In memoriam to Barbera Loftus.

My mother-in-law ( who was more like MOM to me) passed away yesterday (5-23-04) at the age of 72.
It was cancer.It has been a gruelling 2 months on a roller coaster, but she is at peace now.
Why post this here?

Because I feel she was responsible for a lot of things I did. To tell a story:

A while back, Dr Ambient and I were going over what name we should call our company we wanted to form.
Dr Ambient and I go way back with the Atari-MIDI list. He created a unique program called AEX which I helped beta test and made suggestions.

We wanted it to have something to do with algorithmic music, as that was what we were into.
Our first idea was to create loops made with soundfonts from algorithmically created material from programs such as Tunesmith, Ludwig, Music Mouse, ect. We actually worked for several months on this, and turned out some good SF2's ( which we might make available).

So the names we came up with were: Algorithmic Research, Algotunes, and some other ones.
My Mother-in-law was visiting and told I her about our delema. She suggested "AlgoMusic".
That seemed like a simple name that represented what we wanted in a company.
I told the DR, and he liked the name so much that he created the web site and started to put the Logo on our beta's we were working on. The name stuck.

Then the M42 Nebula was about to be released and I was working on the manual.
Since my Mother-in-law used to be a technical writing editor , she offered her services for grammer and correct english. She helped shape the manual into a much better form ( even though she did not understand all the terms). For that I am eternally greatful.

She also re-sparked my interest in Astronomy by getting me a small refractor for a christmas present.
While not the greatest scope, it inspired me to get an even better scope, and I still treasure the smaller one.

She also always believed in me, and wanted me to succeed in whatever I did.
I hope everyone here has someone that does that!

Also: due to my vertigo condition, she always drove me around to all my DR appointments
We always had lunch together afterwards at a one dollar item place. I got to know her better as a result as well. More treasured times.

So...her tribute is in our company "AlgoMusic" which she helped to name, in which I am forever grateful.

TC