Being on parental leave and not that up-to-date on the world, I wasn’t aware of the disappearance of Jim Gray until this morning, when I opened my New York Times and saw a familiar face, much to my surprise. (The last and only other time that happened, someone who was in my class in college had won a Pulitzer.) I don’t really know Jim well, but have crossed paths with him more than a few times in the past several years. The latest was my trip to Japan for the launch of VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005, where I did the VS keynote and Jim did the SQL Server keynote. For someone who has done so much amazing work in the computing field, I found Jim to be an amazingly down-to-earth, gracious and friendly guy. I’m not at all surprised by the outpouring of concern and effort on the part of the computing industry to help find him.

I can only hope that he will be found alive and well. My thoughts are with him and his family.