Ode To Ernie

I will miss you my constant. You have been my rock at MORI since I started. You have been a constant in my life and in my career. When everyone else left, you stayed. Even through all the puny not-even-cost-of-living wage increases. You were something I could always count on.

I will miss you my teacher. You have taught me so much. I always looked forward to Treasury and DHS projects over all else. I learned so much from them. You understood me. You finally learned my language when I have trouble putting things into words. You could explain things to me. Creating SVOMS with you was one of the most rewarding and educational experiences of my life. I gained so much knowledge and experience. Granted I did always want to tell you how much of a jerk you sometimes were, in the end SVOMS turned out to rock. Seriously, you came up with a sexy, rockin system. That’s your baby. You taught me and showed me how to create pure sexiness in PHP. You were always there when I needed algorithm, syntax, logic, personal, political, or any help.

I will miss you my leader. You are my buffer for upper management. You could talk to Masoud and tell him what crazy ideas were and what and how things should work. You showed me the way through everything. You changed my views about organized religion. You helped me become the strong liberal that I am today. You always have a come back to conservative close minded arguments. You showed me the way so much. You changed my life.

I will miss you my friend. Work will not be work without you. I like how MORI is. We are more than just coworkers. We are the people who we spend the most time with. You were my lunch buddy, you were my brother, you were my best friend. We would vent to each other about politics, work, our personal lives, everything. You shared your life with me. We shared jokes and our liberal facetiousness. You are my friend.

What I Will Never Forget:
Ernie 101
Your parlor tricks
The “bottom line” and “like” counters
Christmas lights in our cubes
Bill Brafsky
“America, eatin my lunch from a single bowl”
“Die in a fire”
The way you hate Comic Sans
“Ou, traffic jam, got more cars than a beach got sand” “heh, suck it up”
“So I heard on Blast The Right…”
Zoolander quotes
Milkshake
The way you criticized my FM tuner
Love of the Mac
Hot Pockets!
Lunch hour vents
CMMI
Funny test data
Liberal debates
Bushisms
3A
The bears

I will miss you so much Ernie.