I'm so Famous, Part 2

This is really a continuation of Famous Part 1. To remind you, I played on the computer a lot, loved the chat rooms, and was heavily involved in an online LDS community. I was still doing that when I went to Ricks College, chatting plenty with my pals in the youth group. During Christmas break, I decided I was maybe old enough to see what was going on in the singles group. Lo and behold, they were talking about setting up cool things like we had with the youth, monthly meetings and the like, but no one knew what to do. So I told them what to do, but no one would do it. I volunteered (hello, it wasn't hard). In the process, Jamie e-mailed asking for information and I wrote back. We e-mailed a few times during the next month mainly about that, but nothing too exciting.

My birthday is in January, and I was surprised when he sent me a Happy Birthday (he'd seen it on my AOL profile). I sent back a thanks, and mentioned I would be visiting family in Ogden the next weekend. He wrote back and said he would be in down from Utah State to visit his grandfather in Ogden. I had met some of the kids in the youth group and it was great knowing who I was talking to, so I asked if he would be interested in meeting, not thinking of romance, just fun. He said sure, so we arranged to meet at my aunt's house where I was staying. I don't remember a whole lot from that, but he never made it to his grandfather's.

My ride back to Ricks was meeting me at a friend's apartment at Utah State the next day, so Jamie stopped by while I was there to say hi. He couldn't stay long because he was going on a date. I attribute that to the fact that when I got back to Ricks I e-mailed my mom and said, "Nice guy, but no chemistry." (She still has the e-mail.)

Over the next week there was a lot of e-mailing, probably even a phone call. That weekend he drove to Ricks to see me. The next weekend we met at my aunt's again. A few months later we were engaged, and a few months after that, married!

Given the newness of this online thing, let alone online dating, we were on the front page of the Times News in Twin Falls, Idaho and the San Ramon Valley Times in San Ramon, California. Though I do say we weren't really online daters, because there was no romantic interest until we met in person, if then, given the whole 'chemistry' e-mail.

If you can't read the articles, all the better. They were both terrible. I have a hard time believing reporters because they were pretty creative with something as simple as two wonderful young people finding each other online and ending up married. The Twin Falls one has a quote from Jamie saying the wrong city where we were engaged and says Orson Scott Card gave me a computer (it was a modem). The San Ramon reporter was feeling cheesy, including things like "love at first 'byte,'" calling my family and friends in Idaho "kin" (i.e. hicks), a quote from me saying that one of the three things we talked about online was Mickey Mouse (I'm a fan, but really), and a quote from Jamie's mom mentioning Mickey Mouse as one his three interests (eh?). You'd have thought Disney was hurting that year and asked the newspaper to advertise.




It was actually 14 years ago two days ago that we met in person. Happy Meeting Anniversary! I'm sure you would all like to hear Jamie's side of the story now. Jamie?

Interesting to note, the Times News article came out on June 24th, we were married July 1st, the San Ramon Times article came out July 15th, and the New Era article from Famous 1 was in September issue. Quite the big famous summer all around.

Straight from Newsies, "If you're in the papes, you're famous!" Don't worry, it didn't go to my head. I had all that hair back then to stop it. ;)

I'm So Famous, Part 1

Those of you that know me personally have probably never realized how famous I actually am. Some of this fame is shared with Jamie and thus deserves it's own special post, so that will be Part 2.

My family always had a computer while we were growing up, thanks to my dad. I remember playing these really cool games on our TRS-80 Radio Shack computer, one of which I still pine for (the one with the 5 or 6 pixel monster coming toward you through the box maze, and each turn different doors would open, and you had to get from point A to point B without the monster getting you. I kid you not, it was intense. Wish I knew the name, but I probably couldn't read back then). We would learn C programming on our Commodore 64, in exchange for equal game time (Pitfall, Montezuma's Revenge, Paper Boy, Boulder Dash - all the goodies), which was very helpful when I was a computer science major. Long story short, we were always up on technology.

I don't remember when it was that I first got set up on e-mail (sophomore/junior year in high school?), but my e-mail address was smilinsue@aol.com. For some reason I had to set up another one later so then I was smilinsue2.

I had a lot of fun playing in AOL chat groups, pre-online predator times of course, and got involved with an online LDS group (won't drop names of who else was involved, but you would recognize them.) I stayed in the youth area mostly, and got to know a lot of really great kids and met a few in person here and there. At some point I was asked to be the 'president' of the youth group, and we set up a day/time every month when we would all meet online.

At one of these meetings someone suggested we write an article about our group and send it to the New Era. Several of the kids mailed me pictures, I wrote up some great stuff, and mailed it off. A few months down the road I heard from the New Era saying they were going to be publishing our story, September 1995. We were all so excited!

Until the artcile came out. It was all just about ME!

I feel terrible to this day, and wish Emily, Geoff, Dallin, Rusty (racking my brain for more names) could have all shared in the glory. So here's the article, straight from lds.org. (To prove how back in the day this was, they didn't even know how to write "online.")


Friendship On-Line

Marni Adams has friends all over the United States. Every month, they get together and talk about gospel subjects, ideas for Mutual activities, and what they’ve read in the latest issue of the New Era. No, Marni doesn’t travel a lot, and she doesn’t have a huge phone bill. Every month, Marni and her friends “chat” on their computers
“Our group includes people from all over the country,” says Marni, a student at Ricks College. “Only a few have actually met in person, but even those who haven’t are still great friends with each other.”.

Known as “Smilin’ Sue” on the computer, Marni says that through advanced technology, people who would have never become friends otherwise now really love each other.

“Probably the best thing about making friends on the computer is that appearances and age don’t matter. It’s a lot easier to really get to know people,” says Marni.


So there you have it. That's me in all my big hair, big glasses glory. Bring on the comments. I can take it.