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Kay Whitmore, former CEO of Kodak and friend of the family, was one of the many guests at our wedding two years ago. As you may have heard in the media, he passed away yesterday at Rochester General Hospital from complications of leukemia. He had only been diagnosed four weeks ago.

Mr. Whitmore spent 36 years at Kodak, eventually succeeding Colby Chandler as CEO in 1990. He climbed the ladder of success, but was fired — by the Kodak board — three years later after the abrupt departure of Chief Financial Officer Christopher Steffen of whom he clashed with numerous amounts of times, over the pace of the company’s restructuring.

According to Bloomberg.com, “The board, in ousting Whitmore, cited the need for deeper and faster cost cuts than Whitmore was willing to make.” Whitmore was replaced by George Fisher of Motorola, Inc. to expediate the transition to digital media.

David L. Swift, Whitmore’s executive assistant at the time, sums up the decency of Whitemore in saying that “Everyone recognized the needs to cut costs… Kay could have caved in and rode along, but he believed in doing what was best for the company.”

And with that, I offer my condolences to the Whitmore family and rememberance for a decent soul.

Out of all the Super Nintendo games created, one game comes to mind that combined zany humor and unique gameplay: Zombies Ate My Neighbors (ZAMN).

Developed by Lucasarts, Zombies Ate My Neighbors was created exclusively for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. ZAMN featured top-down isometric, two-player cooperative gameplay, cartoon graphics and hilarious interactions between the player and the enemy monsters. In this case, the slew of monsters included the classic 50’s shlock movie monsters; Wolfmen, Zombies, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Childs Play Chucky-esque dolls and giant 40-foot babies. Who couldn’t love this kind of material? I surely can’t think of anyone, wait, okay, maybe one person but still.

The storyline, not one of ZAMN’s strong points, was akin to the plotlines in vintage 40’s and 50’s monster movies. In this case, your objective was to save your neighbors (among them; tourists, a teacher who graded you with an F- and the friendly neighborhood dog) from the monsters. To complete a level you basically had to save at least one of these neighbors (or all of them preferably) and a portal would magically appear allowing you to progress to the next level. In order to accomplish this feat you were equipped with an arsenal of weapons including Holy Water-filled squirt guns, exploding soda, bazookas, and other items. My weapon of choice was a potion that would transform your character into a purple monster hell-bent on destruction.

I can remember wasting hours with my brother as we teamed up to save the goofy neighbors. The levels would get progressively more difficult and we would end up in shouting matches over who wasn’t putting in enough effort. Ultimately, it would be resolved and we’d keep trying.

When ZAMN 2 came out, shortly after the first one, we were still engrossed in the sequel, although not as much as our first encounter with ZAMN. Which goes to show you that sequels are never as good as their originals, much like the atrocious Beastmaster 2 sequel.

Ray Bradbury’s infamous novel, Fahrenheit 451 tells the tale of a society where firemen start fires instead of extinguishing them and where people watch excessive amounts of television instead of opening a book.

Which got me thinking of how close this work of fiction resembles our society. Granted, our firefighters don’t start fires but the bulk of our society has re-directed their interests elsewhere. Instead of opening a book or enjoying the serenity of nature, people would much rather chat online or surf the Internet. Our world is one filled with fiber-optics, high-definition television and ergonomic computer chairs.

I often think what it would be like to travel back in time to an era without these modern convienances. To step into a time machine and step off onto the plains of a wide-open prarie or a dusty Western town, when people traveled by wagons and read by the light of the fire. Where sunsets spread across the skies like wildfire in perfect clarity, before pollution began to form.

Then I stop and think about the amount of disease that existed in that era — how the average lifespan was no more than 42 years of age. How most of those individuals that traveled by wagon led a grueling pace across the desert in search of a new home and in the process lost loved ones.

Yet, with anything there are tradeoffs. Advantages and disadvantages to every compromise.

Just noticed that this site was featured on Doug Bowman’s CSS Mosaic, a snapshot of 144 CSS web designs used in a presentation by Doug Bowman at Digital Design World, Seattle, in July 2004. The list was compiled from entries featured at the CSS Vault from the last 4 months.

I’m honored to have been featured among these great designs and thank my supporters and readers of this site, in addition to Paul Scrivens and Doug Bowman for featuring this site in their presentations.

It’s been a great year and I look forward to what the future will bring.