Long overdue: my phone conversation with dear fiend and Finkville citizen, Suzanne! She and her husband are visiting the states from the Netherlands, and she called me last night from her mom’s home in Michigan. A 48-minute treat that was.
Suzanne and her dashing Dutchman Harold are wonderful people who met “online” and have turned their relationship into a 10-year success story. I “met” both of them on the #newbies channel on the IRC network of chat servers (for those who don’t know and don’t want to wade through the link: it’s kind of like Instant Messenger, but you can see dozens of folks talking all at once. It’s basically what AOL calls a “chat room,” only for people with brains).
!
We, along with the Thriller, were channel operators, helping people new to IRC get acclimated to software and network issues. It was fun and I think the four of us can say we met a lot of cool people from all over the world.
Suzanne was in my wedding, flying all the way from California to Florida to be with us. [Remember when your dress got lost in shipping and we had to get you another one, last minute? That was not stressful AT ALL…]
We have a lot of funny stories and some great memories. She is a super fiend, and top-drawer in my book.
Oh yeah, and her wedding back in 1999…who’s the cute little piano player?
Make sure you check out their website for the story in Suzanne’s words, as well as some great pictures to look at: hettenvan.com.
I will let you all know about my Mary Poppins experience. I hope I won’t need a spoonful of…well, nevermind.
FO
Sounds like Suzanne is the very best of friends…we all need those ‘lil Finkster, we all need those.
And yea, who is that cute little piano player anyway?
Heart you,
MFO
Aw thanks, Mickey McFinn. You no speak with fork tongue, either. Friends are special indeed; and the good ones even, um, specialer.
How interesting that you’re talking about weddings! I just saw this on FB and about wet myself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0&feature=player_embedded
And what a blast from the past to even think about IRC!! While I never really found myself on #newbies, I did make quite a few friends on some of the channels that I camped out on (I was an op, too!). We should all get back on IRC someday & have a chat-a-thon!!
BoomR… off to church to blow some sax in the praise/worship band!
That vid was awesome! HA
I wish I would have done it that way.
We should definitely have a chat-a-thon someday. I’d love it…you use IRCLE?
I’d probably use IRCle… the program that I **used** to use is no longer supported (it was old-school OS 9). It was called Homer (after Homer Simpson). It had a lot of .wav files of Homer’s voice for certain actions (kick, ban, etc). Had a fun UI, too (http://people.exeter.ac.uk/jastaple/irc/homerqs.html for some examples).
Haha, IRC rocks. Still.
Also, “It’s basically what AOL calls a “chat room,” only for people with brains.” is sometimes true…sometimes not. There are idiots everywhere, especially on the internet.
Agreed, Mathew. You don’t even have to look on the web to find idiots, that’s for sure. I’z just saying that IRC was a “thinking person’s” chat vehicle as opposed to AOL’s sing-songy approach.
PS…AOL has (or used to have) a limit of 23/24 people per chat room, which always makes it difficult to get into rooms you want to be in or find people. No user limit in IRC chat rooms…
OMGarsh! Imagine my surprise as I sit here this morning in Michigan, eating my English muffin with peanut butter (just throw that directly on my thighs), go to Da Finkie Page and there I/we are. I wasn’t online yesterday so I didn’t see it til today. It WAS great to chat and we need to do it more, yer da best .
Off to the cornfields of Indiana in an hour or two. I/we are looking forward to waking tomorrow to the mooing of cows and cackling of a chicken or crowing of a rooster or two. Not.
Hey we does what we gotta do for da sake of fambily.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane! I had forgotten about the lost dress.
You’re welcome, Suz — enjoy your trip today! Take photos of Harold enjoying the county fair. LOL