On behalf of me and my colleagues at the CERT Coordination Center and the Software Engineering Institute, I offer our deepest sympathy to Christina, and the families of Quinn, and Ken on their loss. We have all of you in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

To me, Quinn was a very good friend. Someone who was intelligent, funny, trustworthy and fun to hang out with. He gave me good advice.

He also was a colleague, someone who was good at what he did, had pride in his work, and was well-liked and respected by his colleagues. Quinn was hired in our third phase of hiring away people from Pitt's computer centre. Part of the "Pitt alumni" as we call ourselves. For many years we have had "Pitt alumni" lunches on Fridays, and Quinn was a regular participant in those. At many of the Pitt-originated monthly Chi-Chi's night gatherings, we were graced with the presence of both the Mighty Quinn and the Lovely Christina, as he called her.

Quinn was a system administrator and kept many of our back office systems running at the CERT Coordination Center. He enjoyed being a system administrator and that extended home where he created his own home computing infrastructure. He ran his web servers, mail servers, domain name system servers... We dubbed this Mighty Q Internet Services, with the slogan Internet Services for the Mighty. Quinn was the best Internet service provider I ever had.

At work, Quinn also had the role of keeping my machines up and running. I am not sure that was his favourite thing to do, but he never complained. He kept my desktop and laptop machines running and up-to-date, and kept up with my freaky requirements. He answered my endless questions. And, he continued to give me the technical respect that one technical person gives another, even though my technical skills are deteriorating because my role now is primarily management. He laughed with me when I would be excited that I actually figured out a technical problem.

For some requests, I knew I had to come bearing chocolate. I kept a reserve of Ghirardelli chocolate in my office for those requests.

One Christmas, I gave Quinn a ten pound Ghirardelli chocolate bar. Christina had to take it away from him and store it at her parents house to stop him from eating it continuously. Quinn and Christina told me of Quinn waking up in the middle of the night after a nightmare. In this nightmare people were chasing Quinn to get his ten pound chocolate bar. A chocolate bar he refused to surrender.

I shared many political views with Quinn and enjoyed talking politics with him. The pleasure was orders of magnitude higher when Ken was involved. Quinn and others could get Ken rather wound up, and it would make for an interesting evening.

Quinn was not afraid to speak his mind. I remember that shortly after Bill Fithen and I and a few others left Pitt, the Vice Chancellor for the Computer Centre, Paul Stieman, held a recruitment event. Quinn, then this back office server administrator walked up to Paul and asked why he was having this event. Paul said to recruit some senior level technical people. Seeing only people who looked like they were just about to graduate, Quinn quipped, "Well, I don't see any Bill Fithen's here..." Paul was not sure how to respond.

I like the Baltimore Orioles and Quinn and I traveled to some of the Sunday games. The past couple of times we flew down to Baltimore with Quinn as pilot. We did not land at some suburban Baltimore airport with a small landing strip. We flew right into the Baltimore Washington International airport. It seemed intimidating to me to fly into BWI, but Quinn did just fine. Once we heard another jet airline pilot complaining that he had to slow way down because of some Cessna in front of him. With a big grin on his face, Quinn said, "that jet pilot was referring to us!"

Quinn loved flying. He was happy that our policy of letting people take classes during the day, as long as their work is done and commitments met, extended to his flight training. I remember the day he came in the office after getting his pilot's licence. They apparently have a custom of ripping the pilot's shirt after he gets his licence. Quinn had worn a dress shirt for his test – I guess not realising he might pass that day.

I remember Quinn, Christina, and Ken joining me for a couple of my annual Christmas shopping trips to San Francisco. Ken wanted to see Mount Diablo. We made the trip up there on some very windy mountain roads, up to the 3,849 foot summit. But the view from there was incredible. I was amazed that people actually biked up the mountain. It made me tired just watching them. I think if Quinn had his bike with him, he probably would have biked it also. I also remember Quinn and Ken sitting in the cockpit of an old 747 at the Hiller Aviation Museum with big smiles on their faces.

It is still hard to comprehend that we will not see Quinn's smiling face other than in our memories. But, we will have these memories.

Miguel de Cervantes said,

There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy ...
which wondrously removes
or at least alleviates
the sorrow that men would otherwise feel
for the death of friends.

Quinn has left a good legacy. A legacy of pursuit of happiness, commitment, intellectual stimulation. Of laughter, friendship, and love.

Of being a husband, a son, a brother, a nephew, a co-worker, a friend — a very good friend.

There is a quotation:

Death leaves a heartache
    no one can heal;
love leaves a memory
    no one can steal.

I will always remember you, my good friend. The Most Noble and Mighty, Quinn Peyton.

    – Jeffrey James Bryan Carpenter


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