Derek

[Ellen Lebelle]

Hello all, I realized rather late that not everyone at STC France is a facebook friend or on Twitter. Not all of you are on this Ning forum, so I hope this makes its way on to our main site.
Derek Torres was a member of STC France. He was also member of STC Chicago, and if he was a member of any other chapter, please excuse me for not knowing to mention it. Many of us here in Europe might remember him from the Region 2 conference in London a few years ago, back in the days when we still had regions. He and co-author Stuart Mudie (also a member here in France) gave us a preview of Windows Vista. It was a session well-worth attending, for me at least, since I decided then and there to skip moving on to Vista.
Then, he moved to Paris and became more involved in our local events. I saw him last March at our Conference, where he presented the results of his survey on the wiki as a viable collaborative tool. It was right after the birth of his daughter and he was giddy with fatigue.
Since then, I followed him via facebook and Twitter as he battled the Paris transport system on his way to work in the suburbs.
He was so experienced, a published author, and all, I didn't realize he was so young (33, Carrie told me) when he died at the end of October from complications due to the H1N1 flu. Just a couple of months younger than my eldest!
I've just come home from his funeral at Père Lachaise. Some of you have been in touch with me in the last few days and have asked if there was anything we could do to help his wife, Céline. Stuart Mudie, Derek's co-author and very close friend, is the person to be in touch with. I will leave it up to him to publish his e-mail address in a comment or something, but if you send me a request for information, I'll forward it to him.

[Ellen Lebelle]

Derek had just bought a car and had not even taken delivery of it before all this happened. His wife and children are moving to the States in mid-December and she wants to sell it, of course:
"it is a brand new CRV from honda (the car is still at the garage, I haven't picked it yet)
it has many features including a GPS, dvd player for the kids in the back, of course it is an automatic car (derek did not know how to drive a stick shift). it have a 5 years warranty.
the car is grey. we paid 28 000 euros for the car. I'm ready to sell it 25000."

Just contact me if you or someone you know would be interested.
Ellen