touching and inspiring article on Randy Pausch

[gabeana]

Dying of Cancer, but Full of Life Lessons

“There are times at the end of games when you look up at the scoreboard and do not like what you see, and this is one of those times,” he added. “I’m hanging in there, trying to spend as much quality time with my wife and kids as possible, and though it’s very frustrating to know I won’t beat the cancer, there’s a great satisfaction in knowing that I’m walking off the field with no regrets. There’s nothing about my life that I would have changed.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/sports/football/11cheer.html?em&ex=1210564800&en=5a8154a0902bda4b&ei=5087%0A

I read on his medical update that the cancer has spread to his lungs and chest

[1monster]

1. I can't let this opportunity pass without adding the url for a shortened version

of Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469

What a lovely man.

[KamaAina]

2. I learned about Randy's struggle last fall

http://ashleymorris.typepad.com/ashley_morris_the_blog/2007/10/were-not-worthy.html

Randy Pausch is a computer science prof at Carnegie Mellon. He's also a father of three. I'm a CS prof and a father of three. He has done yeoman work in Virtual Reality, and made it accessible and cheap. He's one of the biggest contributors to the field of CS in the last 20 years. I'm not as stellar, but I see the similarities....

So, he's not whining, he's telling everybody how to have a great life. Here is his last lecture, called "Really achieving your childhood dreams". You can also read the transcript. It is amazing.

Back when Tulane had a CS department, and I was a student there, I had contacts at Cornell, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon. It was such a fountain of knowledge back then, pre-Cowen. I read Randy's stuff years ago, and thought to myself: "This is why I want to be a professor".

Randy, man, do whatever it is you've been doing, and videotape everything. Let your 3 kids see how great their dad is. Godspeed.

Also note the comment by one "KamaAina". :hi:

Sad, ironic postscript: Randy ended up outliving Ashley Morris, who passed away about a month ago, leaving a huge rent in the NOLA blogosphere and possibly in the entire space-time continuum.

http://www.rememberashleymorris.com

edit: fixed link