I’d just walked back from the hardware store, where I had to buy a battery charger because the van battery died (our fault.) I’d carefully hooked it up and was headed inside when Joe’s fiancée walked up to the porch. I didn’t recognize her at first, and then she told me he’d died.

We both kind of stood there, and said a few things about arrangements and getting information about Joe’s responsibilities at the milk co-op. I thought about giving her a hug but it was just weird and our feet were just sort of stuck. We kind of apologized for it being odd, and she left.

Joe Kudabeck

I didn’t know Joe that well. We met him when he joined the cooperative group that buys from the Amish in Arthur every week and then meets at our house for pickup. From time to time we’d talk about nothing in particular.

At first I thought Joe was a bit odd, but I always thought him friendly. He was open and honest in a refreshing way. We were talking about my 2008 summer projects list one day. I made some wisecrack that “I’d probably never get all that done, I was probably kidding myself.” I said it more because I expected that was what he was thinking, more than anything else. Rather, he said “Not with that attitude, you won’t.”

From that point on, I wanted to get to know Joe better. It was one of those things I thought about, but never acted upon. He talked with Leigh about us having some hoe-downs at our house on Saturdays for the coop, and she told him I’d had the same idea. The idea got kicked around a bit, but never seemed to bubble to the top of the list.

Joe finally decided to run with the ball and declared on the milk emailing list that we would be “tailgating at Leigh’s” on November 8th, which was the next day he would be responsible for the pickup run to the Amish. Leigh pledged to provide hot chocolate, and I think it would have shaped up nicely.

It’s too bad Joe won’t be here on November 8.

It’s too bad we’ll never start having weekly get-togethers with Joe here.

Joe was a roofer, and one day we got to talking about how I could extend my front porch out, and what the best roofing option would be. I remember that day how excited Joe was to be working on a fancy copper chimney in Urbana the next day. He admitted that roofing was a lot of the same old thing, but relished the highlights. Apparently installing this copper chimney was a chance to really use some skill and finish something to be truly proud of.

I liked his attitude.

I won’t lose a lot of sleep because of Joe’s passing. I can’t pretend we were somehow near and dear. I’ve come away realizing, though, that if you really want to start spending more time with people, the time to do that is now, right away. I’ve been thinking about the times Joe and I did chat a bit, and I’m certain I missed out on a lot by not making the time to know him beyond one Saturday a week.

Joe, I’ll try not to make that mistake with anyone else.

The following is the obituary as seen in the Chicago Suburbs “Daily Herald.”

Joseph Gordon Kudabeck formerly of St. Charles The visitation for Joseph Gordon Kudabeck, 30, of Urbana, Ill., will be from 1 p.m. until the time of funeral service at 5 p.m. Sunday, at Yurs Funeral Home, 405 E. Main St. (corner of Route 64 and Route 25), St. Charles. Interment will be private. Born Oct. 5, 1978, in Geneva, to Gordon and Deborah (nee Beal) Kudabeck, he passed away Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008, at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana. He was attending the University of Illinois and was in the college of Civil Engineering. Survivors include his parents; three brothers, Jason (Heather) of Sycamore, Jake (Laura) of Batavia and James (Erica) of Cortland; a sister, Christina (Gabriele) Antongiovanni of Puyallup, Wash.; his fiancee, Rhonda Jurinak of Urbana; maternal grandparents, Richard and Marcia Beal of Desert Hot Springs, Calif.; his nieces and nephews, Riley Kudabeck, Savannah Kudabeck, Ollie Kudabeck, and Luca and Filippo Antongiovanni; and numerous uncles, aunts and cousins. He was preceded in death by his paternal grandparents, Stephen and Violet Kudabeck. For information, 630-584-0060.

This is just a quick post about a strange pet peeve I have. I really hate it when someone pours a drink loudly and sloppily. I can’t quite put a sound word to it. Maybe it’s kind of like SCHLORP.

If you really want to get under my skin, try pouring your drink sloppily from a soda can. Open the tab quickly, so that it makes a loud SNAP, and you’ll be well on your way to making me cringe before you even start to SCHLORP the soda into a cup.

Finally, turn the can almost completely upside down, so that air cannot get into the can without forcing its way past the gravity-fed liquid that’s blocking the hole. That gives your pouring the ultimate SCHLORP sound and results in me wanting to grab the can out of your hand, throwing it across the room to smash into the sink or garbage can.

Why does this bother me so much? Man, I don’t know. Maybe because if your pouring results in SCHLORP-ing, it implies that your are impatient, and that you don’t “get it” that you could actually pour it faster if you would leave some gap in the can opening for air to get in.

Wow, that sounds really straight-laced. Weird.

Sometimes you just get so mad, or pent-up, or whatever, and the only way to deal with it is to listen to really loud music in a place full of other mad, pent-up people. That’s all I can tell you.

That’s how an old friend once explained to his mom why he liked to listen to “that loud music.” I guess this was in the Nirvana days.

Even when life is good — great, even — sometimes you just can’t have the music loud enough to drown things out. Maybe it’s something you did, or something done to you, or something you saw done to someone else. I don’t know.

Just think of the amplifier in “Back to the Future.” Maybe sometimes that could take care of things!

Since the game just came out, it’s $50. I don’t have $50 to spend on a game, so I just sighed and figured “later.”

But Lo, behold! The first stage of the game has been packaged into a mobile version, called “Spore: Origins,” which I happily bought for $5 for my iPod. It’s a lot of fun!

NOTE: It is difficult to play scroll-wheel games on the iPod after washing dishes (i.e., the oils are washed off of your thumb…)

After having so much fun on the iPod, I had to look around for the full version again. I found it on Amazon, “previously owned, but never opened,” for $31. Woohoo! And so, it’s on its way.

I actually hope the whole family enjoys it. I can see Bethy and Gwen getting in to the evolution aspect of it, creating their characters and whatnot.

Well, that’s all I have to say.

Full-size logo for most print jobs and website.

This one lost some weight to fit business card size.

For the uninitiated, this is in reference to the old “Real Estate Profile” days back in Chicago. In the ad production department, we used to rip on a few fonts in particular, including:

• Helvetica
• “Times New Roman”
• Optima (hello, “Dominick’s”)
• Eurostyle
• and last but not least, “Freestyle Script”

Man, this one guy (Tom?) that came to work there for a short while… he used Helvetica in almost every ad he made, and he also (EGADS) would stretch it and shrink it. He also loved to use “Multi-Ad Creator” (Thanks a lot for that one, Peoria, IL.) It’s not like this guy was a “minimalist” or anything like that — he just didn’t know what he was doing.

Greg used to rip him all the time, called him “Helvetica Boy” and stuff.

In today’s case, I chose “Freestyle Script” for “in Cincinnati” over every other handwriting font I had available because of the clear separation between characters. I knew I would have to make it readable at large and small sizes. I liked some of the others better, but it doesn’t matter what I like — it matters what works!

Just so you know I have not been converted to the dark side, I would never use “Comic Sans!” Never.

For the record, I nearly chose “Rage Italic” — I love that font. Also, “Imitation” reminds me of some department store, but I cannot pinpoint which one. Any takers on that?

Whatever.