Jeremy

Thank You for Loving Jeremy

It has been two months since Jeremy left us. It still does not seem possible most of the time...then it comes crashing back....taking our breath away.

I want everyone to know how incredibly valuable your posts about Jeremy are to us. We read them often...and cherish each one. Jeremy was truly a unique person. He always was...even as a child. He was multi dimensional, finding joy, beauty, humor, meaning in everything....And he was a strong, loyal, and loving man. To have all these qualities is very rare. We are truly blessed to be his parents.

Since we returned from Seattle, many of our neighbors, friends, co workers have expressed sympathy and asked, "What can we do?" Our answer is to read this blog...we give them the link and tell them to read about Jeremy. This honors him.

Again, I want to thank each of you for writing your thoughts and memories of our son. I hope there will be more entries made as time goes on. Please do not forget Jeremy....Thank you for loving him.

Linda and Louis Worley

Wine in a beer glass

I met Jeremy about 2 years ago in Germany. I met him the morning before we did a big song and dance together in front of a key customer. We were the two technical guys on the trip, and hit it off immediately. As luck would have it I got to go on 3-4 additional trips with Jeremy to Europe. Like anyone who has ever met Jeremy, he was instantly a friend.

Last year we were in Munich together in May. Jeremy knew this outdoor place with tables where you could get a sandwich and beer. It sounded good so we meandered about a mile before we finally found the place.

It was a nice warm day and everyone ordered a large beer, but being a wine drinker I ordered a large glass of wine. The waiter came back with 3 large beers (German size) and one small half filled water glass of wine.

Being thirsty after the long walk, two minutes later I had to go through the tedious ardor of flagging down the German speaking waiter again....I requested a large glass again...using hand signals etc to get my point across. Everyone at the table was laughing quite hard at my antics. Finally Jeremy holds up his large beer and tells him to bring out one of these filled with wine....with a little German thrown in for fun. Sure enough.....I ended up with a large beer glass filled to the brim with wine, and the waiter hands me the glass and asks me in perfect English if it was large enough. We laughed so hard are sides were aching....and then we toasted!!

I will always remember Jeremy....I have so many great memories of him. He was one of he most warm hearted people I have ever met. So I am pouring myself a large glass of wine into a beer glass and making a toast for Jeremy. TO JEREMY!! I will miss my friend.

Eric Lippke

You will be missed

My heart goes out to Jeremy's loved ones, especially Paula and Erin.

I worked with Jer at Khoral Research in Albuquerque and recently got back in touch with him. I'm glad I got a chance to give my warm regards before he left this earth.

Best
Shannon Wells

Handshake

I knew Jeremy from 3GPP meetings. Like most members in the group, I quickly realized that he knows what he is talking about. His comments often played a critical role when the discussion was stuck or reached a critical point. He was open to new ideas and shared his knowledge freely - which I liked very much.

However, it is more the non-technical, personal things that stick to my mind when I remember Jeremy. Like his strong handshake. Like an honest welcome. Or goodby. I am very sad that I did not have the chance to shake his hand to say goodby.

Niko Färber

Jeremy's Spirit

(My remarks from services on April 10, 2004.)

On Tuesday at RealNetworks, we had a minute of silence for Jeremy, and I described him then with a few phrases. I thought that today I would elaborate on some of those phrases.

Jeremy was a teacher.
My first experience working closely with Jeremy was in February of 2001. My new job was to create a new business selling our software to wireless carriers. As usual when I start a new job, I started reading. After about 20 minutes I ran into a nesting cascade of acronyms:

2G, 2.5G, 3G, TDMA, CDMA, GPRS

and I thought, “What have I gotten myself into.”

About then Jeremy popped by my office and said, “How’s it going?” He had a little smirk on his face, because I think he knew that I was swimming in a sea of unfamiliar jargon. I looked up and asked, “What is all this stuff?”

He said, “What if I hold a training session for you, Sharon, Brian and Fred and help you guys understand this a little better?”

It was a rhetorical question.

So a couple days later, we gathered in the 2SW conference room each with piles of documents, and pen and notepad.

Jeremy spent hours walking us through a series of simple explanations, using brilliant analogies and clear diagrams. He patiently answered our questions, not only then, but every day since for the last 3+ years.

Now, as a result of Jeremy’s teaching, I can spout wireless jargon with the best of them.

And based on the software Jeremy’s team built, we have a healthy business with customers in over 25 countries around the world including places as diverse as Japan, Croatia, and Sri Lanka.

I know Jeremy liked creating software that people all over the world would use, because Jeremy was truly a global citizen, not just because he logged a lot of miles traveling, but because he felt that people from different cultures and backgrounds had something to contribute to the world and to him.

Jeremy’s spirit will live on in the people he taught and the inventions he created.

Jeremy was also a merry prankster.
I don’t mean that he was an incessant practical joker, although he did play jokes occasionally. More often, he told quirky, funny stories about daily life.

