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Always Making Plans

Terrance Aiken's youngest baby was a burgundy Jaguar, a four-door sedan he had bought secondhand and painstakingly restored. Every weekend, he piled his children, Terrease, Kanan and Andre, into the back seat and set off for a leisurely drive. He often bragged to his wife, Kimberly Trimingham-Aiken, that he looked good driving that car. He told her that she looked good, too, on the few occasions that he let her drive.

A former pro basketball player in the Philippines, Mr. Aiken, 30, taught himself about computers by taking apart a clunky I.B.M. desktop that he salvaged from the Salvation Army. He later filled his home in Staten Island with computers, and just this month, started working as a computer consultant for Marsh & McLennan.

Mr. Aiken had wanted to save enough money for a larger house, and another Jaguar fixer-upper for himself. "We were making plans," Mrs. Aiken said. "You never think that tomorrow you won't be here to follow through on those plans."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on September 27, 2001.