Vackert

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En historia som jag saxat från en utländsk blogg jag följer. Bloggaren är pokerdealer i Las Vegas och berättar om hur han träffade sin tjej. Riktigt rörande och extremt välskrivet.

Nearly fifteen years ago, I made a decision that would dramatically alter the course of my life. At the time, I thought it to be a whim, something to do on a weekend to kill some time. As I backed out of the driveway to head east for that first meeting, I guessed I would likely be making this drive only once.

I should really start back at the beginning, though...

I worked nights, babysitting a computer. During the day, I attended classes at the university. Between school and the night job, I managed a bar at a fairly upscale restaurant. Sleep? I could only wish for sleep. How I managed to stay awake, to stay coherent, in an age before energy drinks and the like, I shall never be able to explain. Mostly, my life at that point is a blur.

Some of that blur may be the result of the drinking and partying I did back then. If not at work or school, and sometimes when I was supposed to be at work or school, I headed out to one of dozens of bars around the city. Faced with a difficult class, or perhaps only faced with a choice between a boring class and an entertaining afternoon with a friend, I frequently found myself at a bar on campus instead of in a lecture hall.

Life was pretty fun back then - no regrets at all - but I feared for my longevity. I needed a savior.

My modus operandi at school was to seek out the professor at the beginning of the semester and ask - beg, in some cases - for an assignment to do in lieu of attending lectures I was proficient enough to teach. There really is nothing as boring as going to school to get a degree in a field you already work in at a fairly high level.

Keeping with the assignment in lieu of class concept, for my C++ class, I was given the option of coding any piece of software I chose so long as it functioned at the end of the semester, was fully documented, etc. At least I didn't have to go to class.

I decided to code a chat server. Roll your eyes, but in those days the interwebs were largely relegated to universities and government only. Mosaic and Netscape were barely in use on campus, let alone from someone's house. The only connectivity was PPP, if you were lucky.

The chat server was successful. As I spent all night babysitting a large mainframe, I had plenty of time to kill talking to people from all across the country. One of those people didn't live far from me, as it turned out...just a short hour drive to Ohio. We talked for weeks before we decided to actually meet each other. I drove east to spend the weekend either a) with someone I had thus far found interesting, or b) alone wandering the Cincinnati suburbs just for something to do.

As I was finishing up getting cleaned up after that drive, I heard the knock at the door. I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened the door. There stood the most stunning, gorgeous girl I had met, with a smile that would melt a polar ice cap. I forgot all of my trepidations about that trip, forgot all of my nervousness, forgot about everything except for her.

One year later, we married. Through the next dozen years, she would put up with a tremendous amount of crap, but she was always there when I needed her. Whether picking me up after I failed yet again or pushing me forward when I needed a shove, I would never have achieved the things I've managed to accomplish without her in my life.

When I came home from work one day and told her that our life in the midwest was done, that I had no job, that I had no idea what we were going to do but that I thought our future was in Vegas, she simply started packing. In Vegas, we grew closer than we had ever been - if that was even possible - and we haven't looked back since.

Today, we have been married fourteen years. Even the best man at my wedding laid odds we wouldn't last more than three years.

By the way, any of you schmucks that took the under owe me money, damnit!

I've never been happier than when I get to spend time with the wife. Whether it be simply sitting and watching her sink ungodly amounts of money into any number of hobbies that I fail to understand, riding around in the Jeep exploring new parts of the country, or, well, anything actually, so long as I get to do it with her I'll enjoy it.

In my eyes, she is absolutely perfect and I love her more than life itself. Here's to another 14 years! Happy anniversary ;)