My wife and I were out shopping yesterday and we were asked by someone we know, who reads this blog, how we ended up in Indiana from California. Now, I swear to "Bob" I'd already written this post, but he said he couldn't find it, and I can't either, so I must have only "planned" it and never written it. So now I will!

Back in the early 1990's, I ran a rather popular BBS, with callers from all over the US and many parts of the world. It was an underground BBS, mostly focusing on topics such as hacking, phreaking, computer viruses, and the like. In early 1993, I added sections on wider topics, including drugs, the occult, and some political topics as well, and I'd started advertising that this information was available.

Turns out, my future wife was interested in the occult and some of the other things, and she found the ad for my system on Usenet, and around early Summer of '93, gave the board a call. Sure, I took note of a female user; I didn't get many, but as she was in Michigan, and I was in California, I didn't give it much further thought. She became a fairly regular user of the board, and we were soon conversing fairly regularly.

I can't really remember when or how it happened, but it wasn't long before our conversations became longer and more intimate, and we were essentially in a long distance relationship. It all happened very naturally. We made plans that I'd come to Michigan for a vacation the next Spring or Summer (1994) and we'd see how things worked out in person.

Well, things continued to get more and more serious, and we were spending 3, 4, sometimes 6 or more hours a day, talking on the phone. Back then there was no "unlimited long distance" or even cheap LD for that matter; I seem to remember that 30 cents a minute was a good rate back then! So, we were very into each other, obviously.

December 1993 rolled around, and one evening on the phone, she asked me if I was sitting down. Now, you can imagine, I got really nervous at this point, and I figured she was about to tell me that the long distance relationship was just too much and she wanted to call it off. Instead she asked me to marry her, and obviously, I accepted.

So, the plan was I'd move to Michigan, she'd have an apartment for us, and I'd find a job and we'd start our life together. It'd be several months before I could afford to do the move ordinarily, but thankfully my mom put up some money and I was able to fast-track it, and the date was set: January 14, 1994 - only 2-3 weeks to wait. Of course, it seemed a lot longer. ;)

I was fairly nervous doing this, of course. I'd only ever lived in California. We "knew" each other amazingly well, having spent probably hundreds of hours talking about everything under the sun. Though, of course, this was way before digital cameras, so we didn't do the "exchange pics" thing that LD relationship people can do today. All we had were descriptions and the knowledge that we knew each other better than most anyone else in our lives. But, physical chemistry is important too, so I was nervous. A lot of my acquaintances told me I was insane, and that I'd be back in a week. But I just had a feeling I'd never be back...

So 1/14/1994 came around and I hopped on a plane with what I hadn't already shipped to her, and happily left my California life behind. I arrived at DTW, saw her, and as they say in movies... that was it. ;) There was no doubt, on the part of either of us, that this was right.

We had some tough times right away. It took me a little longer than I'd hoped to find a job. It wasn't until 3/8/1994 that I found the job I still have to this day. The company wasn't doing too well back then either, so many times "payday" consisted of "how much do you need in order to eat tonight?" and similar. But I knew the company had potential, so I stuck with it.

September rolled around, and we finally decided to officially get married, and so we did at the courthouse in Walled Lake, MI. Her dad attended, and it was very wonderful.

During the Summer of 1995, the owner of the company told me that his mother lived in Monticello, IN, and was aging and he was thinking of moving the company there so that he and his brother (the other programmer in the company) could take care of her. So, he paid for a mini-vacation for us to go see the town and see if we wanted to live there, as he wanted me to move with the company. We enjoyed it and agreed that when the company moved we'd go with.

So, from October of 1995 through May 2003, we lived in an apartment in Monticello, IN, population around 5,000. A small town, but it was nice living there. Our apartment was on the Tippecanoe River and had a great view.

Eventually though, the company's owner had a house built for himself in Lafayette, about 30 miles away from Monticello, and soon after, moved the office to Lafayette. For 2 years I commuted - not bad in the warm months, but, frankly, HELL, in the winter. So in 2003 we finally bought a house and moved to Lafayette and have lived here ever since.

I've left out some things, but that at least covers the story of "how I ended up in Indiana" - not to mention the story of "how did you meet?" We're one of the first online relationship success stories. :)