Raymond Fernandez

Raymond (Ray) Fernández, age 96, of Overland Park, Kansas, USA, Planet Earth, has officially taken his final cosmic journey as of September 14, 2024. Whether he's now orbiting the great beyond, tinkering with the mechanics of the universe itself, or perhaps piloting an interdimensional craft of his own design, we can't be sure — but if anyone could figure it out, it would be Ray. 

His love for things that flew through the sky began at the tender age of 5, when he saw his first flying machine in the sky. It was then that he declared, “I want to go up there!” Ray was hooked on two things: airplanes and the burning need to take things apart just to see how they worked. This insatiable curiosity led him to a career as a tool designer and engineer, specializing in things the world had never seen! He didn't just break the mold; he redesigned it, then quantum-leaped it into the next century. 

If it was big, metal, and could fly — or theoretically traverse wormholes — chances are Ray had a hand in it. We're talking the first nuclear submarine (yes, those can fly underwater if you squint hard enough), the first space capsule that took humans out for a stroll among the stars, and even the first spacecraft to journey to space and come back — no small feat! Rumor has it he even had a hand in a few classified projects that made Area 51 look like a public library. 

As Ray joins his first love, Rosie, and one daughter and one grandson, he leaves behind 5 children, 11 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and 5 great-great-grandchildren who've undoubtedly inherited his knack for curiosity and perhaps his penchant for taking apart perfectly good family clocks just to see how they tick. His family fondly remembers the stories he shared about cutting a chunk out of the kitchen chair as he practiced his newfound sawing skills, and the story about how at age 5, he retrofitted his pedal car with a new undercarriage. Outlandish you say? Well, according to Ray, “there’s no one here to say otherwise, so it must be true!” 

We imagine Ray is currently trying to one-up whatever celestial engineering feats he's encountering out there, all while sporting a grin and saying, "Let me show you how it's really done." Knowing Ray, he's probably already drafted plans for a more efficient Dyson sphere (Star Trek Fans know exactly what that is!) or a faster-than-light engine using nothing but cosmic dust and sheer willpower. 

In his honor, we invite everyone to raise a wrench, tinker with something they shouldn't, and remember a man who always aimed for the stars and, more often than not, hit his target.  

Raymond Fernández: Beloved father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and the man who made us all believe that with enough duct tape, WD-40, and a disregard for conventional physics, anything is possible. Ad Astra, Ray. May your journey through the cosmos be filled with endless wonder and plenty of things to take apart and put back together again. 

In the spirit of full disclosure and using tools of the next century like dad, this was created with an AI assist named Claude.