Remembering lost and loved ones/Don't touch things that don't belong to you

Some of you may remember me mentioning that my uncle died a little while back.

We held the funeral service today, and it was nice. Some life long friends of his came, and some family came.

Everyone who knew him had a special place for him in their heart. He had that charismatic personality that drew people to him, and he wasn't ever scared to risk everything to pursue his interests. He was highly intelligent, caring, and witty. A band geek for life, an artist in a multitude of disciplines, and a man with excellent tastes.

If you ever went to music festivals, Bonnaroo especially, chances are you at least saw him, and probably had a chance to talk to him as he would leave Austin every year to participate and work the event. The guy loved music. He's got album after album full of ticket stubs, he basically was the guy to talk to about any band or genre. I don't know what it was but out of all the bands and people he met he loved No Doubt and Phish the most.

After the funeral, my grandmother asked me to go through his things and see if there was anything that I wanted to keep. I was looking forward to it, because I hadn't seen him in so long, and it's just a really personal kind of thing to have the chance to be able to take care of a person's belongings.

As I went through all of his books and movies I found album after album of his photos, musings, and poetry. It quickly dawned on me that in his short life here on earth that he was critical of the government and a conspiracy theorist at heart.

There were photos of political statements, a couple of photos of them burning political signs and such. His writings were soul searching and his poetry was existential to say the least.

So, discovering this new aspect of my uncle and from what I heard from his friends at the funeral about how he was big into writing scripts and music and learning that he was into conspiracies and such I was excited to get my hands on his computer.

My grandmother had previously said I could have it, and I first I was just excited to see what computer games he had, but after learning what I had I wanted to see what he had been writing about. I thought I might be able to post-humously publish his poetry at least. And maybe he had some of his philosophies typed out.

So, I crack the laptop open, and mention that I was interested in seeing what computer games he had, and my aunt's husband said there wasn't any.

I was kind of irked. This computer was my uncle's and his mother, my grandmother, said I could have it.

So, I said "Oh, you went through it?" and he said yeah and he wiped it all. That made me really pissed. He had no right to do so, and if anyone was going to wipe it that person would be me. Someone of his actual blood and family.

He said that it had a bunch of weird stuff on it. He had no right to make a determination of what was weird when it comes to my uncle's art and musings.

So, unless I can find a way to recover what he did I'll have lost an opportunity to see inside the mind of someone who I, and many others, respected.

If I had seen anything actually weird and worth deleting I should have been the one to do so.

He shouldn't have even touched it.


Anyways. If you knew him, you knew him.

Many people tell me that I reminded them of him, and seeing his taste in music, movies, books, his poetry, I can see why. It turns out that we had a lot in common.

Long story short. If someone leaves something to someone else. Don't effing touch it.

Chances are it’s still there.

Take it to a pro.

He sounds like he was a fascinating person.
Sad that so much of his work was lost to you.
I experienced a similar situation with my father's passing.

Your grandmother is the one who allowed you to even touch his things. Unless you were specifically named in your uncle's will, you don't have any more right to his things than anyone else. You are asserting a right to his things that you don't actually have. Technically, neither does your grandmother. You both jumped the gun here. Let probate determine who gets what. Meanwhile let it go and don't make a fuss and be an azz about it. Yeah, he was your uncle, but he was also her son, which is legally a closer relationship. Sounds like she is in charge anyway. Be thankful she allowed you to touch anything yourself.

a reply to: schuyler

Cool story bro.

a reply to: whyamIhere

Yeah, I'm currently working on it right now.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Yeah, he was. I wanted to keep his art and writings safe, and my uncle decided to try and delete everything, because he thought it was weird.

And by weird I mean he's a stereotypical Christian dude who thinks anything that falls outside of what he deems is normal is weird.

My grandmother told me that her son wanted me to have the computer. So, I don't really care what anyone has to say about wills or whatever. He didn't have one. He died young, in an accident, and there is no will.