I’d like to read one of Jeremy’s stories taken directly from his blog:

November 10, 2003

Back in high school, I would get up well before sunrise and drive to the pool, work out, wring out my suits and leave them in my car trunk until afternoon workout. After school, I would put the cold wet suits on and swim for another two hours, wring my suits out again and leave them in the my trunk until morning. They were always wet and cold in the morning, unless it was winter, in which case they were freeze dried. Then the ritual changed to include a step where I flexed the frozen stiff suits and shook out the ice crystals until they were pliable enough to put on. That was usually followed by loud yelp!

Fast forward almost 20 years and technology has solved this problem. I still leave my suits in my car at night and every morning I still get up before dawn and drive to the pool for a swim. The SuitMate in the locker room now shakes out almost all of the water in my suit leaving it only slightly damp. By morning, thanks to this revolution in locker room technology, my suits are still chilly from sitting outside, but they are dry and there is no more yelping.

Jeremy’s spirit will live on whenever we notice the funny things in life.

Jeremy was a compassionate team leader.
Jeremy had several teams over the years, and I’ve seen him take bright, but sometimes inexperienced engineers and program managers, and he’d work with them to achieve things that they didn’t even know they had in them. If they couldn’t get everything done themselves, he’d stay up late to help them through it. He’d teach them how to get better the next time they took on a similar task.

Jeremy would often come to my office and say, “Do you know how hard and how long they’ve been working to ship this product on time?” And then he’d tell me. And I wasn’t surprised because I knew they were working hard and long hours because they didn’t want to disappoint Jeremy.

To me this compassionate leadership is the best kind of leadership, because it permanently instills his team-members with tremendous self-motivation and self-confidence.

And as a result of Jeremy’s leadership, RealNetworks now has dozens of talented people who continue to flourish and grow, even after Jeremy moved on to manage a different team.

Jeremy’s spirit will live on in the people he mentored at work.

Jeremy was someone to share the joy of life and humanity with.
From Jeremy’s blog, March 6, 2004

I spent another week in and around London, including a day trip to Dublin. The most interesting event was an exchange on the tube after a young guy with really bad teeth, clad in sneakers, grimy pants, and a yellow sport coat held a subway car door for me as I ran down the stairs trying to catch the train as it left:

Me: Thanks!
Strange guy: That'll be two pounds ninety, guvna!
Me: chuckle
Strange guy: So, what do you do?
Me: I'm an engineer. (my stock answer)
Strange guy: In computas, are ya?
Me: Yeah. What do you do?
Strange guy: Professional shoplifta. Used to be in sales, but this is better...until you get caught.

I quickly checked my wallet thinking he might also be a pickpocket and then wished him good luck with his career as he got off at the Notting Hill Gate stop.

Jeremy’s spirit will live on whenever we notice an unusual character.

Jeremy was a friend.
Recently, I had to make a somewhat unexpected trip to Asia. I travel a lot for work, and traveling without your family repeatedly can get very lonely.

Fortunately the teams in Asia needed not just me, but also a senior technical person. And I thought, “Who would I most like to travel to Asia with?” and Jeremy popped into my head.

So Jeremy and I arranged to go. Because it was last minute we had a pretty hectic time just arranging for visas, including driving to pick them up on the morning of our flight in the biggest snowstorm of the year. After driving from one closed Fedex office to another in the ice and slush, we finally got our visas, and realized we could still make the flight. We looked at each other and at the same time said, “Let’s go to China.”

And so we did, and sure enough, in addition to conducting some good business in China, Korea, and Japan we also had a lot of fun.

Whenever any of us are lonely anywhere on the planet, think of Jeremy, because his spirit lives on.

- Ian Freed (Seattle)

Technical Wizard

I was went to school with Jeremy at UNM and worked with him for many years at Khoral Research in Albuquerque.

I just can not believe he is gone.

I remember back at UNM, we were lab partners working on a big final electronics project. Most of the groups were building straight-forward things (like a "stop-light controller" for example). Jeremy convinced me that we should build a plug-in board for a PC that would calculate chess moves.

Before the class was done, we actually had produced a wire-wrapped PC board (it looked like a little rats nest of chips and wires). We were able to load assembly instructions to the board from the PC and sequence through them. And Jeremy had just about finished migrating the relevant sections of GNU Chess to assembly. Unfortunately, a loose wire shorted the thing out before we finished it. Even though we didn't get it working, we still got a good grade. (Perhaps we got an 'A' for 'Ambition'?) It was a long time ago now, and in hindsight, I wonder what the hell were we thinking. But Jeremy not only made it seem possible, he made it seem easy. He had a way of doing that with any technical problem.

