On a gloomy Friday afternoon, a close friend of James Kim did the unenviable: He sorted through "some of his stuff" on Kim's computer.
"When I open up his browser, it's just heartbreaking," said Jason Zemlicka, a friend of 10 years who used to work with Kim at TechTV.
The same day Zemlicka was conducting his painful task, authorities in Oregon began trying to figure out how to prevent future tragedies like the one that resulted in Kim's death.
Officials there disclosed a lock had been vandalized on a gate that was supposed to prevent travelers like the Kim family from entering the road they took up the mountains.
Others who followed the story of the San Francisco father who died in the southwest Oregon mountains trying to save his stranded wife and family turned to a video tribute to Kim on CNET, where Kim was a senior editor for nearly three years. The Web site played selections from the staff's favorite on-air reviews of gadgets that Kim had done.
Kim, 35, was the definition of a Bay Area technophile. His backpack was always filled with the latest gadgets. He reviewed iPods and MP3 players for tech-savvy consumers, lived on double lattes and rarely missed a Burning Man before his daughters were born.
A liberal arts major who found a niche in technology media, Kim built a loyal following as a reviewer of electronics at CNET and with his wife, Kati, owned two popular boutiques in trendy San Francisco neighborhoods.
"He was a real natural on camera," said Lindsey Turrentine, Kim's boss at CNET for the past two years. "He was incredibly dedicated to anything he did, including his job and his family.
"
News reports of Kim's fatal struggle to seek help for his family after their station wagon was stranded in a snowbank in the Oregon wilderness were watched by millions of television viewers, who jammed Web sites set up for messages for the young family.
Kim left his family last Saturday to seek help. His wife and daughters Penelope, 4, and Sabine, 7 months, were rescued two days later by a helicopter that Kim's father hired.
His body was found Wednesday, face up in Big Windy Creek.
His friends said he died as he lived, trying to take care of his family.
"He was an unbelievably involved father," Turrentine said.
"He would take Penelope to school, come in, shoot a video, write a review, go home, do something for Katie, go to a park. Then he would stay up half the night playing with whatever he was supposed to review the next day."
Oregon and federal law enforcement officials were investigating who had cut the lock on the metal gate that normally would have blocked passage on the Bureau of Land Management road that the Kims took on the snowy night of Nov.
25.
On Nov. 1, after the end of deer hunting season, BLM locked the gate to prevent people from using BLM Road 34-8-36, a remote spur that descends from Bear Camp Road, the road the Kims had intended to take.
"BLM locks that gate to prevent people from going the wrong way" off Bear Camp Road, said BLM Medford-area spokeswoman Patty Burel.
Calling it a vandalism case, she said Josephine County sheriff's and BLM investigators admitted the case would be hard to solve.
Burel said her agency and the sheriff plan to meet to discuss new road closure policies in the area and ways to prevent vandalism.
The Kims drove through the open gate and traveled about 15 miles before getting stuck. Bear Camp Road is left open all winter to accommodate cross-country skiers and snow-shoers, but the BLM spur is closed.
"We're going to sit and talk about ways in which we can continue to allow for public access and public safety," Burel said.
Even as they grieved, Kim's colleagues vowed to make sure that his daughters would always know what a kind, caring person their dad was.
"We will also be creating a time capsule for the girls, so that in their future they will know what a great man and a hero James was to his family," said a message on the jamesandkati.com Web site.
The capsule will include e-mails sent to the site, examples of James' work and news reports about him.
Kim met his wife, then Kati Fleming, at a party, friends said.
He was a 1993 graduate of Ohio's Oberlin College, a liberal arts school, with a double major in English and government.
Kati graduated from the University of Oregon in 1994 with a degree in French.
On his CNET profile, Kim listed France as "country most visited" and "silicon" as his favorite color and said his backpack currently was filled with Rockbox infused iPod Photo, Cowon iAudio 6 and Ultimate Ears earbuds.
He said his Windows PC had just died and included as his interests "cute boutiques: www.
churchapothecary.com" -- the couple's two San Francisco shops -- techno and acoustic music (current favorite: Ulrich Schnauss), "Big Cities and nature" and space.
In his reviews on CNET, Kim mentioned his daughters whenever he could, including a video he did on the Disney Mix Match Player.
Holding a "very cute little pink" one, Kim said, "My daughter really loves this one."
On another, where Kim reviews the Nike + iPod Sport Kit, he is shown jogging down the street and into the studio. "There's a lot of cute little things there," he says while demonstrating the device.
"It was always fun with James," Zemlicka said. "At the time, he was green, an amateur at it, but he tried to hard to make it be telegenic. He was just so into it, just like anything he did.
"
Whether Zemlicka was reminiscing while sorting through Kim's computer files Friday or looking for specific documents was unclear; he spoke with hesitation and obvious pain before abruptly saying he had to go.
But he did say he will always be grateful for having known Kim.
"He really taught me what it means to be a husband, he taught me what it means to be a father," Zemlicka said.
"There are only a few people that all of us can point to and say, 'That's how it should be.' It's the measure I've lived my life by for the last seven years."
The Kims moved to the Noe Valley neighborhood in 1999, according to real estate records.
Their house sits on a hill with commanding views of the city.
Neighbors and local merchants said the Kims' boutiques were popular for several reasons. They lived nearby and knew many of their customers by name.
They targeted their merchandise cleverly and always asked customers for suggestions.
Doe, a clothing boutique in the lower Haight Ashbury neighborhood, carries clothes for younger women. In the more family-oriented Noe Valley, Church Street Apothecary caters to new moms and young children, carrying homeopathic remedies and bath care products.
In a review of the store in the Noe Valley Voice, Kati Kim said she wrote down every suggestion customers had and as a result even lowered prices on some basic items.
The couple opened the apothecary in 2004.
"It was Kati's idea," said Holly Shinoff, who owns the building in which the apothecary is located.
Shinoff said James Kim would often come by and visit the store with Penelope, just a toddler when they started.
"He was always with the kids," Shinoff said.
Alma Hecht, a neighbor and regular apothecary customer, said the store immediately grew in popularity because it carried popular over-the-counter medicines as well as harder-to-find natural remedies and vitamins.
"Why would I go to Walgreen's if I could come here?" Hecht said.
Many parents live in the neighborhood, and the Kims made sure the store sold diapers.
"James lived for his family," Zemlicka said. "It was his main focus in life. It was his main focus in dying.
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