It's hard to say exactly how Bill has helped me. In my life I think of Bill as a friend and an educator but his contributions to my world are so much bigger than that. Bill has eyes for the arcane and unusual. He can read patents with an understanding much like others read music notation or math equations or as some read Ulysses & Beowulf. Most people just breeze past the patents or CTRL-W down the window after a while but Bill not only reads them through, he articulates explanations that help an industry understand what the hell it thinks it's doing. Because Bill has been doing that for a very long time, me and several thousand other people can confidently do what we do, knowing our assumptions are backstopped by Bill's outlines of complexities that are frankly rather hard to image.

I remember having dinner with Bill and at least a half dozen other people in San Jose and in New York and in Seattle and in Chicago and in Las Vegas and in some other places neither of us appear we would have expected we'd end up in but we did. I'd like to smoke a joint and hang out on a beach talking about something or another slightly above my head and learning a shit tonne while doing it. I'd like to have supper in one or more cities with six or more people and Bill in the future. I'd like to be sure Bill knows how much he means to me and how much I owe him. I understand some very special things because of him and because of that I live a rare and excellent lifestyle. I have watched an wonderful and interesting industry develop partially under and because of Bill's tutelage. That's noted by how many call him a mentor. Bill is a mentor, for me and the first-gens, and for most everyone in the generations who followed. Thank you brother. I hope to see you soon.