Now that I think of it, let's stick with Jeff for a while.

I learned a lot of things from Jeff, and I really miss him.

He taught me that:

Life is much easier if you just pay your taxes and move on, without complaining about it.

If somebody does something they don't want you to know about because they think you're going to be upset, and then they lie to you about it, they should spend some time imagining how upset you're going to be when you find out they lied. Then they'll realize it's better to just tell you the truth.

Once you get married, you have nowhere to go.

Once a woman touches garbage, it's all over.

One of the reasons I really admired Jeff is that you always knew exactly how he was feeling. If he was in a good mood, you knew it. If he was in a bad mood, you knew that, too. Jeff never sugarcoated anything. He was always straight with you and honest. And he was hilarious.

Once, when Jeff was in the middle of a negotiation with a customer over the telephone, he got so upset that he opened the door to his office, walked over to the filing cabinets near my desk and kicked one of them. He left a mark, but said he was disappointed that he hadn't managed to dent the cabinet.

Unfortunately, Jeff retired about a year after I left for graduate school. Though, I imagine he did that because he wanted to, just like everything else he did in his life.