Hyper­Text Log:

Photo of Cindy Li.
Cindy Li at the InCtrl09 Webdesign Conference setup wearing a “I Like Design” shirt & meebo nametag.

was the first time I met Cindy Li.

I drove to the Art Academy of Cincinnati to volunteer with the In Control 2009 Web Design Conference during the week of final exams. I was still a college student then and thought Cindy was a student as well because she had a huge backpack on while we waited for the rest of the crew to show up to help setup the conference.

Photo of Cindy Li next to Daniel Burka.
Cindy next to Daniel Burka during day two of InCtrl09.

I remember someone asking what was in the backpack because we had to go up quite a few flight of stairs to which Cindy replied her “laptop and 3 spare batteries”!!! ๐Ÿ˜‚

Photo of Cindy Li showing her amazing Duct Tape Skills.
Cindy being a duct tape ninja to make sure no one trips, after I failed to tape wires down.

Turns out Cindy wasn’t a student (in fact I think I was the only student) but we both were from Florida. I learned she worked at Yahoo! (because I was jealous of her awesome hoodie) and AOL (which did you know that it was AOL that purchased Time Warner and not the other way around? Fun fact I learned from Cindy)

On the way back from InCtrl pre-launch happy hour, a group of us noticed a guy with his shirt off doing push-ups on the corner; joking around Daniel Burka takes his jacket off as if he was going to do the same thing but instead he stops. So Cindy Li decided to do the push-up and I learned a valuable lesson that day. Never do a push-up infront of Daniel Burka.

Photo of Cindy Li with attempting to do a push-up but Daniel Burka prevents her by putting his foot on her back.
Cindy Li with attempting to do a push-up but Daniel Burka prevents her by putting his foot on her back.

I remember showing someone the photo and them saying “I should post it online make sure to tag it with hashtag CindyLi”. I had no real idea how many people Cindy Li impacted at the time and it wasn’t until I posted the photo did a search on flickr for “#CindyLi” that I began to learn of all of people she was able to bring together and make friends with.

Photo of Cindy Li with Aaron Gustafson and Mark Trammell.
Cindy Li with Aaron Gustafson and Mark Trammell.

Cindy was super easy to talk to and get along with. I didn’t feel like it was a student and professional talking to each other but rather two people who enjoyed design.

Today I learned she passed away. I was in shock and angry. I cried.

I can’t stress how great of person Cindy was. In those short three days I made a friend. I really admired and looked up to Cindy. She was an amazing person.

I hope to able to continue to share the kindness that Cindy Li showed me with others and will miss the joy she brought to the world.