Friend a Day – Melissa Kaercher

Photo by Amanda Celeste Jaeger

I knew Melissa before I really knew her.  I ran into her at GE, where we both worked at the time and I recognized her from the Renaissance Festival and CONvergence.  I believe I said something to the effect of “is there anywhere you aren’t?”

That’s a good question for Melissa overall because it does seem like she is everywhere and doing everything.  She attends several conventions a year, she is on a bunch of podcasts (one of them with me), and she is part of no small number of other creative endeavors.  The answer to my question, it would seem, is no.

We first bonded over a mutual love of movies.  She’s seen all of them and I have seen many, but considerably less than her.  She proceeded to provide me with title after title that I “needed” to see and she was, of course, always right.

She’s an expert at navigating social situations.  She makes friends easily and often.  If she’s met anyone she didn’t like, she keeps that information to herself.

Instead, she is constantly sharing her home for any number of events – usually associated with movies.  She truly enjoys sharing her passion with others whenever there is a chance to do so.

When is comes to the projects we work on together, she has a tendency to be the one who keeps the rest of us organized and on task.    She has a knack for that sort of thing.  The Smackdown panel would not take place without her constantly goading Christopher Jones and I to do our jobs.

Melissa also has a knack for design and she’s helped me out on several occasions with art for Vilification Tennis or a logo for one of my many projects (the logo for Geeks Without God is one of hers).

The creativity that she shows in putting together things like Judging a Book or Killer B’s is remarkable.  More remarkable, she does it without any expectation of recognition for what she has done.  Instead, she does it because she thinks it is a fun idea.

The energy that she brings to everything she does is amazing.  I’m glad to know Melissa simply because she is an example of someone who is squeezing everything she can out of life.

She blogs over at Tin Lizard Productions.