Today the members of Gideontech were confronted with some bad news: the wife of one of one of our longtime members posted to inform us that he had died on December 23, 2006. Brent Ross, 47, also known as AMD_Junk13, had been a member of the forums since August 2002, where he was well respected for his computer knowledge and his modding skills. His conversion of a Thermaltake Xaser II into an "upside down" case with an internal configuration similar to high end Lian Li cases was in many ways groundbreaking. He is survived by his wife and two children.
I have asked his wife if it would be alright to ask for donations to help them out, and here is the email I received in reply:
.: Donation's :.
If you would like a to help out his family please click the button below, if you can't use paypals please e-mail me at dave303@gmail.com and we can work things out.
.: Letter from AMD_Ju|\|k13 Wife :.
“Wow, this is one of the most amazing things I have heard from an online community. I fully appreciate your offer and think it would be a great idea, to be honest, funeral expenses are outrageous, and unfortunately, we didn’t have any life insurance policies, he was only 47 years old, and I am 31 so it was on of those things you think you have all the time in the world to get. I am on disability and currently taking online courses to get my IT degree and never fully realized just how much he took care of his family until now.
As for what happened...
I had went to a Christmas party on the 22nd figuring that I would take care of my gift exchanges with my friends and be able to have the entire weekend free for my family. Brent had been working on my car the entire day and came in about 8pm to get something to eat and start to do some stuff around
the house to neaten it up a bit. I had drank a bit to much at the party so I stayed at my friends house to sleep it off and came home about 7:30 on the morning of the 23rd. When I came in, I found Brent on the floor of the kitchen, the music on the computer still playing and things in the midst of being cleaned. Apparently during the middle of the night he had suffered a massive heart attack and according to the medical examiner, probably didn’t even know what hit him. The official cause of death was listed as Hypertensive Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease. Basically a combination of high blood pressure and high cholesterol had just taken a toll on his body. Unfortunately, we were unaware of any problems and if Brent was aware of feeling off he never mentioned it. He hated going to the
doctor and hated to admit when he was sick or let things slow him down.
I don’t know if any were aware, but he had joined our local volunteer fire department last year and was the Cub master for my sons Cub Scout Pack. He also had been in the Navy back in the early 80's. So at his funeral service he was given full honors from the fire department and the Navy. he was an
amazing man, and I hadn’t even fully realized the impact he had on people in person let alone online. We were part of a Wolfenstein Enemy Territory clan and on our forums there are 5 pages of farewells. GideonTech and our gaming forums were the 2 sites he talked of often and I remember many times of him showing me pictures of what people were working on or trying to talk me into some new and interesting mod or cooling design he had seen. From the amount of messages I have seen from this forum I clearly see why he was so involved with this community. If you dont know what Brent looked like here is a link to a picture of him and our children taken this past May at a Cub Scout day at a baseball game.
Thank you so much for your offer, it will be greatly appreciated.”
The Gaming Clan that Brent was part of has setup a an even in memory of AMD_Ju|\|k13. Click on the picture below for more information.
January 1, 2007
