Another Icon Passes On...
It was a bleak evening during winter quarter '98 in Davis. I was simply not understanding the concepts of creating shear and moment diagrams in my mechanics of materials course. As was typical of that era, I was over at my girl's apartment trying to figure it out on her kitchen table. Aware of my suffering, she suggested that we flip on the TV for 30 minutes and check out a show that she had grown enamored of during the holiday break."This guy is awesome," she said. The channel was Discovery, and the show was called "The Crocodile Hunter." Steve Irwin has been such an inspiration to me through the years. At face value, his show was great for comic relief because his technique for capturing animals bordered on the humorously insane. But on a deeper level, I viewed him as a person who had a deep and sincere love for his work and was excellent at what he did. I found this inspirational because I wanted so badly to find some sort of enjoyment within the realm of civil engineering, which at that point in my student career was failing to materialize. Shear diagrams and beam deflection were simply not sexy to me.
In the years since then, I was never a constant viewer of his show. But if I caught it by chance I would watch and I did see his breakthrough feature film "Collision Course" with Rheo in Bellevue. Simply put, I appreciated they guy for who he was.
And now he's gone.
Nonetheless, I hope the legacy he leaves behind in the form of the Crocodile Hunter series and his family run zoo in Australia continue to inspire others to find enjoyment in their careers, whatever they may be.
You're all right, mate. Rest in peace.
posted by anthony fuego @ 5:51 PM
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