Eric S Beale

I met Eric at a Saturday Astronomy class at Caltech in Pasadena sometime in either 75 or 76. We had each just started high school at John Marshall Fundamental and had only seen each other in passing in the halls or perhaps a class. I recall the first words he spoke to me that day at Caltech when he saw me waiting for the class to begin, and he sounded surprised when he said, “what are YOU doing here?” I find out his dad is at JPL and then mentioned my dad was mathematics here at Caltech. I don’t recall how the class went but thus began our friendship. We both had telescopes and at times would observe from his parents backyard in Altadena with our respective telescopes. Eric had a Cave-Astrola 8 inch F7 I recall and I had the ever popular Celestron C8 with its dull orange tube and gray sand cast parts. Later we would observe from his parents land in Escondido where the sky was darker as there was less light pollution down there compared to Los Angeles. I recall Eric would house sit someone’s place across the street from his parents place on Altadena Drive and we would occasionally gather with a 12 pack of Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve beer with it’s distinctive bottling number on the bottles, I seem to remember #48 was the first one I had tried. Other friends were there as well, Mike Haytas (who unfortunately passed very early on shortly after high school was over I think) Brian Johnston, and others were there too. After high school we kept in touch, Eric went to UCLA and I went to PCC. I sometimes went out to UCLA on the weekends for the dorm parties in Eric’s bldg. Other memories I have was going cross country skiing locally with Eric on the Angeles Crest Hwy. we parked where they had the road gated off and skied on the un-plowed highway. I have those images somewhere and will post them to this site when I come across them. Eric had an apartment out on Kester Ave in Van Nuys and we’d hang out on occasion at his place on a weekend night. I remember at the time he had a Sony BetaMax player the competition to the VCR-VHS players back then and he always tried to persuade me that was the one to buy. If there’s one thing I can say about Eric it was he enthusiasm for life and the things he enjoyed doing. In 1994 Eric went to Spain to visit with his friends John and Leo and I was watching and feeding his 2 cats and his fish during that time. This was when the Northridge earthquake struck and what a mess his place was after, his cat’s survived and most of his fish. His brother Phil came over that day to help me clean up I remember. Brian head Utah, his parents cabin, I took several trips up there meeting Eric at the cabin and spending several days mountain biking, hiking, exploring back roads in the car and doing photography. Evenings we would look at the sky, I think once we had his 8 inch Cave Newtonian telescope out to view some deep sky objects. There were also trips in the winter to ski, Eric would downhill and I would cross-country. Other friends of mine once joined Eric up at Brianhead as well as David Covell and Peter Henne. Brianhead was always a highlight trip in any given year that we went. Always lots of fun, great memories. Many of the images I took up on those trips were on color transparency film and I will look those up and share when I get them scanned. When Eric & Jennifer married he asked me to photograph the wedding and I was happy to do so. It was a fun wedding. I don’t recall when Eric left Xontech for his dream job at Apple computers. Eric was always kind to share his employee discount on products with friends and family. I will miss being able to reach my personal apple tech support person when I so needed one. Thanks for all your help, suggestions and recommendations over the years my friend. A few months ago Eric asked me if I would like to go up to the cabin with him for a few days, I said I couldn’t do it at the time but now wish I would have figured out how to go along. Eric and I spoke many times about him getting a computerized scope for him and Eian and coming over to my place to do some viewing through my scopes. Good plans and I wish they had happened. We had some good bike rides up the coast during your lunch breaks when you were still at the previous Apple bldg. and those were fun, wish we could have done more like we talked about. My friend was always upbeat and full of enthusiasm and he will be missed. So long my friend. Ron Luxemburg