In August of 2005 I got an email that would turn out to change everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was from a recruiter, who\u2019d found my resume online, asking if I was interested in talking to a small game company. \u00a0Nine months later began what would turn out to be over a decade of working with a remarkable group of people. \u00a0But that\u2019s a story some of you already know, and for those that don\u2019t it\u2019ll be a story for another time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t remember first meeting Alfred, but I do remember meeting his wife, Jodie and their newborn daughter when she was brought into the office for a first visit. \u00a0I had no idea in those early days that Dawnise and I would become so close to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alfred and I found working together to be fun and effective – his optimism and willingness to “just try it” being a great counter-balance to my skepticism and desire to understand \u201cthe whole journey\u201d before setting course. \u00a0I could tell you all the reasons it wouldn\u2019t work, and Alfred would start doing it anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We and our spouses found mutual interests outside work, and started spending evenings together for dinner and games. \u00a0Dawnise babysat their daughter while they were at hospital having their second, and again when they had their second son. \u00a0We started traditions – like the annual bacon party that started when Dawnise and Alfred mused over burgers made entirely of bacon, which lead to the purchase of a meat grinder, and to bacon burgers so good we tried for years to improve on them, or even reproduce the first years’ success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When my sister moved to Seattle, we dragged her with us to meet them, and it wasn\u2019t long before her then-boyfriend-then-fiance-now-husband got roped in as well. \u00a0Alfred likes to cook, and we love to eat – it was a perfect match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Dawnise and I moved to Luxembourg, we visited with them when we were back in Seattle. \u00a0And in the years after we moved back and downsized into an urban dwelling Alfred & Jodie hosted our annual ice cream social in their kid-friendly backyard in the Seattle suburbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were undoubtedly our closest friends in Seattle over those 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It could just be me, but I\u2019ve found making friends as an adult is tricky. \u00a0And making close friends\u2026 Well, tricky doesn\u2019t even start to cover it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Dawnise and I were readying to move to London we figured we’d visit while we were here, and then we\u2019d pick up where we left off when we were back in Seattle. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turns out we were half right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we were prepping for the move to London, Alfred and Jodie let us in on the secret that they\u2019d decided to leave Seattle and move back to the other side of the world. \u00a0Having come to Seattle from Australia, they\u2019d decided to move to New Zealand, and planned to leave Seattle before the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So a month or so back the family packed up and left for a multi-week \u201cfarewell to America\u201d tour. Dawnise joined them in Florida for a week at Disney World and came home just before the entire clan landed in the UK for a two week stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While they were in London we met up for dinner, hung out with the kids, and hosted them at our flat for American Thanksgiving. \u00a0(Side note: Dawnise\u00a0absolutely nailed<\/strong>\u00a0cooking for 10 people out of that shoe-box sized oven.). The next day we met for dinner at a pub near their Airbnb, went back to their place to chat, and say farewell. \u00a0The following day they were flying to Auckland via Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we left, and Dawnise and I walked back to the tube, we tried to focus on being excited for them, on their new adventure, and ignore the feelings of loss tugging at us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Make no mistake, we\u00a0are<\/strong>\u00a0excited for them. \u00a0And despite the utterly ridiculous time in transit, we\u2019ll go visit once they\u2019re settled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But being excited doesn\u2019t mean for a second we\u2019re going to miss them any less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In August of 2005 I got an email that would turn out to change everything. It was from a recruiter, who\u2019d found my resume online, asking if I was interested in talking to a small game company. \u00a0Nine months later began what would turn out to be over a decade of working with a remarkable … Continue reading “Incalculably lucky”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-london-calling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}