And that's beside the point. I've got the computer, and I'm recovering the files now.

a reply to: AutomateThis1
Glad it's being recovered.
If you feel like sharing anything interesting you might find...I'm sure we'll appreciate it.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
a reply to: AutomateThis1
Glad it's being recovered.
If you feel like sharing anything interesting you might find...I'm sure we'll appreciate it.

Sure thing. He had a few journals of poetry he had written. His mom has them right now for reading. After she's done reading them I'm going to ask to borrow them for reading, and then talk to her about possibly publishing them.

Same goes for any of his art and poetry I recover. I'm not wanting to publish them for reason of making money. It's just that from what I've read his poetry is really good. I think it would be cool to have him recognized for his work.

His photos and videos are just of him and his friends and their adventures. So, I'm going to reach out to them and ask them if they'd like to have the photos they are in so they can have them for memories.

I can tell he possibly intended at some point to publish them himself. He has emails printed that indicate as such. I think his untimely death put an end to it though.

Plenty of art throughout history has been posthumously published and released. I think that it's great to do so, because it's not uncommon for artists to refrain from putting their work out there due to self-defeatism.

I'm not olanning on doing this behind anyone's back. I'm going to bring it up to my grandmother and his sisters. If they are cool with it. Cool. If they aren't then at least we have them to keep in the family to remember him by.

So, if anyone thinks I'm doing this out of selfishness or something else absurd they can shove it.

You know? It wouldn't surprise me if he was a member of ATS or some other consoiracy site. If any of you knew a cool guy in Austin, Texas who died last month inbox me. If you actually knew him, I'd love to hear from you.

Sounds like he enjoyed his life. I personally would not enjoy that kind of life but am a little disappointed that I can not be like that.

Good news and meh news.

So, from what it looks like I was able to recover everything. I recovered over a million files dating all the way back to 2005. I got some pictures and documents, but nothing artistic.

The "weird" stuff was just adult material.

Interestingly enough I discovered that he's had a Civilization 4 campaign running since 2005.

If he did keep anything stored digitally it was to an external hard drive. I saw multiple passport connections. Where that hard drive is there's no telling. I went through all of his former belongings and I have everything that was electronic.

I'll ask my grandmother if she noticed a hard drive and also his camera. Now that I think about it. It's kind of odd that no one realized that his camera and videocamera didn't return with the rest of his belongings.

It wouldn't surprise me if that he had plans for any hard drives or thumb drives to be taken care of by a close friend or two.

I know one of his friends is an IT guy and lives nearby. I'll ask him. The worst that can happen is that he says he doesn't know anything about it. But the camera and video camera would have been nice to have, and I'm the only one in the family that is still into photography.

Oh, and a little bonus.

Here's a little "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon" for ya:



My uncle went to school with and graduated with this guy.

Wouldn't ya know it he was recognized as "Friendliest" lmao

a reply to: rickymouse

He was a free spirit that's for sure. He definitely died sooner than he should have, but that's life. He was only 46. Apparently in the car wreck he had the airbags deployed late and I guess that the force from it hitting his chest caused an aortic dissection.

He walked away from the crash, but throughout the following week his friends say that he seemed lethargic, and that he was having problems breathing. He ended up collapsing. He was taken to the emergency room and they performed surgery on him, but afterwards he suffered strokes on both sides of his brain which rendered him braindead. A few days later my grandmother made the decision to take him off of life support and he passed away.

He may have passed away early, but he'll be remembered fondly as a great person.

I am deeply sorry for your loss, AutomateThis1

By reading what you wrote here, makes me think that your uncle must have been a fascinating person.

You also wrote: "He definitely died sooner than he should have"

Yeah... fascinating persons often do that.

Your loss sucks, but until it was given to you it wasn't yours.

Also, keep in mind, you might not want to see what your Uncle had on his computer, maybe your other Uncle had good reason to be deleting his stuff?

There's a reason people say "delete my browser history".

Oh well here's hoping you can recover the files, very possible and plenty of software out there capable of doing so to varying degrees of success, fingers crossed you don't find any nasty surprises.

