It has been precisely a year today since I watched Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and, upon reading my mutuals' reviews, learned that one of them, whom I actually knew in real life, Micha, known as schneeland to folks on here and to readers of his blog, or listeners of the podcasts he has worked on and contributed to, had passed away in December 2021.

"Replies are disabled for memorialized accounts." are words you don't want to read on a review of anyone you know and presume is still alive and doing well back home, on the other side of the world and that you'll catch up with again over Sushi and have a yarn and inevitably meet again at Nippon Connection, where he was a mainstay, when you return to the old country in a few years.

Alas, that catch up won't happen.
It took me two days to check and see that I had sent the last message to him (48h of thinking I had never replied to him..) and that our last chat had happened about a month before he died. I knew something was off his with his health and he had spent some time at the hospital not too long before he died, but as would be quite obvious by reading this - I had no idea the finality of death was on the table, or at least lurking on the horizon.

I still haven't contacted his partner, because for one linkedin is being weird (set it up to get a job in Aotearoa NZ and without German connections it won't let me message people there), but it's also weird to think what to even say when he was someone I always thought would be nice to know better and spend more time with and then there's his partner - different ballpark. Maybe I'll need to sort that out for the anniversary of his death in December, which will be the second one already.

All of this is to say nothing profound, or new, or especially insightful. Do hug those close to you though and keep that contact with friends online and offline and no matter how big geographical distances might get when you move to other countries. You might not get to meet everyone in person again.
And I really feel we lost one of the good ones here, a genuinely lovely and intelligent man, soft-spoken and smart, but always kind and genuine enough to listen to others. Whatever goes on in the afterlife, I hope you are well dear friend.