rawlinson – us

Reconnecting With Old Friends

This year has been full of faces and names I haven’t seen or heard from in quite some time. It all started when my old Army buddy “Fred” (Markus Fiumefreddo) emailed me. He and I seem to routinely fall in and out of contact with each other and it had been a few years since I had last spoken to him. We exchanged a few emails and spoke on the phone. However, almost as quickly as that connection was reunited it seems to have faded. I don’t think Fred uses email much (though he is online all the time playing World of Warcraft).

At almost the same time an 2 old friends from my first trip through college contacted me. Both were in my fraternity and found me via Linked In. It was cool catching up with “Biff” (Jason) and finding out about his family. Likewise it was cool to hear from Camhi and to know that we were in a very similar profession. I didn’t know SUNY Albany even had a computer science program when I was going there – it just goes to show that I really shouldn’t have been in college at all then; I was so unprepared and unsure of what the heck I was doing. My time in Albany was a chaotic mess but I did meet a bunch of great guys and it was great to hear from these two.

I already thought my year was packed with old faces when suddenly, out of the blue, I received another email from another old Army buddy, Oswald. Oz and I were in Korea together and I spent a lot of my last year in the Army partying with him. We actually both got online together back in the early 90′s becuase he had a phone line in his room and I had a computer – so my computer headed down the hall to his room and before you knew it I met Lisa! Oz was a guy who I did a lot of spontaneous stuff with in the Army – such as packing up the truck and just driving south into Mexico. Our goal that day was to drive till he found the gulf of Mexico. Instead we found a vehicle inspection point 3 hours in and had to turn around. Not deterred we headed north and west until we hit the Grand Canyon. That’s just how our life worked that year. Needless to say it was great to hear from him as well. He actually uses email on a regular basis so we have been planning on getting together to party for a bit in September at a huge fund raiser for some volunteer fire department in Chester WV (there is a big Casino there). It should be a blast and it is a perfect place for us to meet up as we both live about 5 hours from it.

Finally, this past week our old neighbors were back in town and we got together with them and their two kids for a couple evenings. Lisa and I always really liked Sara and Dean so it was great to see them. Their kids are just about equivalent to ours in age so the four of them had a blast playing together. It was particularly cool seeing Emily play with their daughter because I don’t really get to see Emily play with anyone but Shannon. Shannon has always been so social but Emily is a bit more of a loner in school. It was great to see her dive in and have fun with another kid.

The year is only half over but I’ve already reconnected with 6 old friends. It’s enough to already declare 2008 as a great year.