Blogging is usually a happy activity filled with the thrill of shared knowledge and discovery, but every happiness has a dark flip side and that's where this post lives. I first met Marc Orchant at ETech07 in San Diego and our hilarious conversations (with David Crow) stand out in my memory as one of the highlights of the trip. We stayed in fairly close touch after that and shared a few Skype chats before we had a chance to reconnect at Web2.0Expo in San Francisco. Marc and I laughed our way through an hour long Skype video session last Wednesday, catching up on the latest happenings in the tech world and in our own lives.

So, it was with much sadness that I read the news this morning. As reported on blognation by Marc's close friend Oliver, he suffered a massive coronary sometime between 7:30 and 8:10 am yesterday and was rushed to the Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he remains in critical condition and is not expected to regain consciousness for the next 24 - 48 hours. Our thoughts go out to Marc, his wife Sue, and his son Jason, as well as to the entire tech community who have been touched by his generosity. If it were possible for this world-spanning network of people to produce full and rapid recoveries as well as we produce the technology Marc so lovingly reports on, we would do nothing but.

For those of you wishing to send cards, gifts, or other happy thoughts in physical form:

Presbyterian Hospital
Cardiac Care Unit Bed #3
1100 Central Ave SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106

The hospital also offers a service through which you can send patients a virtual card.

Update: Oliver Starr is blogging status updates on Marc's condition on his blog. Please visit there for the latest news and link to that page rather than the original Blognation story.