What if someone died?

[habbywall]

what if one of us like died?
all this talk of death has got me wondering, how would we find out one of us died?
like would family members come on here and post it or what?
what would you want us to do if you died?

[swarbrim]

Damn you habbywall! I looked at this and thought it was by James.

I HOPE my parents would post something breif, but those of us who live near other people, im sure they would say something. Like if I died then my parents would tell Amanda (eventually) and she would post here.

Mike

[uni57]

I was about to say that many of us know each other "in real life." For example, I am in the New York Unicycle Club. If I died, I'm sure that David Stone would pass along the sad news.

But...

Then I started thinking -- how would he find out? I think he has my email address and my cell phone number. He lives in Brooklyn and I live in New Jersey. Maybe a fellow New Jersey club member, say Dave Bagley, would have a better chance of finding out. No, he has my email address and maybe my cell phone number. I won't be around to charge my cell phone. And my bereaved family probably won't think to do it (and where did the dead guy put the charger anyway?). Dead cell phone. Nobody checking my email. Especially my email, which is stored in an encrypted partition (by the time they noticed that I assumed room temperature, the partition would have timed-out and dismounted). So, nobody's going to be answering my phone or getting or sending any of my email. Would they contact everybody in my PDA address book? Sorry, access denied. That's encrypted too.

You've hit upon a larger problem -- that of loosely connected friends. Even real-life friends who connect via "personal and unreliable methods" (email and personal cell phone). Married people fare better, if they give out their actual home phone number instead of a personal cell phone number. Then you can call the house and the surviving (or non-hospitalized) spouse can answer the phone.

My network of non-unicyclist friends is older and therefore more solidly and traditionally connected. Some work in the same office and would therefore find out. And they would tell others. News would spread. Also, many of these (older) friends know more about me. They would know how to contact my parents or my brother or they would know my home address.

I doubt many of us give out alternate (emergency) contact info as a matter of course. I certainly don't. I often give out multiple forms of contact -- just in case -- but I don't include a "call this number if you suspect I'm dead."

So... short answer to your question of how would we find out: "I don't know."

And now for the most important part: Knock on Wood (I don't want to jynx myself)

[habbywall]

very well put

[dorkybarb]

Its funny, I was just thinking about that same subject a week ago or so.
Granted, not in specific terms of letting people know on unicyclist.com, but just in general.

I think uni57 hit it directly on the head with all accounts.
I use really strange passwords and no one knows any of them. I would think that Gilby could hack his way into my account with little to no problem to close it or check messages.

Since I am still a relative newbe to the unicycling community, and I really don't know alot of you personally yet, with the exception of those from TCUC. I figure eventually if I died, my brother and sister-in-law (who started me on unicycling) would let people know, but they might forget that something as small as just a little 'just so you know...' post would be good for others.

I doubt many of us give out alternate (emergency) contact info as a matter of course. I certainly don't. I often give out multiple forms of contact -- just in case -- but I don't include a "call this number if you suspect I'm dead."

So... short answer to your question of how would we find out: "I don't know."

I kinda like that '"call this number if you suspect that I'm dead" phone number. But what would it be? Who would you put it as? Maybe that would be a good thread to start, "whos number would you give as a 'call this number if you suspect that I'm dead'?"

i don't know how i would tell you all that i had died. Things like that start bringin up alot more questions for me, ie my non existent will, distribution of assets and stuff like that. To many questions to early in the morning!

-b


And now for the most important part: Knock on Wood (I don't want to jynx myself) - thanks uni57, copying is the sincerest form of flattery

[Mikefule]

Well, that thought has cheered me up no end.

I live on my own. My girlfriend lives 270 miles away. There is little contact between her and my parents (and no contact between my parents at all) and I never hear from my brothers or sister from one month to the next unless they want insurance advice. The whole damn' lot of 'em are techniphobes. I doubt any of them wold know for weeks if I died. So if I die, the first thing you will notice is I stop posting.

