The following are emails/messages I've received to be added to the guestbook. Please remember that you can email me any comments/pictures/etc that you'd like to be added here to: michaela@thesilicondragon.com or by ICQ (UIN 278071). (Please do not message me comments on the IRC. They'll most likely be looked over.) Thanks to everyone who has submitted comments and memories here.

I met Chris working at Nauticom on the weekends. It was a skeleton crew and most times it was just him and me. We could bring in our own machines and hang since it wasn't that busy, I got to know him pretty well. Many hours were spent playing Half-life and me getting my ass kicked by Chris. When Chris decided to move from Bellevue I offered my van and helped out. I remember him being very happy to get a larger place for him and Andrea. After that I stopped working at Nauticom and
didn't really keep in touch with Chris. Then I get a job at Marconi and who do I see? Chris, it was awesome. I was like, this kicks ass... I get to work in the same building as Chris. Not only did he know his stuff at half-life, but he was a technical wiz and all around awesome guy. Now I walk into work everyday and I see his cube empty and it makes me very sad, cuz I can't walk up and say wsup?. I refuse walk anywhere near the thing, cuz I know a great guy once sat there and now it is empty. Chris will live on in my memory...

James Johnston
cynn78@yahoo.com

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What a wonder, bright, unique, fun and loving guy. Chris was like a younger brother to me. Free to seek advice from someone older and "wiser" but never to follow it...

It was my job to train Chris during his first week at UPMC. He completed a week's worth of training in one afternoon and then I'm not too sure who taught whom. Talk about a multi-tasker! He was my cube neighbor for many months and taught me that it really was possible to provide support, play computer games AND chat in 5 different rooms at the same time. Chris and I shared many stories on health, friends, family, past employers and automobiles just to name a few. (Oh the many mechanical mishaps that we shared! The auto parts stores around Bellevue knew Chris by name and we used to joke that he should work at one of them part time for the discount.) And talk about eat! Lordy, I don't know where the boy put all that food. I can remember comparing waistline and hip measurements after he was on the job for several months. He always used to tell me "Look what this job is doing to me. I'm getting hips and a big butt!" Then he'd laugh and ask where we were going for lunch that day... As someone who had also moved away from home at an early age, we often spoke of how much he missed being with his family and hanging out with Greg. But, most of all, I remember all the conversations regarding Andrea. She was his first thought upon waking and his last thought before going to bed. She was, as he once confided, "everything"
to him. I often felt I knew her even before I met her. Each time before Chris would drive to school to pick her up, he could talk of nothing else. He would frantically spend all his free time trying to get the "bomb" readied for the drive to pick her up. I cannot find a word to describe how happy he was when she decided to stay with him in Pittsburgh. Chris loved Andrea more than life itself.

I searched many days to find just the right words to dedicate to Chris' memory, and I believe I found them in the poem below.

If Tears Could Build A Stairway

If tears could build a stairway

And memories were a lane

We would walk right up to heaven

And bring you back again

No farewell words were spoken

No time to say goodbye

You were gone before we knew it

And only God knows why

Our hearts still ache in sadness

And secret tears still flow

What it meant to lose you

No one can ever know

But now we know you want us

To mourn for you no more

To remember all the happy times

Life still has much in store

Since you'll never be forgotten

We pledge to you today

A hallowed place within our hearts

Is where you'll always stay

You've enriched my life, and I'll never forget you 'little brother.'

Love,
Tree
illigta@msx.upmc.edu

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