Another thing that will eternally impress me is the code Jeremy wrote for the data services library in Khoros. One specific example: in the specification for data services there is a function that will let you clip out an arbitrary region from a data set. Furthermore, the data set can be bit data. Furthermore, the data set can be N-dimensional. Furthermore, the region can be resampled as it is extracted. It's a rarely-used feature in this library. Most engineers would have not taken this on. Most engineers would have argued to have it removed from the specification. But not Jeremy. He went ahead and implemented it.

Not to sound like too much of a nerd, but Jeremy's N-dimensional bit interpolating clipper function is really a work of art. Even now, with more than a decade of programming experience behind me, I still look at this code with amazement and awe.

I extended and maintained the data services library for several years after Jeremy left Khoral Research. For fun, the two of us wrote
"Zen and the Art of Data Services". It's probably funny only to me and to Jeremy, but I wanted to share it here. I had always hoped Jeremy and I would reminisce about it years from now and have a good laugh.

Steve Kubica (Albuquerque)

Memories from a recent week in Malaga

I met Jeremy for the first time in 2002 at a 3GPP SA4 meeting. I remember that I thought this guy from Real was such an asset during our discussions. He did not only have an outstanding knowledge about streaming, but he was also more than willing to share his expertise with us in the group. More importantly, however, I understood that he was a truly genuine and sincere guy that was a good companion during dinners, pubs and always fond of good conversation.

In the beginning we didn’t talk that much about non-professional matters, but this changed recently. Only five weeks before the sad news I had the fortune to spend one week in Malaga with Jeremy and the SA4 gang. Jeremy was at his full spirit and I have fond memories of several lunches, dinners and driving to Granada to visit the Alhambra together.

The lunches were not always that successful though. Once we were caught by a heavy rain fall and we had to seek shelter in a supermarket. Still I had to change all my clothes before attending the afternoon session of the meeting. Another day we waited an hour for the food until Jeremy, Emre and Gamze had to leave to get a bite elsewhere before the meeting started. Me and David had got our food and stayed and tried to explain to the waiter that we had cancelled the other orders after waiting in vane for one hour. The waiter was fairly upset and explained (in Swedish to my great surprise!) that we were not welcome back… As if we were planning another lunch there!

The dinners were more successful. One night I shared a paella with Jeremy and I remember that he took a picture with his camera of the dish and sent an MMS back home before enjoying the feast. It did not only look great, it also tasted great! I had another one before the end of the week…

The best memories of the week I have from driving to Granada the day after the meeting. I had rented a car, Jeremy read the map while David and Chris were sitting in the back. We laughed a lot while trying to find out the relation between the street numbers printed on the map and the completely different signs we saw at the freeway exits - and at the same time follow Igor who was driving the car ahead of us :) We finally made it and had a great time visiting Alhambra and Granada. We talked about all sorts of things and in particular I remember vivid discussions about models for fair voting systems, the Christian right, architectural styles of domes and churches, and where to buy organic food in Seattle (where I lived for three years).

These were just a few moments from the fun sides of standardization. I only knew Jeremy from these occasions and hope that his family and friends will know what a great guy he was those weeks he was away attending one of those meetings… I still cannot fathom that he is gone. We miss you!

Per Fröjdh (Sweden)

Hard to believe...

When I first met Jeremy four years ago, I was amazed by his intellect, his open-minded approach towards everything, his professional approach to debates and questions, his sense of humor and positive thinking. It was always fun and joy to share the same table with him during lunches or dinners at the standardization meetings. He was one of those rare individuals who could find happiness and joy in everything, and also unselfishly share it.

I'll miss you Jeremy...

Emre Baris Aksu (Finland)

Mies Paikallaan...

Hi everybody,

I wanted to write a few lines to this blog both to express my respect for Jeremy and to find some way of dealing with the sorrow that I feel... I first though that the difficulties I had writing anything was because english is not my first language, but then I realized that I could have not done much better in finnish either... I just don't know what to say.

I guess handling this kind of tragic things are beyond my simple engineer brain. We engineers are so used to dealing with problems and always (!) finding some solution, that when something like this happens we are left with nothing but feeling of staggering powerlessness. Since there is nothing more I can do, I shall remember Jeremy the way I got to know him: problem solver, friendly, smiling, flexible, smart. None of that is gone.

---Mika Hakala & Hantro Products team

ps. title is finnish and translates roughly to "the man for the job". In finnish, short expressions, however, carry much information and this would be roughly the best thing one professional can say to another.

Turtles are cool!

(My comments from Saturday.)

Over the past five days I've felt shock, disbelief, horror, devastation,
hopelessness, anger, melancholy, confusion.

I've also felt the love of caring friends and family, the satisfaction
of helping others in need, the pleasure of meeting new, wonderful
people, and the joys of sharing fond memories of an old friend.

I'd like to share some more of my fond memories of Jeremy with you today.

Remembering the Remarkable Jeremy Worley

[My comments on Saturday]

I loved Jeremy so much.

We worked together for most of the last three years and shared several passions.

We turned each other on to books, to music, and to food.

We both loved food.