Tell you what, I'll try to die spectacularly, then you can all read it in the papers.:cool:

[gkmac]

what if one of us like died?
all this talk of death has got me wondering, how would we find out one of us died?
like would family members come on here and post it or what?Some of us will remember that just after New Years Day 2005, Jeff Baker (http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/37292) (aka unibiker) died.

The thread was started by "jmyers", a friend of his, who previously wasn't a member and hadn't posted at all since, except one day this year on what would have been Jeff's birthday.

It is highly possible that although not a user of this site, he knew about it through conversation with Jeff, and registered an account especially to break the sad news.

[Unitik908]

well i told my mom if i ever die.. to come to this site and tell everyone..

Chase

[leo]

what if one of us like died?
Maybe the pink will turn into black!

[maxisback]

im guessing that you have friends on these forums that would know if something went wrong.. Im aussing that if i'd die my parents would contact most of the most ppl I talk to on my list.. and of course 2 of these are unicyclist that come on these forums..and Im guessing it's probably the same for everyone..

[forrestunifreak]

what if one of us like died?
all this talk of death has got me wondering, how would we find out one of us died?
like would family members come on here and post it or what?
what would you want us to do if you died?

I'd say some nice words for you......

[trials_uni]

i would leave it in my will for someone to tell all you guys that i kicked off.

[habbywall]

thats what i was thinking about to

[BillyTheMountain]

So if I die, the first thing you will notice is I stop posting.



Now you MUST let us know if you get that damn commute back and stop posting even though you're alive.

Is anyone afraid the Christain Unicyclists wil pray for you if you die?

Does anyone have their funeral planned? Does you family know your wishes? I know my dad wanted something VERY SIMPLE, but my sister spent a lot more than he would have wanted on the funeral.

They may not respect your wishes, but do they know.

I know one unicyclist who wants his ashes blown out of a big canon with a 2-thumbed fist on it.

Billy

[trials_uni]

mikefule- well we will kno if you die and stop posting because your in a place with no sickness, bad weather or other issues to prevent you from riding your heart out...so we all kno where you'll be and what you'll be doing there

[joshuni]

i'm going to include posting here in my will. i wonder if my family would allow my corpse to be taped to my uni and tossed over niagra falls, then my epitaph could read, "first to ever go over niagra on a uni." in 100 years when we (unicyclists) take over, i'll be a god.

[James_Potter]

i'm going to include posting here in my will. i wonder if my family would allow my corpse to be taped to my uni and tossed over niagra falls, then my epitaph could read, "first to ever go over niagra on a uni." in 100 years when we (unicyclists) take over, i'll be a god.
naw, someone will have gone of Niagara Falls already ( :

[harper]

what if one of us like died?
all this talk of death has got me wondering, how would we find out one of us died?
like would family members come on here and post it or what?
what would you want us to do if you died?

What does it mean to, "like die?" Does being anesthetized approach "like dying?" If I "like die" I hope you will all do nothing. That could end up being really ugly. If I really do die you should dress me up in silly clothes and prop me up by a road sign. Or put me in a high school classroom where I'd fit in better.

When you die you start to smell really, really bad and people find out eventually. It would be very inconvenient for my wife. No one would post here if I died. The SARS would stealthily slip over to my house and try to steal my unicycles. Little do they know that Buster would shred them if they tried.

[uni57]

If I really do die you should dress me up in silly clothes ...And how would that be different from any other day?

[BillyTheMountain]

And how would that be different from any other day?

For Harper, silly clothes might mean a business suit.....

[monkeyman]

Harper? Suit?
please
Well, if Matt or I died, I'm sure the other one would post with some lovely words...but besides that...I would notice if some people stopped posting (pretty much just Dave, Mikael, Forrest, Habbywall, MIkefule, and a few others), but I wouldn't have thought hey had died

[CoreTechs]

Old thread, but bringing it back anyway.

I've been thinking of this a bit too. I'm thinking of leaving clues or directions to a place where I keep my passwords and a letter or something asking my parents or my siblings to post something online for me. I'd probably put something in my wallet to ask too.
I don't know too many people on here personally and I don't really talk to them much on any place other than the forums, so I doubt anyone would really notice my disappearance if anything happened.

