The Book Gets underway 13 years ago

Like all Books, this has a beginning. This book really began with the Purchase of a Zeos Pantera Computer , a compnay that I don't even know is in buisness now, Since I began this book over 13 years have passed , and a lot of High Tech Companies have now become extinct. Some of the comments I make may sound odd by the standards of today ( 2008 ) but I have reason to believe that todays standards will soon join the list of extinct standards , practices , and companies. Anyway ... The purchase of a new computer began with an ending - after fifteen years, my wife and I separated and divorced. The sum of our relationship was: a wonderful daughter, a large house, a car of the Toyota variety, and a store with bills that were rapidly filling up that Zeos Pantera's disk space. After the separation, I took the store, the debt, and the computer. Karen took the rest.

At first it did not seem like the best of trades - moving from the large house to the back of the store did not seem quite fair. But, there was no other way, looking on the bright side I found myself with a very short commute.

The store was located in a small resort town in the West - so small that there were only two single women in my age group in the entire town and they were booked until 1999. There are no movie theaters. There are a couple of taverns that specialize in customers hooting at the various sporting events on the television.

I remember feeling that I would need something to fill my time and take my mind off the separation. It's funny how your mind lets you sometimes inch into tragedy - at first it, it seemed like camping. Being now single and alone, I decided on a clever course of action: I would drive 150 miles to the town of Eugene and get some computer games to go with my Zeos Pantera. After all, it had a CD-ROM and a 256-color monitor - it made sense to me.

Looking back, this may seem a little pathetic: 47 years old, living in the back of a store. I, with what I thought was good reason, decided that Sim City, Return to Zork, and Leisure Suit Larry would provide me with the companionship I craved for the rest of my life. These were computer games in the early years of gaming no serious blood was shed and most of the action happened as I typed instructions to the Characters in the role playing games.

I remember that night snuggling up in the sleeping bag, the heady aroma of a Marie Callendar's roast beef dinner hanging in the air, and the Leisure Suit Larry manual in my hand and a smile on my face. Life could be bliss - who needed relationships?

This phase of my life lasted about two days. The Sim City needed more RAM, Zork wouldn't configure to my system, and Leisure Suit Larry never seemed to get the girl. Cable was still a week away, and I was bored, lonely, and out of Marie Callendar's roast beef dinners. bliss had bailed out.

It was time for a little introspective look at my life, this was my second marriage I was beginning to wonder if marriage was such a good idea. A line from the play Our Town kept running through my mind something about going through life two by two. This time it felt more like a 2x 4. If I was going to get into another relationship it had to be special, what I really wanted was someone who would love me for who I was who would delight in me and yet encourage me to be better, someone who was always there for me and knew my every need, but I was old enough to recognize fantasy and just left my self content with finding a few good friends

It was at this time that providence entered my life. While searching for answers to the RAM problem I stumbled across the computer magazine with an AMERICAN ONLINE start up disk in it. AOL had been thrust into my life. Vaguely, I remembered an article I had read about cybersex and with trembling fingers I installed the disk. I was ready for whatever came my way. I had my life back. America Online was just what I needed...

Almost, seems like I needed a modem.

Life is way too complicated. Why can't you just run down to your local grocery store - the same place you buy the Marie Callendar's dinners - and throw a modem into your cart? Instead, you have to go to a place that sells modems.

If you remember the town was very small. Modem outlets were nonexistent. In fact, I suspect we just got outlets last year. Anyway...I stumbled across the information from Zeos that they had sent me with the computer and remembered that I could call them and they could FedEx the modem to me. Life went back to being simple - or so I thought...