How we met...

It all started one night in the fall of 1995. I was a bored college student surfing the "new" internet at school. Some of my other friends were in the lab with me and had stumbled upon this chatroom called "Sweden". After a few minutes I was overwhelmed with messages from individuals whom wanted me to personally e-mail them. I wrote down a few addresses but didn't think much of it. Most of the people I had tried to e-mail in past chatroom experiences didn't write me back. I was convinced that this batch would be the same, so why waste my time and write them? But before I got offline to go back to my dorm room I decided to drop a "hi there" note to one address: owen@micron.net. This individual seemed rather persistent (maybe the correct term to use is determined) for me to get their address. With that one little piece of electronic mail a very special, and unique, friendship developed. Ben kept that first determination throughout our long distance friendship that began that night. He never gave up on me when I needed support or just someone to "chat" with. He didn't even give up on me when I was sure he was internet pyscho (You can never be too safe!) and denied him any personal information about me for 6 months. :-) One year after that "hi there" note (and many, many more e-mails and expensive long distance phone calls) Ben and I met IRL (in real life). A year and a half later Ben asked me to marry him and on June 13, 1998 I became his wife! :)