So in the year 2000 I was still a care-free student at IU in Bloomington. I spent half of that summer in Fort Wayne trying to find temp work and, after giving up on that, the other half in Bloomington working my computer "consultant" job (but mostly going to bars). That summer is one of my fondest memories of college. Bloomington is absolutely serene in the summer. It's a wonderful place to be. And I had little to do but work enough to cover my modest rent and living expenses--mostly consisting of beer and wings at Kilroys (they had obscene happy hour specials. I could get a 32oz pitcher of beer, stuffed sticks and wings for $6 after tip).
I was supposed live in the fraternity house my senior year. But we were on double-secret-probabtion and got caught throwing a party with (*gasp*) alcohol a couple weeks before the start of classes. So we lost our charter for good (we had already lost it the previous year and fought to get it back) and were all thrown out of the house one week into the school year. Most of the guys ended grouping up renting houses together. I had to go to class when all this went down so missed all of this scheming and was the odd man out when I got back. So I ended up finding a one-room apartment on the south side of campus. It was the first and only time I lived by myself which was an important experience.
Right around this time, Radiohead released Kid A which, to this day, brings me back to the emotions I was feeling during that period. Funny how music can do that.
That fall I continued my computer consultant job which consisted of sitting in the campus computer labs and helping other students when they had trouble with the computers. It was a cushy job. We weren't supposed to do our homework, but I always did. It was easy to hide it when I was an IT major and all of my work was on the computer anyway. One of my shifts that fall was in the education building. The person who had the shift after mine was Abby. And that's how we met. She'd come in 5-10 minutes early, I'd stay 5 minutes late. We'd chat. After a few weeks of this I finally asked her out on a "date" (used loosely) which consisted of her coming to my appartment and me cooking mac'n'cheese. smooth, i know. But you can't argue with results.
Funny story before I move on. My first car was an 1985 monte carlo SS. It was a rust bucket. It had all kinds of problems. One of which being that the passenger side door lock would stick. So after one of the first nights abby spent the night at my apartment I drove her to her home to her sorority house in the monte carlo. Of course the door lock stuck. She had to crawl across the front seat to get out. In front of the sorority house. This is worse than the walk of shame. I'm surprised she kept dating me.
2001 wasn't as exciting. I got a new job at the university where I learned how to develop web applications (in ColdFusion *shudder*). Abby and I got more serious but spent the summer apart working internships. I worked for Verizon in Fort Wayne. Abby worked for Deloitte in downtown Chicago. We met up most weekends. I'm not sure if it was in 2000 or 2001 that I bought my friends '91 Civic Si. Before buying it I had never driven a manual. I got a quick lesson and had to drive it back to bloomington from cincinnati. that was fun. But having that car made these trips back and forth from fort wayne to the region feasible. No way could I rely on the monte carlo to drive that much.
I was supposed to graduate in the spring of '01 but I needed another semester to finish my major. I moved into another apartment on the south side of bloomington and moved in with my good friend from highschool who recently returned from a year abroad in Japan. We actually roomed together previously in the fraternity as well. Unfortunately this didn't work out too well. Abby and I were very serious at this point and she spent alot of time at my apartment. Suffice to say she and my friend didn't get along well. That was a source of stress but we all made it through.
For spreak break (WOO) 2002 we took a trip to California to visit my sister Deanna in Long Beach. that was our first vacation together. We also drove to Vegas and back which was my first trip there.
I graduated in December but since Abby had another semester to go and I already had an apartment lease I elected to stick around in bloomington. Tough decision, I know. I got a different job with the university writing ColdFusion. That was another really fun time in my life. I was bringing in decent money and still had very little responsibility. Abby and I ate out all the time and I got fat. That spring Indiana made an unexpected run to the 2002 Final Four losing to Maryland in the final game. It was a very good time to be in Bloomington.
Abby graduated in may and lined up a job with Fifth Third bank in Cincinnati. We decided to move there together and I found a somewhat-crappy job with the Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau. Before leaving Bloomington in June 2002, I proposed. Abby said yes, we were engaged, happy.
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