Much to the chagrin of our friends and family insisted on taking pictures of our food. And so weird combinations of meats and vegetables have made their way into the email inboxes of many people who are here today.

Among the minor injustices in a week full of much larger ones is that Jeremy and I won’t be able to deliver on two promises we made to each other: I was going to indoctrinate him into the joys of cassoulet, and he was going to treat me to his beloved posole.

Jer

Kazuki, Megumi, Matt and I met Jeremy while working at Nintendo. At first Jer was just Paula's husband who would make the requisite spousal appearances during the after work social activities. As we began spending more time with Paula, Jeremy quickly moved from being "Paula's Husband" to being one of our closest friends in Seattle. Paula and Jeremy became the hub of our social circle. They opened their home to those of us who had no family with which to share the holidays. We spent numerous July 4ths, Thanksgivings, Christmases, and New Years together, and through their kindness they beceme our de facto family here.

Jeremy was the type of person who would gently coerce you into expanding your horizons. He was constantly exploring different cultures, foods, beers and ideas. He would often bring home stories from the various places he would visit during his travels. Invariably, the stories he would tell us would be of some positive new experience he had while traveling. His open-minded approach to his life allowed him to bring back stories of a variety of strange encounters he experienced abroad such as:

-co-ed "SOW-NAH" business meetings with very informal dress codes.
-eating odd foods like: squid actually drowned in soy sauce; raw horse meat.

Jer always showed you new ways to appreciate life. Whether it be his homemade paella feasts, his bottomless supply of home brew or even just the life affirming experience of surviving a drive with him at the wheel. Jer always got you to try new things, and it **almost** always ended up being a good thing. The notable exception to this was his recent acquisition of “Pine Tar Schnapps”, but hey, nobody can be correct 100% of the time.

Though we only knew Jer for less than 5 years, the time we spent with him were always good experiences. While this is a very sad moment for all of us, at the same time, we feel very fortunate that he touched our lives. We will miss him trying to stump us with the latest mindbenders he has come across, or the various personality tests he’d try out on us. The fact remains that even if Jeremy’s life was tragically short it was also extraordinarily full. If we take a little of Jeremy's spirit away with us, and adopt a little bit of his attitude, that would be the best tribute to his life.

If at the end of our lives, however long or short they may be, people can honestly say of us a fraction of the positive things that they say about Jeremy, we will have lived very fortunate lives.

Kazuki, Megumi, Matt and Lauren
(The Ex-Nintendo Crew)

Dark restaurants and flashes don't mix

One dark Arabian night after the sales meeting, a flash illuminated the candle lit Marrakesh restaurant resulting in squints and leaving white flashes in everyone's retina ... and Jeremy yelped.

Jeremy, an awe of a man.

awee

An oasis of sanity

I was one of Jeremy's many colleagues at RealNetworks. For a while, we were both part of a small group of people that met on a weekly basis to discuss RealNetworks' participation in the forming industry standards. It was a passion for both of us, and he was instrumental in making our work matter.

I really regret not knowing him better as a person outside of work. Perhaps that was because we had such common interests in the technology business, we could easily fill any amount of time nerding out on a technology related topic, be it dueling acronyms, "vi versus emacs" or some of the early craziness he had to endure as a young programmer traveling to Minnesota to port software to some nutty piece of hardware history. We never had a problem filling a void in time.

He shared with me a fabulous way for dealing with a fickle and demanding manager. Keep track of how many times the person asks for something. The urgency of the tone doesn't matter...if they don't ask about it three days in a row, it probably isn't worth doing. While the rest of us would get wound up and frustrated dealing with a random boss, Jeremy serenely engineered a sane solution to insane situation.

A couple of years ago, I came very close to leaving RealNetworks, going so far as announcing my departure, cleaning out my office, the whole bit (I'm still at Real; long story...). I received many warm goodbyes and best wishes, but Jeremy's reaction stood out. He stopped by my office, clearly shaken, and asked me if what he heard was true. When I confirmed, he was on the verge of tears, sharing with me how much he valued our time together. It was really touching, and made me realize what a caring guy he was.

His departure is certainly something to cry about. Jeremy, I miss you a lot.

-- Robla

Send Jeremy - we need him!

Three weeks ago, I got an email "Jeremy Worley wants to be your Orkut friend". Yeh! Jeremy! I should have known he would be on Orkut!

I met Jeremy a few times while working the Openwave - Realnetworks relationship - and these few times were enough to place him very high on the list of people I like working with. His ability to connect with people - customers and partners - was amazing. He could walk (and I have seen him doing it) into a hostile meeting with customers and with by being honest and straight-forward move everybody over to his side. This ability to connect with people only comes when one is genuinely interested in other people - in learning about them, understanding what they care about and how they think and approach problems - which was clearly his passion. The wealth of knoweldge - and ability connect with the other side while covering both technology, business and small talk was rare and remarkable. As a result, I have been known to repeat "Send Jeremy - we really need him" to Sharon on many occasions (With only limited success...)

