Dave is probably the smartest person I know. He’s crazy smart. I will wonder something random out loud (“I wonder how they make a touch screen?”) and he’ll just know.

He’s also the funniest person I know, and as it turns out, he happens to be one of the finest writers I’ve ever read. (My opinion.) This is why, for years, I encouraged him to quit his job as an engineer to write full-time—a notion that he laughed off at first.

He was pretty good at his job, and it paid him well. He had job security in a time when no one’s jobs were very secure. But the career he felt obligated to was destroying him. It had changed him. Dave is a chameleon, a champion at imitating others to blend in. Assuming roles has how he has managed to fit in socially his whole life. As an engineer working for a large corporation, he was surrounded by aggressive, cynical people, and to assimilate he morphed into what I would call, “Business Man”. Business Man had a low, punchy voice (with what I believe was a hint of a New York Italian accent—hilarious, by the way, since we’re from Illinois).