Friends. What is the Internet without "friends"? In the short time that I've been "caught in the Net", I've made some wonderful friends. Some have become closer to me than others, but ALL are friends. In this particular section of "Caught in the Net", I will be displaying photos of my friends, and relating how we met. These photos have been re-printed with the permission of my friends (thanks, guys!).
Come. Meet my friends....
No, Ernie is the one on the right. That's his Godson on the left. Had you fooled, huh? Ernie is one of my "recent" friends. I just met him in May of this year (1997).
How did I meet him? Well, Ernie is the Webmaster for the "X-Band Webring", and I am a member of that webring. One day, a prospective member asked me to add his site to the webring. Unfortunately, the site involved did NOT have the required webring panel showing, AND had questionable material. Needless to say, I refused to add the site. I then notified the Webmaster of the webring (Ernie) of the refusal.
Soon, we began e-mailing back and forth, asking the usual questions like "what's your name?" and "where do you live?", and so on. It turned out that Ernie lives not far from me in Southern California.
Eventually, I DID have to tell Ernie that I had to go offline as I had to start getting ready for my once-a-week visit to a software company (IACTA) that discovered my writing talent through the "Soose" site. I can remember so well the response I got from Ernie: "Gee! I wish a software company would discover ME!".
When I arrived at IACTA, I told Laura Buddine of Ernie's site, asked her to view it, and asked her for her opinion and if he would be of any use to IACTA. Laura was VERY impressed with Ernie's site and his ability to create. She e-mailed him and asked him if he was available to come over for an "interview". A phone call followed, and within 90 minutes, Ernie was at IACTA meeting Laura and myself. Ernie has been part of the IACTA team since.
Laura has taken Ernie "under her wing" and has introduced him to the world of graphics. He has become VERY good at designing and creating logos, banners, gifs, backgrounds, etc.--and he's STILL learning! Just look at the wonderful banner he created for "Caught in the Net"!
I am VERY proud of Ernie, and I LOVE to take the credit for "discovering" him. And he ALWAYS lets me know how grateful he is to Laura and me.