James Kim, a Father and a Hero
I don't know what it is, but, even after all these years, I feel a sense of pride when I see an Asian face in a prominent position in the media.
I was proud, then, to see James Kim's smiling alongside his many pieces on CNET's site, explaining and reviewing digital music products, making them understandable to geeks and non-geeks alike. He was a senior editor at CNET, specializing in reviews of mp.3 players. He also appeared on the site's online show, Crave, talking gadgets in an unassuming style. He had an easy laugh, and got others to laugh with him.
So it was a disturbing piece of news to hear, in late November, that he and his family were missing in the wintry woods of southern Oregon, where theyd gone on a Thanksgiving trip from their home in San Francisco.
James, 35, his wife Kati, 30, and their two daughters, four year-old Penelope and seven month-old Sabine, came from San Franciscofrom my own neighborhood, in fact: Noe Valley, where James and Kati owned an an apothecary shop. They also had a small clothing store in the Haight-Ashbury, and James worked full-time at CNET. This was a handsome, happy family, full of life and future.
And then they got lost in the Oregon wilderness. For agonizing days, there was no word of the family, which had traveled north in a station wagon. On December 4, a helicopter pilot spotted Kati and the girls, and they were rescued. We then learned that James had set off, in the snow and through unknown...