In high school, you took me and a few other kids out of art class to attend your "puzzle club". We played trivia games, did brainteasers, and you entered us into a stock market game. I can't say I was all that sad about missing art class, and I really enjoyed myself in the puzzle club. It was in your club that I first discovered how much I love brainteasers, and puzzles in general. Despite how much crap my cousins give me for being bad at jigsaw puzzles, I love them. You made me sit my first IQ test, and the look of pride on your face when you saw my score was the first time I felt like someone was proud of me for being smart, without bragging about it to someone else.
You were the biggest influence on my career choice - telling me that I'd find working in a forensics lab incredibly boring. I know deep down that you were right, I really do, but at the same time, there is a bit of regret. But I am glad you did it, because, and I know this sounds sappy, but I'd never have met MrMan5.5 otherwise. I ended up moving away from hard science into software engineering, but perhaps my direction is still in forensics, just a different focus that's more than just running the same tests day after day after day.
You always pushed me. I wanted to do the "easier" maths and you didn't let me do it. I was always afraid to reach for a lofty goal, because I didn't want to fall short, and you pushed me to do it anyway. You always believed in my potential, and I was very lucky to have had you in my life.
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As stupid as this sounds, I always thought we were going to get married, even though we are cousins, because we were nearly the same age. You introduced me to Warcraft II, and later Starcraft, Knights of the Old Republic, and Beatmania. You lent me a DVD of the first anime I ever watched: Neon Genesis: Evangelion. You did kendo. I wanted nothing more than just to be like you. Admittedly, the only reason I joined the anime club and the kendo club at uni was because of you. However, I lasted two kendo lessons before deciding that swinging a bamboo sword down while yelling, "Men!" isn't really for me (men is Japanese for head, it's not some secret anti-men martial art).
Despite the fact that I didn't really manage to become nearly as awesome as you are, and we never ended up getting married, it is because of you that my life has been enriched by so many new things. Plus, I met a lot of great people along the way, so it's an interesting butterfly effect. You probably never knew that something as little as lending me a DVD could have had such a large impact on my life.
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If I could trade 6 years of university classes for 1 hour with you, I'm sure I'd still come out ahead, knowledge-wise. You made me into the software developer that I am today, and I don't mean that as an insult. You introduced me to the concept of test driven development. Your passion for your work, and your desire to produce quality software has had a big effect on me.
I don't know how many people know about this, but you are the reason that I am in the amazing team that I am in now. When I was due to roll of the grad program, I actually had two job offers, one for my previous team, and one for my current team. In fact, I got the job offer from the previous team before I started in my current team, so I started with the expectation that there was no point settling in, because I was just going to head back to my old team in six months. The first couple of months was just me being polite and trying to work out how I was going to tell my boss that I would be returning to my previous team. Until we had a few new people join the team, and the seating arrangement had to be changed to accommodate them. I was assigned to sit next to you.
Every day at work, I learned something new, and most of it wasn't even able software development! I loved listening to you talk about growing up in South Africa, and dealing with segregation. How despite everything, you've got such an open mind, and are incredibly kind. Your penchant for horrible movies, especially ones featuring sharks always brings a smile to my face. How you manage to find the craziest software development articles from some esoteric corner of the Internet. The thing that made me decide to stay was when I mentioned that I was interested in buying a Kindle, and you said that I could check yours out.and I found Liars and Outliers, by Bruce Schneier in your collection of books. That's when I reaslied that you are what I want to be when I grow up. Plus, my boss said that if I stayed in the team, I'd be tall like you some day. Still waiting on that one.
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Speaking of software quality, how could I go past my favourite quality assurance expert? Again, on the topic of people who are passionate about their work, you always come to mind. You love your work so much that you think about even when out at social events. I'm incredibly grateful that you suggested I go to the Limited WIP meet ups, as I learned so much about the agile methodology from those talks. Even if 80% of it washed over my head, the 20% that I did retain has helped me in my current job.
Despite being so much more experienced than me, you are always happy to explain basic concepts. You have so many interesting stories about agile development that it makes it easy to remember things. If I had half the passion that you have, I'd be set for life.
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