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Aaron Dunlap died in his home recently. He was 58 years old. Heart issues, it seems.

Monte

Monte;

Thanks for sharing. Very sad news.

I'm sorry about that. I remember him fondly. I remember somebody asked him once why he did it, and he said: "I always wanted to fight a battle against impossible odds." I loved the attitude.

MonteQuest wrote:Aaron Dunlap died in his home recently. He was 58 years old. Heart issues, it seems.

Monte

Unfortunate and untimely. Did he ever get his kids situation figured out, I seem to recall him needing to stop participating here because of custody issues or something.

Oh Rats! Aaron was one of the people who made me feel welcome here way back in April 2005 when I signed up instead of lurking unable to keep my opinions to myself.

The fact that his ex made it a condition of visitation that he had to leave PO.com was one of the things that really ticked me off about the way custody is handled by the US courts. Best interest of the child is only a factor in a handful of states, in most places it is presumed without question that the mother is the necessary parent with no nuance at all applied. Every relationship and family is different, there is no one size fits all solution and the meat grinder of the American custody court system should be evidence enough to prove that to everyone's satisfaction.

I had been quietly hoping that as his kids moved into adulthood he might return but this sad news makes that impossible. I know it is natural that the older I get the more friends and acquaintances will have passed on but it is still a grieving process. One of the few times in my life I saw my father in tears was when he was 62 and his best friend died of a sudden heart attack. Aaron was a fine person and I am sure those he was close to shall miss him terribly.

RIP

AdamB wrote:

MonteQuest wrote:Aaron Dunlap died in his home recently. He was 58 years old. Heart issues, it seems.

Monte

Unfortunate and untimely. Did he ever get his kids situation figured out, I seem to recall him needing to stop participating here because of custody issues or something.

No, he was never able to get visitation.

MonteQuest wrote:

AdamB wrote:

MonteQuest wrote:Aaron Dunlap died in his home recently. He was 58 years old. Heart issues, it seems.

Monte

Unfortunate and untimely. Did he ever get his kids situation figured out, I seem to recall him needing to stop participating here because of custody issues or something.

No, he was never able to get visitation.

Well that just absolutely sucks. Back when this place started my kids were young and are now all grown, I can't imagine what it would have felt like to have them taken away.

The fact that his ex made it a condition of visitation that he had to leave PO.com was one of the things that really ticked me off about the way custody is handled by the US courts.

I didn't know that! That sucks really badly. I know divorces can get pretty messy and unpleasant, but that's high up on my list of terrible exes.

It's always irritated me how religions get a free pass, politics gets almost a free pass, while other sincerely held beliefs are stuff that people feel quite happy to ignore and blackmail you about. When I say I'm vegetarian, nobody dares object because they assume it's a religious issue. When I say I don't fly, almost everybody feels free to tell me I'm weird and to stop being silly. I wish we lived in a world where you could say: "Hey, this is a major thing for me and it hurts nobody," and people would respect it. I bet Aaron's ex would not have dared to tell him to stop going to his church as condition of visitation, if Aaron was the church type, and no matter how much his ex hated his church.

I remember hearing Aaron on Teamspeak many years ago. RIP.

I remember Aaron.

He stepped in and fixed one of my first posts for me when I first started posting here.

Then he explained to me the correct way to put links in posts.

He was nice about it too.



May he rest in peace.

Wow. This really hit me.

Aaron summed up my opinion of the future with the line:
Don't fear the peak, fear the people.

Aaron gave me a hard time when CNN wanted to come interview me for their "crazy PO prepper of the week" episode, he called me a chicken, LOL

At one point there were some loose plans to put together a PO magazine, the dead tree kind. Aaron thought he had a backer interested. Needless to say it fell through. We were pretty excited at the time.

I have good memories of our admittedly limited interactions, which is about the best one can hope for
.

Tanada wrote:Oh Rats! Aaron was one of the people who made me feel welcome here way back in April 2005 when I signed up instead of lurking unable to keep my opinions to myself.

The fact that his ex made it a condition of visitation that he had to leave PO.com was one of the things that really ticked me off about the way custody is handled by the US courts. Best interest of the child is only a factor in a handful of states, in most places it is presumed without question that the mother is the necessary parent with no nuance at all applied. Every relationship and family is different, there is no one size fits all solution and the meat grinder of the American custody court system should be evidence enough to prove that to everyone's satisfaction.

I had been quietly hoping that as his kids moved into adulthood he might return but this sad news makes that impossible. I know it is natural that the older I get the more friends and acquaintances will have passed on but it is still a grieving process. One of the few times in my life I saw my father in tears was when he was 62 and his best friend died of a sudden heart attack. Aaron was a fine person and I am sure those he was close to shall miss him terribly.

I dare say, among straight men, that is the best argument for gay rights, ever! I use that same argument from time to time as well. Best interest of the child is about our futures. Best interest of the child is about developing whole people. Picking one parent automatically without reference to who they really are is actively perpetuating everything that is actually wrong with society. It actively backs "the way we've always done it" to the exclusion of taking a look and going with the best choice. It is lazy and, very often, unreasonable. I don't think, in the information age, that we have an excuse for being that lazy anymore. We should be able to organize what was always too difficult before, such that we automatically defaulted to giving the mother custody and the father a monthly bill. Maybe, usually, that is right, but justice doesn't have a preference, usually. Indifference, in this case, is a better policy.

Well that is very sad and kind of shocking. He was a great, level-headed admin.

BAS
Patience
Aaron

RIP

I'm sure there are others who have passed on.

I miss the old PO.com

I miss Heineken, Pops, Ludi, PenultimateManStanding, PeakOiler, Montequest, Patience ( we used to seed swap ) and many others from pre-2010. There were some really good conversations in those days...

So many have moved on long ago. Like me. I used to have more posts but that got messed up along the way and I had to make a new account.

Good luck to all of you. SpringCreek.

I believe Patience also passed away. Cancer IIRC.

springcreekfarmer wrote:I miss the old PO.com

Yup. Those were indeed the days.

I also wonder if Cog died? He disappeared about the time the pandemic set in.

I miss Heineken, Pops, Ludi, PenultimateManStanding, PeakOiler, Montequest, Patience ( we used to seed swap ) and many others from pre-2010. There were some really good conversations in those days...

Me too. Pops seems to be still around. I remember Monte, of course, and PenultimateManStanding. Mr Bill I also miss.

What happened? I left PO.com when I joined the local Transition Town initiative, and I only came back recently to check.

Cog left at about the same instand as Dohboi. Doboi had announced his disgust with the site and said he would leave whe he reached some number of posts, which he did.

Cog by contrast had previously noted he did not admire folks making big swan song speech and if he would uo he would just quietly go.

He did log jn on the site occasionally for a while. I don' t know the last he logged in, I have not checked I a long time. I miss Cog. He co u ld e cantankerous but went he put his mind to it he was a very good writer and clear thinker.

Newfie wrote:I miss Cog. He co u ld e cantankerous but went he put his mind to it he was a very good writer and clear thinker.

où sont les neiges d'anten?


Where are the snows of yesteryear?

Cheers!