[Hazmat]

I don't know too many people on here personally and I don't really talk to them much on any place other than the forums, so I doubt anyone would really notice my disappearance if anything happened.
+1

[Goats_On_Unicycles]

If I died, I wouldn't really want the news being spread all over teh intornetz but I'd be dead so I really wouldn't care.
But I'd rather only my friends here were told, so probably just a post in MR and a few PMs to other members who don't frequent MR...

[ntappin]

It actualy has happened. I'm sure there are a few dead accounts here. I know of one from Ottawa. Scott (Hecklar) died just before New Years Eve. He is still very missed as he was probably one of the most active riders in Ottawa, he wasn't amazing but he probably joined us for more rides than anyone else.

I was wondering aswell because originaly it was a rumour that he had died, then we checked his facebook account a couple days later and someone had posted details of the funeral on his wall.

I think Death will slow down the news alot but it will come out eventualy. It also depends on how close they were to the people posting on the forum or to other groups they were a member of. Because non of us knew his family it took a couple days to get info on his death and even then we never got the full story.

[this end up]

well ppl in groups are all well and good, but what about me? i am all alone out here. the closest person to me is koebwil and i have never actually met him. what if i die, will i even be missed?

[Bondo]

I have told everyone that when I die I wish to be buried with my butt sticking up out of the ground - so people could park their unicycles when they come to visit.

:)

[ntappin]

I have told everyone that when I die I wish to be buried with my butt sticking up out of the ground - so people could park their unicycles when they come to visit.

:)

Good luck with 3 inch tires, even worse a monster uni!

[Phil_on_uni]

I think some should just change the MR thread to
MR in honor of _____

That way you would be remembered forever of the site :D

[1-wheeled-grape]

:D Good luck with 3 inch tires, even worse a monster uni!
OUCH, oh wait you'd be dead thus couldn't feel the pain.
I plan not to die, its sounds slow boring and depressing, so I've decided I'm imortal:p So unlucky you un-imortal people!!

[MuniAddict]

I would feel happy that I left behind a few videos that viewers seemed to enjoy, made some great friends along the way, and that for the most part I [hopefully] contributed something positive to this community. :)

[1-wheeled-grape]

I would feel happy that I left behind a few videos that viewers seemed to enjoy,
more than a few videos almost 100 isnt it?? you could join the imortal club lol:p then you can make more videos and make an enormous contribution to us silly unicyclists:D

[burjzyntski]

My recent head trauma has brought this topic up a bit more frequently in my life than ever before, and on a very personal level. My mom and I were talking a bit about this last night, actually; about how, since she and my sister were on the West coast (3hrs away), she didn't know if I'd be alive by the time they got here. Recieving a phone call from a nurse, telling you that your son/brother was being helicoptered to a neurosurgeon & staff for an immediate operation to reduce chances of vegetation and death.

Everybody keeps on telling me how lucky I am to be where I am, and I can't even remember the incident or the 3 days (hospitalized) following my fall+surgery...and then I was there in a hospital bed for another 3 days, watching tv and laying down, doing nothing.

...So for some reason (yes, it may seem strange), I don't really know how to "feel" about the entire incident...Am I the same as I was before? I "feel" and "think" a bit differently about all sorts of things now (different being key). Most of my opinions/knowledge/things that I know have not "changed", but the way that I think about them has. It's difficult to explain exactly what I mean by this,.

Most of the people that I run into tell me about how they know (or know of) people who have been in similar (or worse) accidents and have lost much more than I have. One of the older guys (65+ish) that I know was telling me about a friend of his who, when they were in their 40's or so, drove his motorcycle off the road and hit a tree, resulting in major head trauma. He was immobile (unconscious) until morning, when a little girl on her way to school saw him, and to tell her mother (a nurse). He cannot remember between the ages of 13 and [however old he was when he had his accident]. He didn't remember his wife, his children, or anything after the age of 13(ish)!

