Karen Kotoske: I thank God that I knew Jos. He illuminated my dental room whenever he walked in and when he walked out he left a great deal of joy in the room that I carried with me the rest of the day. We have thousands of patients and I know thousands of people in my work with Amistad in the Third World, but I never did meet anyone like your Jos. He was a true Singing Heart.

The impression he left with me was that there was no one who wasn't worth getting to know, and nothing in the world that wasn't worth learning about. He should have had 150 years to fulfill the innumerable things he could have contributed to the world. Memories are comforting but they are but a gray shadow of what should have been.

I was thinking about Jos today, remembering how he saw the world, though the lightest, most lovely, lens of humor. But paradoxically his way was more often than not the deepest way; for Jos's way guides us all from taking ourselves too seriously, away from self centeredness, from despair even. I remember him for that and thank him for that.

Ken Brower: We several people whom Yost (Jos) guided through the mill agreed afterward that it was extraordinary how much he had learned about the building. I remember thinking that he was either some kind of genius, or an idiosyncratic fascination with the old mine gave him geniuslike qualities.

What Jos did, in researching and interpreting the building, was what we try to do in literature. He had fashioned a great poem to the mill tower, and if there were a Pulitzer or Nobel for mine guiding, he would have won it. (more details from the notebook of Ken Brower)

[Picture taken by Jos. The thin white line looks like the glacial river bed. -Popster]

Beth Candy: I knew Jos as "AJ." [Popster recalls: "A.J." could refer to Amy Johanna, the name Jos's mother would have given him if he had been born a girl.]   I was his WebScissors guinea pig and part time cheerleader. AJ was more than a guy I met online. His spirit was able to transcend the written word and just grab your heart. I thoroughly enjoyed corresponding with him. It could have been about WebScissors -- it could have been about the weather. Whatever he had to say it was large -- it was human, it was spirited and enjoyable.

Thank you so much for putting my name on that. I'd be so darn proud if you put my full name -- Beth Candy. I'm proud to know JOS and so so sad that he is gone. Even though our correspondence came to a sudden halt (I did not know he died), I never felt as though he had turned away from me. Sometimes you lose touch with someone when a project is over and you know you were only part of that pigeonhole of their life and sometimes you lose touch with people but you know that you are still carried in their heart. JOS gave me a glimpse of his heart and he was so genuine, so honest and caring that I didn't mind losing touch because I knew he had a large life and whenever I would hear from again would be okay with me.

I wrote a tribute to Jos on behalf of WebTV users.

Greg Balch: I'm a developer at QVC (the TV shopping people), and I first got to know Jos via e-mail while we were tuning our corporate web site to work with Web TV, back in 1997 or 1998. He really helped me a lot to understand how WebTV worked, and how to fix our site so it looked really nice when using WebTV.

We really appreciated all the help Jos gave freely to us, and he had a way of explaining stuff that even web neophytes like us at the time could understand.

I finally got to meet him last April when we visited WebTV to discuss some new opportunities for QVC, and Jos had several ideas and possibilities for us. Meeting Jos was the highlight of my visit, as we had exchanged a lot of email over the months that we'd been working on the site. I really enjoyed working with him, and he made our lives brighter by knowing him.

James Ownbey and Jasmine Merced: Jos established a web hosting account with us for his domain, webscissors.com, in July of this year. My partner/wife and I corresponded quite a bit with Jos during his decision process and during his inital setup of the web site. I know you won't be surprised when I tell you that Jos was an absolute joy to work with. We value the personal relationships that we develop with our customers, and we don't have a better relationship than the one we had with Jos.

He was appreciative of our efforts, patient with our shortcomings, and always brightened our day with his humor. I wish I had known him better, and it saddens me to learn that I won't have the opportunity to fulfill that wish.

Ron Woodall, Oxford-on-Rideau, Canada: I had occasion to work with Jos under enjoyable and pressured circumstance. I considered him an honourable man in spite of his youth, a rarity in today's world at any age. His body of work was extensive for the short time he had with us and leaves us with an enviable legacy. His spirit lives on as will his memory in our hearts.

to The Life of Jos

to Memories of Jos