Jeff Medkeff 1968-2008

One of Aard's regulars, Jeff the Blue Collar Astronomer, died yesterday. He was diagnosed out of the blue with spontaneous ("cryptogenic") liver cancer in early June. Jeff was 39. I learned the sad news from Wikipedia contributor Kwix this morning. Derek of Skepticality confirmed it on the JREF forum: "Jeff started to have some internal bleeding a couple days ago and was taken to the hospital. He died last night while sleeping."

I met Jeff at The Amazing Meeting 5.5 in Fort Lauderdale in January. We became friends and I read his blog within hours of each posting. He was a programmer, an astronomer, a pro-bono science educator, a hard-nosed skeptic and an atheist. This random blow against a friendly and generous guy is a typical example of the non-plannedness of things.

I'm only three years younger than Jeff. His passing reminds me to live as if I had little time.

Update 8 August: Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine has accepted a joint book review of Jeff's and mine for publication, on Bond & Hempsell's A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels Impact Event. Jeff and I worked on the review immediately before he fell ill.

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We had the craziest poker game last night. We play a $1/$2 pot limit hold em game. Not really a big money game, and usually the pots get bigger toward the end of the night as people loosen up, try to push people around with a big stack, or try to recoup their losses.
Jeff Medkeff died of liver cancer in August 2008. This year, the Atlantic Area Skeptics will hold the annual Star Party event in his honor, and with the intention of raising money for cancer research.
The guys have decided, for the time being at least, to change the format of our weekly game. Instead of a cash game, they want to have a series of single table tournaments for $20 each. They figure we can do 3 a week, that way no one can lose more than $60 and it will attract more people.

I knew Jeff when he was a teenager in Ohio - and ran across him from time to time on the Web.

A very smart and talented guy - died way too young.

By Dave Gill (not verified) on 04 Aug 2008 #permalink

I hate cancer. It has been the cause of every death in my extended family during my own life span. Most have been fairly old, but my stepmother died far too young from breast cancer. It is so frustratingly horrible when people are struck down far too soon.

My heartfelt condolences.