James D. Stallardblog

A few years ago, I had a friend called Jim Parker. Kelly and I called him Jimmy and sometimes Parker-dude, he was our best friend and we miss him a lot now he's gone.

Jimmy didn’t die, we have mutual friends and one of them would have told us. Jimmy simply walked out of our house late one early-May night in 2003 and never returned. Our last conversation as we waved him off into the night was about going to the movies the following weekend. It was my shout for the tickets. We never heard from him again.

The last time he replied to one of my email was at the end of April that year, when we were chatting about firewalls. Jim was always the man on firewalls and he had been testing mine with nmap. After that conversation fizzled out, I sent him a couple more notes and finally in early July I wrote a snot-mail along the lines of "where the bloody hell are you?". Nothing, nada, silence. I know he got my email because he owns the domain his email server sits on.

At the end of November 2004, I wrote a long email apologising unreservedly for whatever I might have done in a last ditch effort to get in touch. It remains unanswered and to this day I have no idea what Kelly or I might have done to warrant the severing of all ties. I have approached several of our mutual friends, but with only one exception, they blank my efforts to contact him. I must have done something truly horrific - but I honestly have no idea what.

I first met Jimmy in 1991, when we both lived in Guernsey. We quickly became good friends and spent many nights driving round the island chatting and smoking, with another chap called Paul. When he bust up with Joanne, his girlfriend of the time, we stayed up all night chatting and smoking. We smoked and chatted a lot for the next 7 years and when he quit being a mechanic (with about the best resignation letter I have ever read), I gave him his first paid IT work and later got him a job with one of my clients supporting and expanding their IT systems.

In 1998 I got a job at ICL in the UK and Kelly and I moved away from the island. Jimmy stayed put and we travelled back to the island several times that year to visit. In 1999, I finally convinced him of the better working life available on the mainland and lined him up with three interviews at ICL. They were so impressed that all three offered him a job on the day. Jimmy elected to join the IT support team and was a great success. For the first few months Jimmy lived with us and used my car. He paid only enough in board to cover his food, and Kelly did all his washing and ironing and fed him every night. After a while, he moved into the neighbour's caravan and then onto a shared house on the outskirts of Reading.

Once, in 1999, I tried to sort out a relationship problem with a girl he had been seeing called Katie. Jimmy loved Katie and I had a really hard time watching the relationship go south as I would have done anything to help him. However, despite my best attempts to play mediator and help, I made a total bloody hash of it and he went ballistic at both of us for talking about him "behind his back". I said sorry a hundred times over and never consciously meddled in his life again. I still feel vaguely guilty that I might have been the eventual cause of the break up.

Between 1999 and 2003 Jimmy came to our house every few days and we did "Beer and Twiglets", or went to the movies. Every time he changed jobs I wrote him a reference (I still have them) and when we got married in June 2000 Jimmy was my best man. He finished off his speech with the words "...and I'm spent" from the first Austin Powers movie. We laughed ourselves silly!

I still think about Jimmy at least 3 times a week and wonder what he's up to. The loss of the closest proper friendship I ever had is still horrible years later and actually worse than if he'd died. At least we could visit a grave. I'm writing this now, at 2am because I can’t sleep again for reminiscing on our Beer and Twiglets nights and I'm hoping that writing this will help get it out of my system.

Jimmy, if you're out there; You could knock on the door tonight and we would welcome you in. I consider you one of very few true friends that I have had the privilege to know and no matter what the circumstances, I would come and help if called, any time, anywhere, without hesitation or recrimination.

I wish you well, and wish you would come back. Kelly and I miss you terribly.

Take care buddy.

This week has been a real stormer.

I had so many email about my "Worst Week Ever" entry that it really put this weeks goodies into sharp contrast.

BT have almost delivered the last of the comms, and with the installation of the Cisco CallManagers, we made our first proper VoIP call on the new infrastructure. The Network Cabling is in and operational, (very well done to Lyndsey, Trevor, Andy and Team) and the cabling snag list got reduced by 90% in under 6 working days (IBM and PTC can really motor!). The Server room is ready to take servers and next week the servers arrive and the firewalls and proxy get installed. We might even get the internet connection up and running. Oh, and I worked out how to put the security cameras and card access system on the network for Facilities. This has been one of those weeks when a whole lot came together at once and the bosses are almost singing!

What's more, next week is already shaping up to be another stunner, bring it on!

On a personal note, this week has also been the first time in 5 months when I have been completely pain and pill free (since Wednesday). The painkillers and diazepam (muscle relaxant) are addictive and I chose to come off everything cold turkey. It's not a great idea to do this as the cold tukey method is nasty, but it has become a point of personal pride to get off the pills as soon as my back allowed.

I'm now into day 3 of no painkillers and although it feels like i'm carrying a fat guy around all the time, I will be clear of the drug after-effects in less than 10 days and with luck completely back my old, pre-backpain self.

For the first time in a long time it looks like the project will complete on time and on budget and although the next few weeks will be hairy, I know I'll be able to look back on the whole thing as one of the crowning achievements of my career to date.