A fair measure of immortality

Some of you might recall my former sadomasochistic personal trainer Gunther, or Adolf, or Vilhelm, or whatever his name was. I did not keep him around for long!

I came across his picture yesterday, and it wasn't on America's Most Wanted as I would have expected. I was on one of the social networking sites and there he was, picture and all, as someone's "friend" -- clearly not anyone who has ever met him personally.

Even in the vastness of the web, you are likely to occasionally happen across someone that you know, just based on the laws of probability. [I once ran into someone that I knew from Missouri on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, what are the odds of something like that?]

One two occasions, while surfing the web, I have happened across naked pictures of people that I know. One was of a guy in St. Louis, in his apartment, in a hallway, being crazy and naked. It was a photo clearly posted by an ex-girlfriend as revenge (he had many of those, both naked pictures of himself and ex-girlfriends seeking revenge). I changed the photo from X to PG using Photoshop and sent it to him by email. His entire reply was "Yikes!" He never mentioned it again, and never have I.

The second photo was of someone who used to work for me. In the photo, he was standing on the roof of a building naked to the world, and seemingly very proud of it! He is a whitewater enthusiast and the photo was one of a series from a river trip that were posted to a photo site. He is not someone whom I have kept in contact with, but my guess is that alcohol or drugs or both played some part in the photo being taken.

As far as I know, both pictures are still out there, living a life of their own someplace or places in cyberspace. I did not save copies. But it's fun to think that years, decades, perhaps even centuries from now people will come across those photos and still be saying "Gosh, I thought it would be bigger."