To the RN folks - you were lucky to have him as a colleague and friend

Ram Fish

The Storyteller

Driving to the funeral chapel on Friday afternoon, Mark, Fred and I got to talking about Jeremy’s gifts as a storyteller. Jeremy’s family and those of us who were privileged to work with him every day were treated to new stories after each of his many trips. We were also lucky enough to hear him retell our favorite stories from time to time (truth be told, Jeremy was kind enough to do so whenever we asked, which was quite frequently). So it’s been nice to see that so many people who knew Jeremy through his work with the 3G standards organization and elsewhere have also mentioned this in their postings here.

What Mark, Fred and I agreed we loved most about these stories is something that probably isn’t obvious to those who weren’t at RealNetworks with Jeremy. You see, some of the best stories Jeremy told - those he was asked to tell over and over again - were about the adventures (misadventures?) he had on his business trips with Martin and Lee. The reason we found them so especially funny wasn’t just that we knew everybody, but that we’d heard Martin and Lee tell these same stories from their own points of view. Please don’t get us wrong, Martin and Lee are both fine storytellers and they never fail to make us laugh when they talk about these trips, but sometimes they were just a little too close to the heart of the action to be truly objective about what really happened. Naturally, what they may have lacked in objectivity they made up for in ways that reflected their personalities. That’s why Jeremy’s version was always so special; it reflected his personality, too. As with everything he observed in life, Jeremy tried to be as objective as possible, but he tempered his objectivity with kindness so as not to embarass anybody - quite an accomplishment given some of these stories (it also helped that Jeremy had a wicked take on both Martin’s accent and Lee’s sometimes manic reaction to the bizarre circumstances they frequently found themselves in).

For example, in Martin’s version of their most infamous adventure, he truly believes he was looking out for the health of his fellow airline passengers when - after having told the flight attendant there was something wrong with his sandwich and seeing that nothing would be done to either correct the situation or warn the unsuspecting people elsewhere on the plane - he decided to take matters into his own hands. In Lee’s telling of the same tale, he focuses on how he helped to get his friend back in his seat - this after Martin had walked up and down the aisle (several times) telling his fellow passengers there was something wrong with their food. Lee didn’t really see the expression on the other passengers’ faces in quite the same way Jeremy did, which isn’t surprising when you consider how hard it must have been for Lee to observe the people around him while trying to rein in a man showing his food to all the passengers aboard a jumbo jet cruising at 30,000 feet.

I think Lee described Jeremy’s reaction to these sorts of situations best when telling of another flight - on a substantially smaller airplane - where, rather than getting involved in the discussion about exactly where his colleagues should sit, Jeremy sat quietly, peered out from behind his newspaper, and watched events unfold. After all, how much discussion can there possibly be about seating on an airplane with fewer than 20 seats!

Thanks to Jeremy, these stories have made the rounds of family, friends and colleagues. We laugh when we hear about the airline captain who, having just landed his plane, supplemented the standard "Welcome to our destination" PA announcement with his "special thanks" to one particular passenger for his help in maintaining on-board food safety. We’ve also learned how funny a simple statement like “But I paid for this seat!” can really be.

Indeed, all that was needed to bring forth welcome gales of laughter and transform tears of sadness into tears of joy for all of us - family, friends and colleagues - gathered in the chapel on Friday afternoon was for someone to say, “There’s mold on the meat!”

- Andy

A Special Soul

It is clear to me, after reading many of these posts, that Jeremy had a unique gift. He had an economy of connecting with people that had been perfected. He made each person he touched feel special, feel listened to and feel understood. He made people feel good. He made people feel comfortable.

Jeremy was a great friend, an intellectual, and a man with the highest integrity. He and I had been a team for several years, traveling the world, engaging in debates, and having fun. He had curiosity and innocence as a part of his being. It made him special.

I learned much from Jeremy in our time together and will miss him dearly. His wisdom, kindness and spirit persist.

Kyle Levine

One Night in Redmond

Much about the great pleasure to see and talk to Jeremy at the 3GPP meetings all over the world has already been expressed by my colleagues Dave and Igor. I would like to add one very personal experience from a night with Jeremy at a restaurant in Redmond. It was one of those rare moments in life where you meet someone, hardly know him, start chatting with him for the first time and suddenly end up in a enjoyable and inspiring talk with him about each others life, family and many other private matters. During that night I had the luck to experience Jeremy’s incomparable open mind, expressed in a true interest in every aspect of life and humans, combined with his positive approach to life and excellent sense of humour. Thank you for this unforgettable night Jeremy.

Rolf Hakenberg (Germany)

a true success

From the first day I met Jeremy almost five years ago to last Friday, the last time I spoke with him, Jeremy was consistent - consistent in thought, deed and action - consistently kind, generous, compassionate, graceful and not to mention, entertaining. In a sea of hurry, Jeremy was a rarity as he always took the time to connect with you, to care about you. I will never again read these words without thinking of his smiling face. You have taught us so well Jeremy - thank you.

