My grandfather is an amazing man.  He never ceases to amaze me, even at 88 years old he still remains the only person in my family (extended or otherwise) who is able to understand all manner of engineering or computational talk with me.  He is one of few role models in my life, and if I turned out to be just 1% like him, I would consider myself extremely lucky.  He's kind, generous, funny, knowledgeable, understanding, and immensely smart.  Many qualities of which people all over the world would be happy to have.

When you step back, and think about yourself, and what defining qualities of yourself come from which parent, and which grandparent gave your parent those defining qualities, you sometimes try and figure out what parts come from which family member, or line.  When I do that to myself, I see many, many things that come straight from my grandfather.

Kindness, intelligence, love for engineering and aircraft...  Even colour-blindness.  All of these qualities come from my grandfather.  In my colour-blind eyes, he is one of the worlds best men.

So when I was told that he had lung cancer, I felt as though a great injustice had befell upon him.  In no way, at no point in time, does this man deserve it.

Sometimes I wish I believed in religion.  Just so I can lift my hand, raise the middle finger, and tell someone to get fucked.