One of my fondest memories of Gary (although I have plenty) was hanging out with him one night in Amsterdam. He had already been to a (ahem) "coffee shop," and I was three sheets to the wind myself... We ended up staying up until about 4:00 AM chatting about code and design and how he approached writing code much like I approached my design work.

He loved saying, "I need to go write..." which, to Gary, meant sitting down with his device and writing C -- straight out of his head, with no preparation or planning.

That night, after 4:00 AM, he ended up coding what became a multi-user sharing application in which several N900 users could collaborate by sketching notes on their device, at the same time seeing everyone's notes appear on a projection screen... He didn't quite finish the app by 9:00 AM the next morning (when a bunch of us had to meet for a Nokia brainstorming session), but he was so excited to show me what he had done since we said goodnight the previous evening/morning.

He finished the app by 4:00 PM that day... And it worked.

Gary was a good friend. I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to spend several hours on several different occasions just being friends with him... No Maemo/MeeGo, no agenda, just hanging.

The photos linked below begin in Berlin and end in Dublin. The third image is of Gary talking about the app that he had developed after he and I chatted that night.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timsamoff/2885737846/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timsamoff/2884901753/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timsamoff/4017714860/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timsamoff/4017706034/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timsamoff/4016944839/

I will miss Gary's unscheduled IMs at ungodly hours.

TIm