My chiropractor told me today about a friend of his (also a chriopractor) who was in one of his final years of schooling, and almost at the point of starting his practice, when he was in a car accident and had fractured part(s) of his prietal bone and occipital bone, resulting in his loss of speech. He had to re-learn how to talk!

I basically just:
-Forgot three days.
-Hurt my back by messing with the curvature of my spine a bit between the lumbar and thoracic sections, and can't quite move or do things the way I normally, painlessly would.
-Lost some hearing in my right ear.
-Have a sore right jaw bone.
-Have a long and not-so-nice-looking scar on my head now.

I guess it is sort of lucky.
But I can't "feel" that luck.
I don't really know how to feel.

It's all strange not knowing if you're the same person as you were 3 weeks ago, or how to react to all of this new information that you're being pummeled with.

Oh, and ntappin is probably right about Facebook/MySpace being the only way any of you would find out if I've died. Hopefully Friday's CT Scan shows everything as normal, because I don't really want any more bad news.

[johnfoss]

The thread was started by "jmyers", a friend of his, who previously wasn't a member and hadn't posted at all since...Maybe if I die Jacquie will create an account and do the same. She knows I spend too much time in here... Beyond that, I'll do my best to not die at all, at least until well after any of you cares what happens to me. :)

[johnfoss]

...So for some reason (yes, it may seem strange), I don't really know how to "feel" about the entire incident...Am I the same as I was before? I "feel" and "think" a bit differently about all sorts of things now (different being key).But you *are* different, in that you have experienced a near-death event. Something like this should be expected to change your perspective on things. Usually this seems to come out as a positive experience for people, in terms of having a better appreciation for each day of their lives. I have not experienced this, but have heard about it from many others.
I guess it is sort of lucky.
But I can't "feel" that luck.
I don't really know how to feel.
Sometimes it's so much easier for people outside of us to understand things that are less obvious to ourselves. Ask yourself if you would rather be dead or alive. Not sure? Then the above makes sense. If you're pretty sure you would rather be alive, think again about whether you feel lucky.

You're alive! You can continue to learn and grow (and make mistakes) and experience things. Bad stuff can happen to anyone, sometimes randomly. On a much smaller scale, six months ago I crashed my Coker and fractured my clavicle. It will never be the same again. I just hope it will heal to something close to as strong as the original. Especially since I'm doing more high speed unicycling than ever in training for RTL. The accident's happened, so I have no chance to change it. I warned everybody else to keep a close eye on their shoelaces, so hopefully I can help prevent it happening to others, but otherwise I have to live with it.

The world is trying to kill you. It is indifferent to your fate. It's up to you to make the effort to survive, and be happy for each successive birthday you get to celebrate. As you get older you will know more and more people who have died. Simple statistics. Makes you think.

[uni57]

Maybe if I die Jacquie will create an account and do the same.OK, I read the above before reading the quote to which it pertains. Wow! Talk about being out of context. If you die, why would Jackie create an account and then also die? Well, I'm a bit superstitious (don't tell Reverend Billy), so knock-on-wood. Let's not jinx anyone! Everyone stay alive and well!

[Unicaw89]

I was actualy thinking about this the other day, I saw a post from unibikling and it just reminded me of unibiker...It does make you wonder how long it would take to find out...Like if I were to fall doing 360 unispins next to a ciff and die...how would my friends and those on the forums find out...The first on the forums to know would be Spencer of course, but how long would word take even to get to those you know...

[Jerrick]

If I died, I know a few unicyclist around me would know. Mike and Zach would be the first, but they hardly go on here much. Phil, who suddenly decided to start posting more wouldnt find out until later, cause we dont have as much contact going back and forth sometimes. But im sure once he found out, hed say something in MR.

If that didnt happen, I know either Madison or Jackie would try calling me some day after my death and find out, and I know in a heartbeat those two would be on the forums letting evreyone know whats up. At least Id want them to.

But, the quickest way would be through my sisters, I know they would both be posting stuff on myspace, and my 2nd mom would put something on hers too, and from there it would spread pretty quickly.

