Wow. Let me just say that Bruce Michael Waldack (Bruce or bmw) and I had fallen out of touch for a year or so. I just Googled him to see what he was up to and found this site (http://www.brucewaldack.org/). I was shocked to see that he had passed away on June 23, 2007.
I met Bruce in 1993. We did business together in initially the software field – statistics and tracking software for CSG/digitalNation (dn.net) when it was running FirstClass. And then we became friends over time. Back in early 1994, we were talking one day and I said, “Hey Bruce, if you want to write to Santa Claus on the internet, you’ll be hitting santaclaus.com on our servers.” He said something along the lines of, “No way! You are kidding me! You can do that?” (It may have been more along the lines of “No shit! Your f-ing with me!”). So we spent the next hour talking about names and cool things to do with them and found a lot of great ideas on the topic. He was always looking for a great idea and there were always great conversations with wild ideas to be had. He went on to register a bunch of domain names after that conversation.
We spent the next 14 years in the Internet space, talking on the phone, emailing, and generally just being friends. I was looking him up today for just that reason – to see how he was and to see what was new on the horizon, bounce a few ideas off of him and generally catch up.
I’d get emails in 1995 and 1996 with things like, “Glad you got it! I didn’t want to tell you this, but Cynthina [perhaps he meant Cynthia!] set it out with 1 stamp on it. Thus it came back last week!! Sorry!” All the previous week saying it was in the mail – which it was, just not enough postage, but that was just Bruce, reluctant to do anything to disappoint, but coming clean in the end. Ready to BS when needed, but someone with a good heart.
After not hearing much from him since January of 1997, out of the blue on December 8, 1997 I got:
“I just mistyped [he’d sent me an email by mistake]. <g> Hope all is well with … you. Lori and I had two baby boys (Copper and Colten) last Monday, so we have been quite the busy bees. Hope your holidays are happy and safe.” My own daughter Christi had been born in September and so we had a lot to catch up on with kids and business and mutual friends. And then we’d be emailing or phone-ing back and forth for a few months updating each other and running ideas by each other.
Sometimes we’d go for months without talking – both busy with our businesses, fun, and new families and then out of the blue one of us would call or email the other to just see what was going on, new things that were in the works. To update each other on things like sale of dn.net to Verio in 1999 or us selling casino.com. I think the most we went was in 1997, but sometimes it would be just a quick note.
He was always very generous and whenever we did anything, it was fun times, always intelligent conversations and lots of humor. He was a friend and someone who I could bounce ideas off of and who would do the same for me. I will miss his laugh and his sharp mind. I will miss his out of the blue call or email seeing what’s up. I’ll miss a friend who made a difference for a lot of people.
I will never forget in 1993 we were talking about hosting issues on the internet and how to do some things and he said, “You know, right now there are probably only half a dozen people in the world who would know how to do what we are doing right now.” And then about 6 months later, discussing domain names saying (this isn’t an exact quote): “Think about this, today you have more domains registered than anyone else in the world, but I’m going to register some too.” (Which we did until late 1995 or early 1996 when Proctor and Gamble surpassed us).
But most of all as I write this, I hope that his family is well, that he is enjoying himself as much above as he was here on earth.
If you find this an were at dn.net or elsewhere and have comments, please feel free here or on the site above.
(And Drew Ladner, what are you up to? Looks like honeymoon.com is now with some group in the UK. Been almost exactly 10 years since we sold it!)
(And if you are looking for great Mac support in the Washington, DC/Virginia area, 4macsolutions (http://4macsolutions.com/) is a good choice. Will is great!)