towards the end of the last letter to the community of this kind
I hope I ever author. While Dan Casey is without a shadow of a doubt in my book,
more than worthy of edification so to speak. It is my opinion that "WarpDoctor"
as it stands today is not worthy. Dan was so busy in the last 6 months or so the
html on that site has gotten stale. The "scanner" section is useful and
most everything there is as well. That site as it is now was NEVER intended
to be the "GA" release of the project. Dan did the work on that site to
"get something up there" in hopes the project would not languish. He did
that site with the best of intentions to spark worthwhile effort and productive
work in a group, which at that time was [and still is] stuck in a rut of all talk
and no action. In typical Dan Casey style he pulled out his 10-gun keyboard and
banged it out, from scratch. He did this while supposedly on vacation!
If we as a community are ready for the kind of vision, foresight and ultimate
wisdom that Mr.Casey as well as others have intended for this project, WE BETTER
GET STARTED. This community can continue on it's "strength of OS" only
so long. eCS is destined to be "the same 'ole gal in a new dress" if the
entire community doesn't begin to work "smarter", together - TODAY.
If you want a support infrastructure to beat all other comers in the game you
gotta pay to play people. Dan Casey did. When and if this community joins hands
across continents, across barriers of attitude and selfishness, language and ideology,
mental ability and physical labor... and the goal of Warp Doctor is met.....
Then and only then do we dedicate that site to his loving memory. Then and only
then will anything be worthy of bearing his name. WORK IT OUT, GET IT DONE, Tomorrow
may never get here.
As system administrator and secretary for VOICE I had a task to do. VOICE has
7 mail lists. The seven most difficult mouse_clicks I have performed were done and
with each click I repeated the following:
"A friend found greener pastures today.
A friend is now using the only OS better than OS/2,
God's Eternal Life.
Not only is your current OS much better, your bandwidth is infinite.
I love you Danno. Peace is yours."