[tomblackwood]

No one would post here if I died. The SARS would stealthily slip over to my house and try to steal my unicycles.
As of this past Sunday, I have already stolen one of Harper's unicycles. This is a good thing...now he need not die.

It also reminds me of one of my mottos in college: "If you're going to get busted for stealing food from a grocery store, make sure you're stealing steak." If you're going to steal a unicycle from Harper, make sure you steal Blueshift.

[johnfoss]

...Like if I were to fall doing 360 unispins next to a ciff and die...how would my friends and those on the forums find out...For those of you that don't know Cody, that exact thing is fairly likely to happen to him. And without a helmet he'll never survive! :D

See Cody sitting on the helmet-eating cliff (strong, gusty winds) at the end of the Amasa Back trail, Moab. For scale, check out the Colorado River, a road and a train down there. BTW I hope to get my Moab pictures posted soon...

[this end up]

well ppl in groups are all well and good, but what about me? i am all alone out here. the closest person to me is koebwil and i have never actually met him. what if i die, will i even be missed?

doesn't anyone care?

[ivan]

doesn't anyone care?
I'll miss you, dude.

In fact, I'm missing you already :(

[GILD]

My recent head trauma has brought this topic up a bit more frequently in my life than ever before, and on a very personal level.

By the sound of it!
Good to hear you're doing well and suffered minimal after-effects.

This thread should remind us all of the importance of having a will in place.
Ideally kept in a safe yet accessible place along with all other relevant documentation.
And if you've ever wanted to have a Living Wil (http://www.wikifaq.com/Living_Will_FAQs)l, make a plan now.
Don't wait till it's too lat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo)e.

[MrBoogiejuice]

So long as everyone knows I want a fancy dress funeral I'm not too fussed.

In all seriosity I've made enough good friends with folks through this place to know word would get back to here should something utterly pants happen.

And besides you'd all see the obituary in The Telegraph.

As wills go I don't really own enough things to bother making one. Obviously my unicycles would go to Pete, my tandem to my brother and sister and anything else can be auctioned off to the higfhest bidder...

Can't imagine my socks fetching much though.

[habbywall]

I would almost be offended if people showed up to my funeral dressed up.

[tobbogonist]

mrbooglejuice can i wear my favourite jumper?

http://a621.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/25/l_9a6bee0f9d619c067d8c51bad05f607c.jpg

[$unidude$chad$:)]

that will scar me for years to come, i may not sleep tonite:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

[The Game]

If I die, I would like someone to make a thread about me and have Gilby sticky it.

[uni57]

If I die, I would like someone to make a thread about me and have Gilby sticky it.How long would you like it to be sticky? For all eternity (the approximate amount of time that you will be dead)?

How about a unicyclist graveyard section of the site? A memorial page for each of our fallen brothers and sisters.

[MuniAddict]

How about a unicyclist graveyard section of the site? An "Obituniary" :cool:

And "R.I.P" = "Ride in peace"

[Mikefule]

An "Obituniary" :cool:


Ouch!:D

UPD = Un Planned Death:eek:

[Hazmat]

Ouch!:D

UPD = Un Planned Death:eek:
Unicycle Planned Death. :D

[unibikeling]

I think the main thing that would be is, no offence, but what would happen if Gilby died? would the site somehow keep running? would it just shut down after the server fee wasnt paid? would it be shut down? where would we go?

[Mikefule]

I think the main thing that would be is, no offence, but what would happen if Gilby died?

Burn the heretic! Gilby is immortal.

[yoopers]

doesn't anyone care?
Endy,

You're only two hours from me. Just let me know before you die and I'll run up to get the details, then post them here.

[MrBoogiejuice]

mrbooglejuice can i wear my favourite jumper?

http://a621.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/25/l_9a6bee0f9d619c067d8c51bad05f607c.jpg


With that hair-do you could wear anything!

[unicycledood]

If I'm lucky, I'll never have to look at that pic again.

[this end up]

Endy,

You're only two hours from me. Just let me know before you die and I'll run up to get the details, then post them here.

yes, i will email you when i plan to die, lol