October 24 was the nine year anniversary of the night I met my wife Jaca.

On October 24, 2011 we were sitting out on the deck, reminiscing, looking back at that day, who we were then, where we are now and where we want to go from here. Taking in the wonder of it all and how quickly the time has past. Giving thanks for having found each other… The weather was beautiful, sunny with a hint of crispness and unmistakable scent of Autumn around the corner, very much like the day of our first date.

We first connected through an online dating service. Jaca loves to tell the story about how we nearly didn’t meet.

Originally when I joined the dating site I had a free membership. At that time, means’ free memberships had very few features. You could look but not touch so to speak. View profiles but not contact anyone. After some months I decided to take the plunge and get a paid membership. I reasoned I should get serious about finding a date or get off the site. My instincts were a woman wouldn’t contact a free member. They would think I was cheap or insincere.

Almost the same day I upgraded, Jaca was checking her daily email ‘profile matches’ and saw mine so she visited and liked my pic and blurb.

I can’t remember what my blurb was… Something about loving to work on computers and being paper trained I think…  Anyway, Jaca liked it, but the date stamp indicated I had not been online for 6 months! Of course that was not accurate but when Jaca saw it, she thought, “what’s the use of contacting him”. She nearly shut the window, but didn’t. Instead said to herself, “what the heck, if he’s involved with someone, he’ll ignore my email or tell me” and sent me off an email.

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