Non-WordPress Post

I know this might seem silly to you all, but I just found out that Randy Pausch died this morning.

I found out about Mr. Pausch when my daughter asked me back in October of 2007 to download the “Alice” program for her, so she could learn how to program her own little movies. I was all excited that she was taking an interest in programming, so I went to the Alice Project website to do so. While I was there, I saw mention of Mr. Pausch, and something called “the Last Lecture”. (I will post the link here - which is on Randy’s page at Carnegie-Mellon University - but the server goes down sometimes. But if you can - you really should watch this.)

I watched this video, and I was utterly amazed. From that moment on, Mr. Pausch’s words inspired me to be better than I thought I was. The video took off, and soon, it was on the news everywhere, and Mr. Pausch was asked to speak at a Congressional hearing - it was just amazing at how fast this this went.

Mr. Pausch has a personal page that I’ve been checking through the months to see how he was doing. I’ve always felt for his wife, Jai, and their three young children - I cannot possibly imagine what they are going through. Living past the “death sentence” was amazing to hear, but when I saw today that he had died this morning, my heart really broke for them.

Mr. Pausch was a very good, and very strong man, and I hope that, when he went, he realized how much he touched other people’s lives.

Goodbye, Randy - you will be missed probably more than you ever know - even by people who have never met you.

Posted by admin
July 25th, 2008