What Is Success?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To give of one's self;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived -
This is to have succeeded.
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jenny Armstrong-Owen

A Great Guy

A great guy, that was the common phrase that we quickly came during the conversations I had with my colleagues that knew Jeremy when I told them the terrible news this week. But, I really don't think that’s sufficient - he was much more than that, he was a character with qualities many aspired to, including me.

I knew Jeremy through work as part of a technology project that our companies have been working together on since 2001. During that time we were brought together a few times every year for workshops in the UK or Dusseldorf.

Meetings including Jeremy were always a pleasure, He was always a source of information and available to provide valuable input, it didn’t matter if he had arrived to the meeting from a long haul flight and had been stuck in a meeting room with us for several hours - his enthusiasm and willingness to discuss issues and solutions was non-ending.

I was always impressed by his openness and the massive amount of knowledge he could instantly draw on. In those years he rightly earned a huge amount of respect among our team for his technical expertise and commitment but for me I also remember the off shoots of these work encounters. Jeremy was always someone I enjoyed chatting to during the sporadic meeting breaks, he never failed to have a tale from his latest travel experience to share and always showed interest to hear some piece of triva or happening that I could recall. He had an incredible ability to remember the details of his experiences and recall them to enrich a related ongoing conversation with enthusiasm and a smile.

So above all, I will remember his openness, willingness to share and curiosity - I will truly miss our encounters.

tony mcnulty

A flash in my mind

I had the chance to meet Jeremy at 3GPP standardization meetings and other work related events. Two particular aspects of him have always captured me: his exceptional technical depth and his intellectual honesty. Jeremy fighted for the truth, not for the best opportunity. This quality is not in everyone unfortunately. I will remember Jeremy for this.

Igor Curcio (Finland)

How to make an impression

How do you meet people only every few months, argue passionately with them for a few days, spend a few evenings with them eating and drinking...and then back to email for a few months: and make a lasting impression?

You're Jeremy, that's how.

You see, I knew Jeremy at the 3G standards meetings. We'd debate during the day, and then (if I was lucky) he'd be in the same group going out to dinner. In debate, who minded losing to Jeremy? He was at the same time intelligent, gentle, courteous, and persuasive. And when you were wrong, he'd twinkle, express delight and interest in what was new to him, and only gently make you realize where you were mistaken.

And in the evenings, he's always be curious, expressing interest. So many times he'd puzzle about something out loud, and (it being a varied group) someone would have a perspective or insight, and he'd cock his head on one side, say "that's cool"...then a short pause...and he'd be running with the implications, consequences, connections, of what he'd heard, and the questions and the observations and the connections would come bubbling out, infectious, enthusiastic.

To describe this as playfulness makes it sound frivolous, which is far from it. By playing with ideas and concepts and knowledge, tossing them as if juggling, seeing them sparkle as they turned, he would cast light and show truths that were simple, exact, profound.

And maybe it could sound as if he was always running, impatient; but actually it was the opposite. He had the gift of rapt silence as well, giving you the impression that he was listening carefully and absorbing everything -- as indeed he was: how could you play with an imperfectly heard idea?

People like this are rare: gifted and humble, nimble and peaceful. In our varied meetings in strange parts of the world we saw too little of him, yet enough to know him as special and as a friend: always pleased to see us again, us always pleased to see him.

I'll miss him. Turning up to a meeting and seeing him always said "good week" to me -- debate and resolution, discussion and play. That periodic spark in my travels...I'll miss him. Goodbye, my friend.

Dave Singer

jeremy the man

Jeremy Worley was the best software engineer and manager of programmers I have ever met and a close personal friend. I hired Jeremy at RN and he worked for me until I left there in 2000. Working with Jeremy, Lee Joseph, Craig Robinson and others during those 2 years was one of the high points of my career. Although we were ultimately defeated by politics, what Jeremy master-minded and built was awesome - worldclass. Perhaps someone will recreate it one day in his memory.

I will always regret that Jeremy and I never had the opportunity to work together again, but you can be assured that Jeremy was always at the top of everyone's 'must hire' list.

Jeremy was AAA grade as a man, a father and as an engineer and I am certain that if his life had not been cut short so suddenly, then he would have had an illustrious career and a happy fulfilled life ahead of him. I never got the chance to congratulate him on his recent promotion to General Manager but I know it reflected his pivotal value to RealNetworks and above all his skills as a manager and an engineer.

I have no words adequate to express what a great guy he was and how much everyone he knew will miss him.

Kind Regards,

Martin Dunsmuir
425-894-1206

Thanks

I worked with Jeremy at Realnetworks but had not seen him for two years so was shocked when I heard the tragic news of his passing on Monday.

