Yoo Jin (Vincent) Kim

Some of my earliest memories of Yoo Jin were driving together to highschool. During one of those trips I remember he gave me an invite to Google’s then new email service, Gmail. I still use that account to this day. Yoo Jin was always excited to help and share his passions with others.
After highschool, our lives took pretty separate paths and we did not communicate much. That is until 2015 or so when I got into riding motorcycles. I never really use Facebook, but I happened to see a picture of Yoo Jin, now going by Vincent, riding a S1000RR. We reconnected quickly. I remember the first ride we did together. We ended up stopping at the Prince William Forest Park’s entrance off of Joplin Rd. I forgot to turn my bike’s headlight off, so when it was time to leave he had to help me bump-start the bike to get going again.
That picture I saw of him was taken when he was attending the California Superbike School. We ended up attending that together, along with many motorcycle track days, over the next few years.
I still remember that fateful day up on 211 where we met many new friends and witnessed a bunch of things. From there came many trips and getting into ADV riding more properly. I happened to get a 2nd hand R1200GS back in 2016, and that bike style began to spread like wildfire through our friend group. Even though I was the first with the bike style, Vince went so so much farther than I could have ever imagined on an ADV. This may have been the one thing Vince picked up from me, rather than the opposite.
I still wear my minimalist shoes, still use my rowing machine, still have the CR-V that he got fixed up perfectly. Vince was always someone I admired and looked up to.
After I got married, I decided to shelve riding, and our time together became more infrequent. We still chatted, still got Pho together, and I was happy to see Vince share his passions with others.
Vince, I’ve been missing you every day. My life, and so many others are much better because you were there.

We both loved video games, and my favorite (if not quite his, though he enjoyed it tremendously) was Squaresoft's 1997 release, Final Fantasy VII. Even in the early 2000s, ~five years later, we were both still captivated by it. So much so, that we and two other friends hit upon a silly idea: "let's bring a desktop+monitor over to You Jin's house (as laptops weren't as viable for gaming back then), we'll set it up in the room next to his, and then we'll have a 2v2 race -- a Final Fantasy VII race!" Never mind these were not identical computers and their different specs meant things would run at different speeds, and also ignore the giant elephant in the room that this game would have conservatively taken 25-40 hours for any of the four of us to actually beat...no, were just taken by the novelty and fun of it all.
And so we did! When the next Friday rolled around, and school finally let out, we all made our way over to his house, the other team packing up their computer, he and I making sure his was installed/configured correctly and ready to go. His parents and sister were gracious and welcoming to let all his friends invade the basement, eat all the food (or a lot of it, anyway), and tolerate way too much noise way too late into the night.
The race itself is just an enjoyable blur in my memory now: each team deciding who would handle each section of the game coming up, rotating the player to give the other a break or to stretch, covertly (or obviously) investigating the progress of the other team and maybe even trying some good-natured sabotage. I can hardly imagine now having more fun.
Of course there was no way anybody finished, lol. Both teams, on similar pace, reached a natural stopping point maybe ~3-4 hours in at around the same time, and sleep ended up conquering us all.
It was a blast, and a memory I'll cherish even more now. And though I've genuinely forgotten which team "won" by beating Motor Ball (a boss monster) and getting out of Midgar (a city) first, I was on a team with my best friend, and I'm pretty sure that means I "won", no matter what we were playing.
Miss you every day, bud 🫂

20년 전, 유진 씨를 처음 만났습니다. 유진 씨를 만나 이야기 나누는 것은 언제나 즐거웠고, 그는 제가 아는 가장 친절한 젊은이 중 한 명이었습니다. 그의 부드러운 미소의 따스함은 언어와 문화의 장벽을 녹였습니다.

우리가 사랑하고 떠나보낸 사람들은 더 이상 예전의 그들이 있던 곳에 있지 않습니다. 그들은 이제… 우리가 있는 곳 어디에나 있습니다. -성 요한 크리소스토모

에드워드 콜리턴

I met Yoo Jin for the first time twenty years ago. It was always a pleasure to see and speak with Yoo Jin, and he was one of the kindest young men I have ever know. The warmth of his soft smile melted barriers of language and culture.

They whom we love and lose are no longer where they were before. They are now...wherever we are. -St. John Chrysostom

I got to know Yoo Jin over the last 25 years as his friendship with my son Chris deepened and grew. Yoo Jin was a wonderful young man; kind, considerate and caring.
We had many interactions at the family Shell gas station, and he was always helpful and friendly, and would find ways to solve all the car issues I had.
In recent times, Yoo Jin, Chris and I greatly enjoyed solving the puzzles of escape rooms, and then sharing our experiences over a nice lunch.
He will be in our hearts forever.