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Alex was with his family when he passed peacefully earlier today, Wednesday, February 27th.

From Alex’s blog

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However I might be feeling at the moment, this post is not about me. This post is not about sickness, or death. This post is about celebrating Alex‘s life, our friendship, and the incredible impact he had on my own life.

I met Alex online in 2006, through what was the only way to contribute to WordPress at the time, the wp-hackers mailing list. He was barely 22 at the time, and was still only known to all of us as Viper007Bond.

We were but online acquaintances at the time, but our friendship was ignited when he, Doug, and I decided to randomly team up to take part in a software development contest Matt challenged the wp-hackers members with to develop a mobile friendly version of the WordPress admin, a few months after the iPhone was originally released. The three of us worked insane hours on what eventually became the now long-obsolete WPhone plugin, and ended up winning said contest, which would have been unlikely without the incredibly high standards that Alex held both Doug and I to. Thank you, Alex.

Winning an iPhone sounds futile in the context of this post, but what it truly did was putting us on the map as “decent” developers, and eventually lead to both Alex and I working with Automattic, which is unarguably one of the best things that ever happened to either of us, both on professional and personal levels. Thank you, Alex.

Fast forward to 2012, Alex and I teamed up once more, but this time for a long road trip from Portland to San Diego in the Dodge Viper he had been dreaming to have since he was a child (as his username implied). Not only was that trip an incredible experience, and further developed our friendship, but it also cemented my love of cars and road trips, two things that lead me to countless hours of happiness ever since. Thank you, Alex.

I could keep listing anecdotes almost ad infinitum, but what I want to convey is that Alex has brought nothing but joy, and inspiration, to my life. And for this, Alex, I can never thank you enough.

The last thing I got to tell him was corny, but I know he knew everything it truly meant coming from me, and so I will repeat it here:
“I love you, brother-dude”. And I always will.

I’ll end this post with one of his favorite tracks, from one of his favorite bands, Pretty Lights, because as I’ve often said since he made me discover them during our epic road trip, I’ll never be able to listen to them without thinking of him. And now, nor will I be able to without crying my eyes out, which I am at this very second.