Because as you say in your title. You really shouldn't touch what isn't yours, and well when you think about it those files aren't yours, they're your Uncles.

a reply to: AtomicKangaroo

Let's be real here. I cared about my uncle. I wish we got to talk more often.

But he's dead. His mother gave me his laptop, and said I could have whatever else she didn't already give to other family or keep for herself. The rest of the stuff is going to Goodwill.

Are you really going to argue that there's a difference between my aunt's husband and myself in who gets to "delete my browsing history?"

We're all adults. What my other uncle did was get snoopy and go through his stuff and wanton delete everything. Not just his browsing history.

I'm just as capable as making sure that nothing potentially embarrassing came to light about my recently deceased uncle.

So, tell me. What gave my aunt's husband the right to snoop through his computer and make a decision to delete everything when my grandmother had already told everyone that the computer is mine? If anything if it was that big of a deal she could have gone through it and made the decision to delete everything herself, but she didn't. She gave it to me. She left that up to me. She said herself that there were things on there that I would have liked to have. So, that means she was already aware of at least what was in it on a surface level.

I already recovered everything I could. I recovered over a million files dating all the way back to 2005 which I assume is when the computer was bought because that's the year the computer came out.

And the truth of the matter is that there really wasn't anything all that weird to begin with. My aunt's husband decided to snoop through it and found some adult videos which more than likely due to his religion caused him to deem it as weird, and he promptly deleted them. After recovering the files I discovered that those were likely the only things deleted, as many of the other recovered files were related to video games and system files.

If my uncle did have any of his art, photos, or poetry stored digitally he likely had them saved on a hard drive which wasn't with his belongings brought back to Tennessee. So, I can only assume that he had made plans to close friends in Texas to take care of them. That's a moot point.

I actually believe that he kept most, if not all, of his artistic stuff not in a computer. He had a multitude of photo albums, and a few journals of his poetry.

I don't know where his scripts could be, because even his close friends were asking us if we had found them. They wanted to let us know that he had written several, but they weren't with his belongings. So, either they failed to bring back all of his belongings or my uncle had somewhere else that he kept his work.

I was upset that my aunt's husband had decided to haphazardly delete everything because there could have been clues about where he kept his stuff. And it's my opinion and my grandmother's opinion that everything of her son's things be found and with the family.

If I really wanted to I could get into his e-mail, but that I consider to be too personal. He already had e-mails printed where he was talking to peoole about publishing his work and there were others with information about various theories he was looking into. That's more than enough info to know that I'm not an asshole for wishing to publish his poetry. I'm not doing it for money. I could care less about that. I just think that if he was attempting to do it himself then we should do what we can. I think maybe others would find meaning within his poetry. If there was any money made from it I'd personally like to see it go towards helping young people pursue and develop their artistic abilities. My uncle was huge into music, so I think he'd be happy with that.

The whole thing with my other uncle deleting whatever he found weird is that I was worried he deleted his art because he found it weird.

Trust me, if H.R. Geiger or even H.P. Lovecraft had my aunt's husband as a brother-in-law we could have risked losing a significant influence in art and pop culture.

a reply to: AutomateThis1

And the truth of the matter is that there really wasn't anything all that weird to begin with. My aunt's husband decided to snoop through it and found some adult videos which more than likely due to his religion caused him to deem it as weird, and he promptly deleted them. After recovering the files I discovered that those were likely the only things deleted, as many of the other recovered files were related to video games and system files.

So your pissed his porn was deleted.

Ok then, carry on.

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Lmao, you've got fantastic comprehension skills.

I think it's cool you think I'm psychic and able to see what was deleted before running a recovery operation though.

a reply to: AutomateThis1

You knew there was midget porn on the computer, you wanted it now it's gone, get over it.

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

I know you're trying to be funny, but I don't think it is. If you had a death in the family, I'd wouldn't be making light of it. I've got another funeral to go to tomorrow for my grandmother's last brother.

At this point I've lost most of my greater family. The only ones that I know of at that level are both of my grandmothers, and they might not be around much longer either.

Take care, and let your loved ones know you still care about them. You never know when you could receive bad news.