Red dirt, Bob and me

Last year this time, Spirit landed on Mars and I dropped an e-note to Bob, my mentor back when, when I was just a kid and he took nerdy high-school-aged Sal under his wing while I did a school-year "visiting student" gig and then a full-time summer internship at NASA/Ames, working on experiments for the early Mars Viking project.

Yo, Bob -- or something like that, I said, after Spirit was rolling around on the red dirt of Mars -- "Whaddya think of that!"

The e-mail went unanswered, which was unlike him, and, later, I surfed the Web and found that Bob had died, on Jan. 7, 2004, at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. I hoped then and continue to hope that he knew that Spirit had landed.

Bob's one of the reasons I have "keep in touch with people" on my list of things to do this year. Gary Pinkston's another. I've lost people I cared about. I hope they knew that while they were still kicking.

Keep in touch with those you care about. Did someone make a difference in your life? Get in touch. Keep in touch. Let them know.