Jeremy came into my group to build the first mobile Realplayer for phones. Actually, Jeremy was the group. We had a 10MB PC player that needed to be about 800kb to fit on a Nokia 9210 handset. And it needed to run over networks we knew virtually nothing about. And it was due in about 8 months and really required about 12. And Jeremy had no team. Worse, many other groups at Real needed to help Jeremy to get the product built and most of them didn't want to cooperate or share their work. It was a perfect job for Jeremy.

Jeremy had this amazingly calm, methodical, measured, logical, human and compassionate way of assessing the nature of the challenge, motivating and coaching people to help and humbly delivering results that were always bettter than asked for or expected. I can remember being in meetings where if someone had been as belligerent to me as they were to him I would not have been able to respond without letting emotion get in the way. He had a way of working the problem, thinking about all the potential outcomes and alternatives (wether he idea or not), considering the practical and human element, and making great choices. He reminded me of Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, the kind of guy you'd want on your side if everything was going wrong and you needed someone to get you back home.

We live in a world where we now face challenges that require patience but action, humanity with courage, tenacity and circumspection, independence and teamwork. I have not thought as much about Jeremy as I wished I had over the last two years but he was a good example of these strengths and despite his passing he has vitality when we remember to be the way he was. His family should be very proud of raising someone like Jeremy. Thank you.

Len Jordan

Lessons on Joy

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how best to measure someone’s life. It can’t be the simple passage of time, because if that’s true then we’ve been severely short changed. Our wisdom and experience tell us that it’s what one does with life that counts and that can be measured in many different ways. The challenge facing all of us as we reflect on Jeremy’s life is that there is so much to measure.

How do we total up the astonishingly wide range of interests, the insatiable curiosity, the fierce intelligence, and the gentle, sly, yet wickedly funny sense of humor that Jeremy possessed? How vast was the unbridled love of life and for family and friends that illuminated his soul? How deep was the store of serenity and humility that he freely shared with others so they too could experience the joy that filled his days? How could one person possibly embody so much life?

I’m not sure; I just know that Jeremy did.

Sadly, I also know that we who have been fortunate enough to have Jeremy in our lives must now help one another to find the joy that he shared with us. That may be difficult right now, but we can do it. After all, Jeremy spent his life teaching us how.

- Andy Perez

The Best of Humanity

I first met Jeremy almost five years ago. He was part of a team that was investigating alternative methods for broadband delivery. Broadband hadn’t happened and there were raging debates about how it would (and even a mysterious renegade category of the doubtful that wondered if it ever was going to happen). Everyone was passionate (perhaps a bit too passionate). Jeremy was renowned for passion, but his passion was so finely tempered with thoughtfulness that it always telegraphed as wisdom: The perfect blend.

Nearly five years ago, Jeremy started a conversation with me that never stopped: He was incredibly calm, measured, considerate and insightful in a manner that set him apart (and well above) the day-to-day fray. I remember early-on thinking to myself, "Jeremy was just raised to be a good person." I never said that to him, but the observation crossed my mind multiple times. Sounds simple. My consistent and lasting impression of him over the last five years was that he was just fundamentally a good person. Everything you'd want in a brother, a father, a son, a neighbor a citizen and in humanity itself.

We all comfortably and implicitly entrusted Jeremy with our technology. That doesn’t come easy in an environment where standards are stratospherically high. His judgment, his care and his consideration were legend.

Today it gets a lot more personal. The shock that swept through Real and the communities that knew him were telltale recognition that Jeremy was one of those rare sprits to which we would entrust our lives and pilot our souls. He was everything one would hope human beings would aspire to. A friend, a confidante, dabbling with humor at just the right time in a way that was always so civil, well-meaning and nicely balanced on the tightrope between here and there. You could see the priest, the minister and the rabbi just behind the steady and warm look of his eyes.

I spent several years talking to Jeremy in one-on-ones where we had a chance to compare notes, ponder the future and reflect on the twists and turns of life. Unlimited sky material. There were so many good conversations; now indelible memories, some destined to be forgotten as leaves scattered to the wind. But Jeremy, the echoes will positively reverberate on-and-on forever like a quiet prayer being passed on from one-to-another. Nothing can erase the past.

I was going to say these were meetings where we let down our guard and just spoke the truth, but the reality is that Jeremy didn't feign truth; he was always just pure and open and if he did have to step into delicate territory he did so with that significant smile, a friendly twinkle in his eye and a voice that was so accepting it still wraps us all.

Jeremy was calm even when the storm raged and it seemed that the center would no longer hold. I can remember how his voice would speed up to make a point and his pitch would climb just one note higher. You could see by his hands that he was bottling up the stress that never got in the way of friendliness and some higher order to consistently demonstrate respect for other humans.

