2003 was a seemingly endless toilet flush of doom and despair …

31.December.2003

As bad as 2000 (when the tech sector died), 2001 (9/11), and 2002 (Afghanistan, recession) were – 2003 was, for me, the worst. Yeah, the U.S. took down Iraq, and we even found Saddam, but on the home front – at the personal level – 2003 was a seemingly endless toilet flush of doom and despair.

Around mid-summer it became clear that I would not be able to stay in the Bay Area. The place, and the house, I thought would be “home” for the next decade or two was not to be. I moved to the Bay Area partly because I figured as a high-powered technologist I could always find work there. Not in the Bush economy, though. Nothing. After sacrificing mind, body, and spirit to Technology for 20 years, I wasn’t even able to get an interview. That kind of dedication is about as valuable as a used condom in today’s coin.

In the New New Economy, the rich stay rich and everyone else is fileted alive; the blood and entrail cleaned away with powerful water cannons. Compare the number of CEO’s and CFO’s who’ve…

Mark Kaiser passed away during the night of Friday the 29th of November, 2003. For those familiar with the development of WarBirds, Mark was the art director at ICI. A heart attack is the suspected cause, but no precise determination has been made as of yet. Mark was in his early 40′s.

Mark and I first ran into each other in the early 90′s in Air Warrior. Later on when he went to ICI I was consulting there a little and we had another chance to talk briefly. It wasn’t until we both ended up at Motorsims that we really got to work together and know each other. Motorsims was a nightmare overall, but there were some good times. Three of ‘em, I think. One was our Age of Empires binge. Mark, Random, and I really got into that game. The three of us would team up against the AI on max difficulty and get massacred about a third of the time.

You’d expect Mark, the artist, to be the most flambouyant player. But he was “the builder” – while I was scurrying around with a horde of cavalry, and Random was crushing things with rock throwers, MkIX was building…