Several artists are holding an online auction to benefit James Kim, who passed away last month while attempting to save his family in the Oregon wilderness.

An auction of fine art + craft to benefit the family of James Kim organized by sisters Lisa Congdon and Stephanie Barnes and their mother Gerrie Congdon. 100% of the auction proceeds will go to the The James Kim Memorial Fund. Auction items from the artists listed below will be available for bid starting January 3, 2007on eBay. There will be a link to the eBay listing for each item from this site starting the morning of January 3. Bidding ends January 7th. Thank you for visiting and bidding!

This is a great cause for a family that has clearly been through a lot in the past several weeks. Spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested. [The image above is an abstracted quilt depicting Spooner Lake near Lake Tahoe by artist Gerrie Congdon. Source: Kim family auction blog site.]

I was glad to see this today. I have been very saddened by this story, and I know many others have, too.

CNN reports that CNET executive James Kim has been found dead in the Oregon wilderness. This sounds like a horrible ordeal for the whole family and particularly for their two young daughters.

After leaving Portland on Interstate 5, search leaders said, the couple missed a turnoff that leads to the coast and took a wrong turn on a twisty mountain road they chose as an alternative. Authorities have said the couple fed their daughters baby food and crackers and used snow as water as they waited for help.

Kati Kim’s mother, Sandy Fleming, told CNN that her daughter, who had been breast-feeding the younger child, breast-fed both the children after their food ran out. The adults also ate berries, police said. They used their car heater until they ran out of gas then burned tires to stay warm and attract attention.

My thoughts and sympathy go out to all of them.

The search is continuing for CNET executive James Kim. My first thought, after reading that searchers had discovered a pair of Kim’s pants, was the same one mentioned in this CNN story:

“[Finding the pair of pants] also could mean Kim suffered severe hypothermia, said Dr. Jon Jui, professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. Jui said severe hypothermia causes people to become disoriented and have a false sense of warmth, which can lead to them disrobing.”

I can say from personal experience that hypothermia is a wicked and brutal condition to be in. I hope that Kim, who was reportedly wearing jeans beneath the pants that were discovered, was trying to send a signal and not suffering from exposure.

Have you been keeping up with the search for missing CNET executive James Kim (Kim’s blog)? I subscribe to CNET’s RSS news feed, and I was surprised this week to see articles about a missing person. It turns out that Kim and his family got lost in the Oregon wilderness while hiking over the Thanksgiving weekend. His family has been found, but he is still somewhere in the woods.

Several years ago, I got lost in the woods with my brother and stepsister in East Tennessee. We went hiking a couple of hours before sunset and get disoriented taking an alternate route back to our starting point. We were missing for three or four hours, but it was an eerie and frightening feeling–both for us and the rest of our group who were trying to track us down. The sense of isolation and despair was very real even in just a short time, especially as night fell. We were fortunate to stumble upon a group of Boy Scouts who had made camp for the night deep in the woods, and they had flashlights and enough trail knowledge to get us back to where we parked.

Here’s hoping Kim is discovered soon in good health, and that this turns out merely to be a scary and intriguing story his family tells every now and then.