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senoritafishWe got an email that Diego, a fellow biologist, passed away this morning. He'd been fighting stomach cancer for much of the past year.
I can't say I knew him all that well. He had been a fixture here since I started, and actually worked on the unit I presently work on now. His wife Marina worked here too, until she got a job at another government agency - the City of Los Angeles. She was really nice.
Diego pissed some of us off, in that he hated dBASE, the program all of our databases were in at the time, and transferred them all to Lotus, which was a major pain after he left. He was always the devil's advocate in any project he worked on - "Why are we doing this? We're not professional fishermen - leave it to them!" (Yes, Diego, but there is such a thing as fishery independent data.) When one of the biologists tried to round up donations to sponsor the care of a wolf at wolf sanctuary, he poo-pooed it, saying that, once gotten, the money would be used to buy a round at the local bar.
He did have a sarcastic sense of humor. Often, when he made trips home to Argentina or to Mexico, he would often ask if we had any Spanish language posters for the shark-tagging program to distribute while he was there (not that any of the sharks we tagged got as far south as Argentina, but there was always a chance). After he left the Marine Region, he ran the Fishing In the City program, which taught inner-city groups of kids to fish and had activitites on Free-Fishing Days, until its funding was cut last year and it was massively scaled back. I heard him complain to Tom, a cubicle neighbor, that he no longer had a job.
I believe he had been here in the office as recently as a couple of weeks ago. I remember hearing his voice. Ironically, there was a meeting for union members last week, for which Diego had served as a representative. They wanted to give him a pen for his service.
I didn't really know him that well. I called John and asked if he remembered him. "Yeah, he was kind of a dick, wasn't he?" Maybe he was. But I still feel depressed.
I can't say I knew him all that well. He had been a fixture here since I started, and actually worked on the unit I presently work on now. His wife Marina worked here too, until she got a job at another government agency - the City of Los Angeles. She was really nice.
Diego pissed some of us off, in that he hated dBASE, the program all of our databases were in at the time, and transferred them all to Lotus, which was a major pain after he left. He was always the devil's advocate in any project he worked on - "Why are we doing this? We're not professional fishermen - leave it to them!" (Yes, Diego, but there is such a thing as fishery independent data.) When one of the biologists tried to round up donations to sponsor the care of a wolf at wolf sanctuary, he poo-pooed it, saying that, once gotten, the money would be used to buy a round at the local bar.
He did have a sarcastic sense of humor. Often, when he made trips home to Argentina or to Mexico, he would often ask if we had any Spanish language posters for the shark-tagging program to distribute while he was there (not that any of the sharks we tagged got as far south as Argentina, but there was always a chance). After he left the Marine Region, he ran the Fishing In the City program, which taught inner-city groups of kids to fish and had activitites on Free-Fishing Days, until its funding was cut last year and it was massively scaled back. I heard him complain to Tom, a cubicle neighbor, that he no longer had a job.
I believe he had been here in the office as recently as a couple of weeks ago. I remember hearing his voice. Ironically, there was a meeting for union members last week, for which Diego had served as a representative. They wanted to give him a pen for his service.
I didn't really know him that well. I called John and asked if he remembered him. "Yeah, he was kind of a dick, wasn't he?" Maybe he was. But I still feel depressed.
