I talked to Billy only three weeks ago when my wife and I were in Las
Vegas. He was in the middle of building a model Helicopter and already
had plans for that afternoon to go flying it with a friend.

That was BWB... he was always in the middle of something. Bill wasn't
someone to sit back and simply read a book... if anything, he might
write a book.. and he could have written several books about many many
things. He wasn't just a pilot or just anything... Bill lived life to
the fullest and he encouraged me to do the same. As Robert A Heinlein
said in one of his books... Take big bites, moderation is for monks...
and Badwater Bill was NOT a monk.

I'm going to miss him very much. I'd call him every few months just to
chat and it was always just like we would carry on the conversation we'd
had before..

I remember one time John Ousterhous and I drove down to visit Bill and
Janice. The first night he brought out 4 beef roasts... each about 3"
thick by 5" by 7". These weren't roasts... they were our steaks for
that night. The next night the four of us shared 15 pounds of King Crab
legs. That was typical Badwater Bill hospitality.

It will take a while before I can accept the fact of his death.
Somehow, Bill seemed immortal to me...

John "amprobe" Ammeter