Goodbye to a Dear Friend

I learned today that a dear friend passed away. Hakki Ogelman was not just a colleague, he was a dear friend.  A world-renowned astrophysicist, he was responsible for my first poster presentation at a professional conference; an analysis of the time series data from a gamma-ray burst. That was way back in 1995. Hakki was in charge of the research group Compact Objects at Wisconsin (COW). Hakki suffered a debilitating stroke in the mid 1990's, but perservered. He lost a months-long battle to cancer on 4 September 2011. He passed quietly, for which I am grateful. Goodbye, old friend, I will miss you...