I was fortunately sitting down when I heard that a dear friend and a dear colleague left us so suddenly. Ten minutes into the news I was starting to lose it (I had already worked through denial by nearly shouting at the bearer of the news that if this was some kind of joke it wasn't at all funny). Lose it; tears welling up, a face that is much too warm with a quaking fever, that bolt of emotion that you can't quite choke back down or swallow, your head expanding like a dry sponge drinking water for the first time, feeling limitless and un-tethered, horribly self-concious but uncaring, disconnected from the solid earth. I left the building for a long walk.

”Why?”

“Not Jeremy.”

“Your heart just doesn't give out at 35, especially a heart so wonderfully full of everything that is best about humanity.”

Prayers. His soul in transit.

“Is there anything I could have done?”

"Yeah, right, “Jeremy, I feel the world for you and I know it's not my place, but I want you to get in better shape because the world needs you."” –

“Oh no!” I suddenly realize, “that would have been just fine to say to Jeremy, not some people because it would delve too deeply into the personal space, but with Jeremy, pretense was just a waste of time. Speak your mind.”

“What was it about Jeremy -- he just wasn't destined to be an old man.”

“What a loss to the world.”

"Passover and Easter week, was there any significance? We always want a rhyme and reason."

The Puget Sound rippling peacefully on a beautiful spring day.

"Why wasn't this a day that Jeremy could experience?”

“It wasn't meant to be.”

Last Friday the 2nd of April I was working on a list that reminded me I needed to schedule some time to speak with my old friend, Jeremy about his insight. Something I could look forward to. An exciting and energized day. I remembered my recent and my last conversation with Jeremy in the Atrium where we touched base for a five minute catch-up and agreed that we needed to meet for a longer conversation. It wasn't meant to be.

Or was it? I've thought about you so many times, dear friend. You'll always be there in my mind. Long after the dust has settled. Through rainy days and long winters ahead. Even when it seems so quiet, remembering keeps so you so very much alive. A guiding force. Wisdom that flourished far in advance of your years. A truly good person. Everything that we should all aspire to be. Everything that's best about humanity. The world is a better place because of you. I miss you Jeremy. And its so wonderful, my friend: we all do.

--Ben Rotholtz

Jeremy's gift

All of us who knew Jeremy were given a wonderful gift.

He gave to us his incredibly kind and caring nature, his ability to find something humorous about whatever circumstance we were in at the time. Yes he was a superbly talented colleague, but that was just work and that's not what I remember most vividly about him. It was this very human and humane person, with seemingly boundless kindess, and sincere decency.

Of the many dimensions of this tragedy, the only one we have in our control to do something about is to not let this gift Jeremy gave us be wasted. We can keep him alive in our hearts and minds by talking about him, alot, and remembering the kind of person he was and how he treated us. We can keep him alive in our hearts and minds by trying to embody some of that enormous good will he gave to all of us in how we live our lives, and how we treat the people around us.

--Pete

What a difference

It's been a blessing for me to have had the opportunity to know such a positive and real person like Jeremy.
Your presence is already missed.
Q

On the Great Wall

It was an amazingly beautiful clear day in China … on the Great Wall. Jeremy, Ji, Rick, Rick’s wife, and I drove there on Saturday after business meetings on Friday.

We started with lunch … Jeremy (in a surprise move!) took pictures of the lunch.

Then Rick and Jeremy posed at the commencement of our journey.

Then we climbed up the Great Wall.

Although the Great Wall could be a ridiculous tourist trap, and most certainly would be over-the-top ridiculous in many countries, in China, even in 2004 after several years of unprecedented economic growth, it was really amazing and beautiful and still pristine ...

(except for a few “just-for-photo-op” camels).

The air was crisp. It was hard to breathe. We had to stop often along the way. It felt like we were on top of the world, and our thoughts drifted to what it must have been like centuries ago to try to overcome an army which had control of the Wall.

Jeremy, as usual, made an effort to connect with the person he knew the least (Rick’s wife). They did connect pretty well, which was amazing because Rick’s wife doesn’t speak English particularly well, and for all of Jeremy’s talents, I don’t think he spoke a lot of Mandarin.

Here we are heading back down ...

On the way back we bought a few things to take home for Erin and Owen & Henry. Ji helped us negotiate, which was a lot of fun. We got a little carried away, and we couldn’t resist buying little clay Buddhas that pee when you pour hot water on their head. Ji, in particular, thought it was the funniest thing he’d seen in a long time. We eventually had to run back to the cars because we were so cold, but we laughed the whole way back.

- Ian

The Apple Doesn't Fall...

...Far from the tree. I met Jeremy's family on a beautiful weekend last summer at Ian's in the San Juans. Erin quickly struck me as a really amazing girl. A picture of poise, maturity, kindness, and grace. With a certain calmness, but also an aura of being interested in everything and aware of everyone. On the ferry home, I was contemplating this, and it dawned on me -- this was the type of child that Jeremy and his wife would raise.

That legacy speaks louder than any words I can conjure. Everyone that Jeremy loved ought to feel proud to have been loved by Jeremy.

- Adam Selipsky