In high school, it wasn’t uncommon to see Jeff wearing a British flag shirt and black parachute pants around school. We once followed the Go Go’s concert tour around northern California in his mom’s Mercedes until we finally met the band face-to-face. We also did our best to impersonate Duran Duran at their concert just to get teen girls to scream and chase us around the Reno convention center. Surprisingly, it actually worked. It wasn’t so much the bands or the music that made that time so special, it was our friendship.

We once adventured into a mining cave in Auburn and after two hours underground, we popped out of another hole not having a clue where we were. We ended up just yards away from the other entrance, but we always said that if we went back into that hole, we'd come out the other side 19 again. I should try that now just so he’d come back to us.

I still remember Jeff deciding to give speed skiing a shot and in his first attempt at the sport winning first. In his typical way, he insistent that I give the sport a try because “it’s super easy and no big deal going 100mph on skis”. In just three months after that event, Jeff ended up qualifying for the Olympics!

We had numerous phone conversations during the Olympics. I remember him calling me early one morning laughing, saying that he made it into the medal round! Neither of us could believe that this was happening. We all know what happened next.

Jeff had this “why not?’ Look on life that took him from that lead role as Santa, to the Olympics to selling million dollar-plus homes. And he always had that “can you believe it?” Humble attitude about him that drew so many people toward him.