We are all going to miss him a ton. A zillion pieces have been written about it. For days I've been struggling with whether I'd add to the mush by writing any of the three stories from my meetings with him— each funny and poignant in its own way. But in the end, I think I'll stick to a couple of pointers from the torrent of stuff I've been inhaling over the last few days.

If you are feeling kicked in the stomach like me and don't quite get why, go watch Jon Stewart's Moment of Zen on Steve's passing— he nails why you feel out of sorts with the alien metaphor.

If you want a personal view, go read Walt's piece. The journalist who Steve cared about the most, Walt nailed the essence of Steve— and the walk to the park bit shows you why our best heroes are just as human as the rest of us.

And finally, if you want to be humbled a bit this weekend, watch the video below from the 1997 closing WWDC fireside chat. Remember that this was a time when Apple was the laughing stock of the tech industry— when even Michael Dell could shit on them. And then listen closely to how honestly Steve communicates what the company needs to do. He lays out the next 14 years with remarkable detail, stated plainly and without futuristic marketing bullshit. Listen to him talk about living the cloud+mobile future at NEXT and wanting to bring that to the Apple customer base, or why dollars spent on TV advertising in 1997 would be wasted to see how clear-eyed he was at the time about what he needed to go and get done.

As many have said, I don't think we'll see another Steve in our lifetime and man do I feel lucky to have been able to live through his leadership of Apple's return to the top.