Hey Doug,

I remember at DevCon 2002 Drew sat in on my session on member classes because he was going to give the same topic in Europe and knowing what a "god" he was, I was extremely nervous.

Drew's death is tragic, but what kills me is Brent's. That kid was so bright and just plain unassuming about it (except when he could publicly humiliate his dad, lol)....my son is the same age and I just cannot imagine.

Ed Rauh and Tom Pipers' deaths were sad, because they were such close friends....even though I was not as close to Drew as I was to those two, the fact that both he and his son passed away...tragic beyond words.

>Like everyone else, I'm in shock right now. I don't have the words to express my grief, but my heart goes out to Irene. They were a very close family and it was obvious to everyone how much Drew and Irene loved each other.
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>I will always remember Drew's dry but incredibly funny sense of humor. The first time I met him was at FoxTeach 1994 in Toronto. A number of us went out for dinner and I was sitting near Drew and Andrew MacNeill. Andrew was telling us that he was a "dog man" and went on and on about how incredible his dog was. Drew asked him what his dog's name was, and suddenly Andrew looked sheepish and went silent. After Drew pressed him, he finally admitted his dog was a poodle named Fluffy. Drew, of course, immediately went for the jugular and I was in serious pain from laughing so hard at his ribbing.
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>No one who was there will ever forget Drew's bonus session at the last Great Lakes Great Database Workshop. Whil Hentzen had told presenters to make their sessions so great, attendees would wet their pants with excitement. Drew stood up in front of several hundred attendees and told everyone what Whil had said and that he himself was very excited to be there. Suddenly a huge wet spot appeared at the front of his pants (he had a cup of water hidden in his pocket) and I swear people were falling off their chairs laughing.
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>At the Southern California conference in LA in 1998, Drew did a session on converting applications from using local tables to remote data. He wanted to show how easy it was, so he invited Brent, who was only 6 years old at the time, to come up and show everyone the steps needed to do so. As Brent was running through the tasks, Drew explained that Brent wasn't just following a script, he actually knew what he was doing. Like everyone else in the audience, I was stunned at how bright Brent really was.
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>Other remembrances:
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>- Drew is the only speaker I know who was kicked out of the same restaurant twice in the same evening.
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>- Drew was incredibly generous with his time, and never blew off anyone hoping for an answer from the guru.
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>- Drew was such a hockey fanatic that, while he was on a panel of speakers one year at the Dev Essentials Conference in Kansas City, he had his laptop playing a live play-by-play of the NHL playoffs.
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>- Drew, Brent, Irene, Tamar Granor, Rob Eisler, and I went to a Montreal Expos game at DevTeach last year. Although I'm not a baseball fan, Drew livened up the game for me with his many funny comments.
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>Drew and Brent, rest in peace.
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>Doug