Jonathan Mark

Of all my group of friends from Microsoft who I am still in touch with, Jonathan is the first one I met. He was in the adjacent office, and, though we were all pretty heads down during work time (at least at first), I had lots of interaction with Jon, because he had to pace in order to think through programming problems. Since the only place to pace was in the hallway, Jon would pass my office twice on each pass, stroking his neck beard in focused concentration. But, because he is so friendly and polite, he felt compelled to greet me at each pass. So the oodles of cheery "Hello"s from Jonathan pleasantly punctuated my day, and shattered my own concentration. We eventually developed a protocol that after the first "hello" of the day, all that was needed was a simple caveman grunt of recognition. I've been friends with Jon since 1986. He is the most Zen person I know. He brought a circumspect kindness and joy to everything he did. When asked to help, he would dive in gratefully. I had the pleasure of drawing on Jonathan's expertise when I foolishly took on a Drupal coding gig, and got myself in way over my head after years of not coding. Jonathan was patient, compassionate, smart, and, basically, a godsend. I wanted to include one of the earliest photos I have with Jon. This is from a hike to Kennedy Hot Springs (I believe) sometime in the spring or summer of 1987. In spite of what you might think from the picture, we are all wearing swimsuits under that muddy water. What I love about this photo is that, like so many of my photos featuring Jonathan, he is in his usual state. Clearly happy, clearly part of the group, yet somehow doing his own thing, as part of the group. That was Jon. He did what he wanted, in his way, such that it fit, but wasn't subsumed by, the group action. When we worked together, Jonathan was doing it because he wanted to, whereas most of us were after something. When we jammed together, Jon would often take us in a completely different direction (notably with Disco Inferno) without taking away from what had been going on. When we hiked together, Jon had his own set of peculiar trail foods and hiking habits, and often took some solitude time without ever losing touch. When we decided to make a combined costume for the Big House Halloween party, and decided on going as the Cascades, Jon thought it was great, but didn't want to be a mountain, so came as a tree, in the foreground. Jon is / was one of a kind I miss his intelligence, compassion, zest for life, and model of contentment.