As if the word about Patrick/Transfatty wasn’t bad enough, today I got word that Joe Kral (and formerly of Test Pilot Collective fame) is having health problems as well…

On Monday May 15th, I went up to Portland, Oregon to work on a freelance project. On Wednesday, I was getting ready for bed when all of a sudden I had intense pain in my left side and I collapsed to the floor. I thought it was a cramp so I lay on the floor for awhile hoping the pain would go away. When it became clear the pain wasn’t going away, I woke up my friend Mitch (who I was staying with) and told him something was wrong.

Joe Kral Needs Help

I’ve been chided on a couple fronts lately about needing to update here, so I had been mulling about some “typical me” type posts about such thrilling topics as “I’m trying to move from jEdit to (Easy)Eclipse” and “here’s more lame tiny videos for BoringButShort.com” but instead I’ve been blindsided in finding out that a (throughly brilliant videographer and) online acquaintance has been diagnosed with ALS.

My name is Patrick. Sometime during the fall of 2004, I noticed an involuntary shaking in my legs. For a long time the exact cause eluded definition.

On May 24th, 2005, however, I was officially diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), a terminal disease that results in the progressive degeneration of the nerves and muscles responsible for voluntary movement. It is a fatal and incurable disease. I was 30 years old.

So go check out a couple of his clips and do what you can to help out: Patrick O’Brien Foundation