I came to know Roger around the year 2000, through emails he posted to ai-geostats, an email list started by Gregoire Dubois from JRC, which was a place to discuss analysis of spatial data — whether geostatistical, lattice or point pattern — involving both methodological and practical, software aspects. In 2003, Roger contacted me by direct email asking whether I'd be interested to join a pre-conference workshop held at DSC2003, the conference series that later spun off the UseR!