RSS Feeds: My Best Friend
I met my best friend in 1992 at a Commodore Users Group meeting in Tempe, Mesa, or Phoenix (I don't remember exactly where it was), Arizona, USA. He ran a Commodore 128 BBS before I did, but I ended up being the one that rewrote all the BASIC code for both of our bulletin boards. When I took mine down in 1998, he left his running for probably 5 more years.
In 1994 or early 1995 (again, my memory just doesn't serve me), we both got hooked up to the Internet from our IBM-compatible computers for the first time. I had been on the Internet before, when email addresses consisted of names and IP addresses — when the DNS system wasn't in place yet. I had done it though Genie, an online service that looked a lot like a UNIX command prompt. My computer, with the monitor and dial-up modem, ran me $2,400 and it was a piece of junk. His computer was a little older and had cost him almost $3,000. I was still in the military, stationed at the recruiting station in Phoenix. He was a contracted bus driver for the airport. He's STILL a bus driver for the airport.
His name is Tim Allen, but he's obviously not the actor of the same name. Tim didn't get along with his own large family very well, but he got along with mine just fine. He spent most of his weekends coming over to my house after I bought it in 1994. From 1996 to 1998, I was stationed in California, so we didn't have much to do with other in person. We still kept in touch via email and some older IM, I think it was called PowWow. After I retired in 1998, he was around the house much more.
Tim is my contact in the US. I use his address and telephone number for anything that I need to have US-based. After all, I'm still a US citizen — I'm just living in the Philippines. Since I've been here, he's mailed checks to me that came in after I left and he's mailed the scanned copies of my taxes for filing (just the pages that had to be signed because the rest was in a database file). When my mother-in-law received her annual 401K check, he mailed that to us. Each time, he used express mail and paid out of pocket. He's the guy who loaned me the money to switch my hosting this time. I need some best friend gift ideas because Tim deserves a gift for everything he's done for me and my family.
Tim has lived in the same apartment for about 30 years. His wing is scheduled for demolition soon and the owner of the complex likes him so much, he's moving him to another wing and taking the apartment number with him. He'll probably live there until he retires. He's about 8 years older than I, but still has a while before he can collect his social security and 401K distributions (11 years would be a good guess).
The things I've told you here are only a fraction of the things that we did together. I didn't mention how I helped him out because he remembers things that I don't. Some things I just do for people and then erase them from my thoughts because I don't expect anything in return. Besides, he's been single all his life and has probably helped me much more than I ever helped him. I think his involvement with my family is all he really cared about anyway. I just dug out a picture of him, taken at least 12 years ago. He doesn't sport the mustache and his hair is more the color gray than anything else now.
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Good friends are the ones who would wipe your butt if you became paralyzed and your wife left you.
Are you guys close enough for that? ;-)
Thank you for the image, Matthew, NOT!
While I wouldn't want to think about that predicament, I'm sure we're close enough for that.
lol…here's my point…
Real friends stand by you when you have "uncomfortable" life difficulties. If you want to find out who your true friends are, become a Christian…most of your "friends" won't want anything to do with you. Those who are true friends will stand by you always.
Another true test is some type of handicap or change to your physical appearance. If this transpires & some stand by you…you know they're the real deal.
Here's my guess…if Tim stood by Richard through all his dorky programming years…he'll be there for the long haul! ;-)
Hello touching story…….sometime we are really confuse which one the true best friend of ours.But you got it my friend.Just still keep intouch with him..send text through the mobile would not difficult to us right ….and since we are in the Tech time.we still can have a chat anytime we want.
My latest blog post: public divorce records
Okay, just a post to let you all know. Circumstances changed at that apartment. I needed to move out. So, I asked my brother about moving in to the house that he inherited from my parents. It is paid for, so all I have to do is pay the utilities. But I also have to do some upgrades to the wiring, add A/C to the house and some other repairs and cleaning. I had to replace the old swamp cooler. That old one was falling apart from all of the rust and it's motor was dying. I had to repair a gas leak that was happening at the Water Heater. It had been leaking (slowly) since I moved in on May of 2007. But the door to the Store Room – where the Water Heater resides, is rotted away from about the middle to the ground. Some cats were going in there to keep warm and caused some boxes to fall and that resulted in the gas leak becomming bigger and leaking even faster. I was just going back there to put out some rat poison inside the doorway when I discovered that the boxes had fallen and had to actually open the door so that I could pick them up and then lay out the poison. When I steped inside – I was already picking up the box – I could smell the gas. I had to shut the valve off and go to Home Depot and get the real line (not copper tubing like was on there) complete with fittings and a new Shut-Off Valve. Came back and completed the task. The gas bill was over $100.00 for that month. Another thing that I had to Replace was the Toilet. I did that – before moving in. The old one was not even fastened to the floor and the water had to be turned off – since it was constantly leaking. I even had to replace the Shut-Off Valve for it. The old shut-off valve was constantly leaking when the water was turned on. I still have to pay all of my bills and that makes it hard to get any of the repairs and such, accomplished. Anyway, I just keep plugging in there and doing what I must and can do. Have to run. I wish everyone the best!!