Most of us on AR are VERY pleased when we get 20, 30, 65 comments on a post. The lady to the left, regularly received upwards of 600 comments every time she hit "post."
For several years, my morning (noon and night) ritual was to check out CR and Tanta at Calculated Risk.
Yesterday, Doris "Tanta" Dungey passed away from Ovarian Cancer at the age of 47 - she fought the battle for almost 2 years. This is from her post on "Mortgage Pig!"
"I suppose this requires some explanation. Many years and versions of Excel ago, I was in some interminable conference call--I believe we were discussing general ledger interface mapping for HUD-1 line items regarding undisbursed escrow items on the FHA 203(k) in the servicing system upload, or perhaps we were watching paint dry--when I experienced one of those evolutionary breakthroughs for which the human race is justly famous. I stopped doodling on my legal pad and started defacing my spreadsheet. In a word, Excel Art was born.
An entire running gag developed, centered on the character of Mortgage Pig and his Adventures. The Pig you see above is a newer version; the old Pig didn't wear lipstick (old pig was developed before we started selling loans to Wall Street). You can, of course, print these images, but outside of the context of viewing them in Excel, they simply become primitive, childlike doodles of no particular resonance. Viewing them as a spreadsheet, on the other hand, makes them profoundly amusing. Really. There's just nothing like sending someone a file named "GL Error Recon 071597" and having a pig pop up when the workbook is opened for a knee-slapping good time. If you're a hopeless Nerd with no particular aesthetic sensibilities."
She will be missed.
Thanks for passing this along, Eleanor. Until 3 minutes ago (prior to reading your post) I'd never heard of Tanta. Reading your lovely tribute & farewell, I not only met her, I was given a glorious sense of her. And you're right...she will be missed, even by those of us who never met her! She was too young to have left so soon!!!!