As I sat to watch The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last night, I remembered the man who pointed me toward The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels. He also pointed me to Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid and introduced me to Jorge Luis Borges.

I'd wondered what had happened to his old cartoon gallery. A search later, I found Dr. Vince's Cartoon Garden - I'm so glad he's kept it up (though it had moved).We used to have coffee on Saturdays when I managed to show up. He's an extraordinary gentleman himself; aside from his work, he does wonderful things when he plays. Take a look at his comics. His nudes. His carnet.

When we used to meet, it was a different era for me. I was dealing and obsessing over code, designing, refining, tossing away what didn't work and going back to the start. Vince would point me at all sorts of interesting things that I never seemed to have the time for - such as Godel, Escher, Bach - and I would almost always say that I would get to that. And I would keep saying it. Finally, after I left the corporate code caves, I did. I even managed to read Borges in Spanish, something that I think any reader of Borges should do: Borges wrote the Spanish and English versions of his books himself. Amazing author, Borges.

Our discussions of life, the universe and everything were something I wished I had more time to participate in. There was always some excuse. All of the excuses seem weak in retrospect, but then - it was a different period for me. In all, I think it was a very dark period.

I fired off an email which I doubt he'll have time to get to soon - he and I were always quite busy (with me being too busy). I owe him a debt in that he gave the then stereotypical computer programmer more to strive toward. Others tried. Dr. Vince succeeded.

One of these days we'll have coffee again. I look forward to that. He's just that kind of person. And I'm fairly certain he'll point me to some things again... and maybe, if we're both lucky, I'll have some things to point him to as well.