(no subject)

A friend of mine has died suddenly in a car wreck, and I'm at a total loss as to what to think about it.

Her name was Karen Staton, and I met her through the RPGA in Austin, TX. In fact, it was her and her b/f at the time that introduced me to the RPGA, and we formed a club together in Austin. She moved to Seattle before me, and again provided introduction to the local RPGA scene. She has since moved again to the mid-west, but I was looking forward to seeing her at GenCon Indy. In fact, I have an e-mail from her from May 5th, which was the last time I heard from her.

She was so young, and her death was so random. May she rest in peace.

(no subject)

The more I think about it, the more sad it becomes. I guess I always think of friends who move away as 'out there somewhere', and to realize that I will never see her again and that her life was cut short at such a young age is just terribly sad.

Karen was most definitely a 'gaming buddy', and our friendship didn't extend much beyond the hobby. Still, we've kept in touch over the years and I always enjoyed running into her at conventions. I think the last time I saw her was at Winter Fantasy in January 2003, where she usually helps with running the RPGA HQ.

She used to live in Puyallup, and with her work schedule she was usually pretty busy so we didn't visit all that much. We did manage to play a whole lot of Virtual Seattle for a few months when we were both trying to qualify for a campaign tournament back in 2002.

She was a gamer geek, a mechanical engineer, a fellow Texas-Ex, and a friend. She will be missed.