By now we've all heard of Steve Job's passing. He was a true business visionary, and I've come to really enjoy Apple products (typing this on a Mac) and think the world will be a lesser place without him.

I was having dinner last month in Baltimore at the Grand Prix with Dr. Mike Choti, my cancer surgeon, who met up with us gear-heads in Little Italy just a few blocks from his Johns Hopkins office. Jobs had just resigned from Apple the prior week and we got to talking about during dinner in our group. He said "Jobs has the same kind of cancer you have (Carcinoid), the difference is his is attached to his Pancreas and yours is attached to your Small Intestine, and both you had extensive liver involvement. I was able to operate and remove yours, but the Pancreas is an angry organ and doesn't like to be touched. By the way, I never told you this but you've beat all the statistical data, which says your cancer should have returned."

Jobs and I both had our surgeries about the same time (5 years ago) and he needed a liver transplant, I got by with a liver resection (60% removal). I'm good to go these days and he didn't make it. Obviously Jobs had FAR more money and fame than yours truly, but at the end of the day that doesn't really matter, does it? Life has some strange twists. Guess I'm needed for the Furniture Forum......

Thanks Steve Jobs, for all my electronic toys, my iMac, iPhone, and iPad and all the kid's iPods. You fought that cancer hard and hung in there to the end. Well done.

P.S. If you ever need a good cancer gut surgeon, go see Doc Choti at Hopkins. He's a world class cutter.