My Internet Friends

Page 1

(see page 21 for Internet groups)

 

The  Internet is like a spiders web, it  connects people with almost invisible  links.

Email:   Chris

The  problem in listing and talking about my  friends  here is that I might miss out a few.  This is not done intentionally.  AND  also  This page will need updating from time to time  as I make NEW  friends,  If anyone feels left out please tell me and I will rectify it later.  Those who have a website that I know about I have made their  name a hyperlink.

     It was  summer  2000 that I first “found” Yahoo  Groups., I joined a number of groups which I had interests  in.  Vegetarian, Vegan, Philately, Birds, weather, nature, cats and BEATLES.   After a while after  leaving messages  in several, I “discovered” Yahoo  Messenger, and hence my life changed!  I found people who would talk to ME!   What was  nice was that AGE  did not seem  to matter in the  majority of  cases.  I was  always honest about my  age.

      The first person whom I really started talking to was Jess  from Arizona, she went by the  name of PLUTO. She was in the  cat group, but it was her list of interests that made me make the effort to try and talk to someone whom I had only previously seen posting messages about her cat called Pluto!  She was interested  in CATS of  course  LOL,  but also weather, and astronomy.   YES Pluto was the planet  , not the Disney DOG!   Her cat was called Pluto!   Like  a lot of people I talked to on the net Jess was very friendly  and open, and we often talked, both seriously and humorously. She was then 18 and I was 60.   But age  seemed to be  no barrier.  Two  years later I was invited, and went to her Wedding Blessing (Nov 02), and was shown round  Arizona  for a week.  This  trip was beyond my dreams.  LINK TO ARIZONA PHOTOS

     My  next long term friend was Rachel from Colorado. She was quite different to Jess,  she was a MASSIVE  Beatles fan, and at the time she was the owner of the  largest Yahoo Beatles club/group.   She is a year younger than Jess, and also a vegetarian, and started her own veggie Yahoo group with the apt  name of “Lettuce In the Sky With Diamonds”.  It was through this  group that I met my third and fourth long term Internet friends (more later).  Rachel came over to England in 2001 to a  college  in Croydon,  near London, as she had to stay over in UK  for the Christmas break we invited her to come and stay with us.  She then had to “endure” a Vegan Christmas  (which as a vegetarian was not a difficulty!)  and a  train trip to Liverpool, a  special trip to see Beatle Land  in person.   I always remember our  first conversation about how  she HAD to visit  Liverpool!  Well we were  glad to make her wish come true.  Since then Rachel has changed her name to  Allex, and we are still in contact, though not very often.  Another long term friend is Anna-Marie, who is called Pet, from Texas!  I came across her in Katie's Weather  Group.  I found she  was also very interested in drama.  Pet was actually  the  first Internet friend from abroad that I met. In Summer 2001  she  was chosen as one of a group of Texan students to tour the UK on a friendship tour of the British Isles.  We  met her, and a few of her fellow  students  at the open air museum in Durham, a whole village!  Danielle from Western Australia was probably my  next long term friend.   Not  long after Rachel set up her  Lettuce  Group, Danielle started her  “In The Veggiepot” group.  I was one of the  first to join.  I remember her opening remarks very well, about how  she was a  rather  lonely vegetarian in a sea of hearty meat eaters, that was why she started her group, hoping to meet or  find other  Australian vegetarians.   So I did a bit of searching in the Yahoo lists and found a number of Australians who were vegetarian and I invited them to join her group.   One of these is  now another of  my  best Internet friends Adam, and  He and Danielle became  very  close friends.  I gradually got to know  Danielle very well.  She was 16 when I was  61, and I claimed I was a REVERSE  teenager.  But it was her approach to life and her mature caring attitude for others and the environment  and  animals that made  her feel like a daughter  to me.   She herself was facing more  emotional problems than I had first realised, and she went through a really tough time about a year later.  Now she has overcome  those difficulties  and is working flat out at University, and is doing well  by all accounts.   The other friend who I met at about the same time was Melisa  from Argentina, an other massive Beatles fan who was also an ardent Vegetarian living in  big meat eating  area.  She too has now entered the world  of university education and is  working hard. She  has an interesting website.  The link to her site  is found in the  top right “award” to me by Melisa  for  my  website, THANKS  MELISA. Just click on to the picture,  and you will be at her beautiful site.  Her native language is Spanish, but I would never had guessed, unless  I knew!.   Any who can converse naturally in a foreign language amazes me!

      During my early days of being on the net  I made  lots of new friends; some I have  kept up with more than others. Some I have  lost touch with.   The  following I have kept  in touch with, mainly via Veggie  groups, but not  only those.  Anita from Croatia, Carrie from Canada, Stephanie Jobe from America, (An amazing teenager who against a number of  seemingly insurmountable difficulties has made  fighting for the  environment her  passion see her website).  Remember she started this when only 13.  Then there is Amber  from Ohio, Helen from New York, and Teri (lady Bug)  who was the person most responsible  for  persuading me  to be a raw vegan. I am SO grateful  to her.   I must not forget my  other  lovely person from Canada, Karen.  Such a lively person, who with a group of other  teenagers off their own bat organised , wrote  and performed their own play in a  hired small theatre in Toronto.  A really amazing event.   It is things like these that prove to me  that  youngsters can and do do marvellous  good  things.  There are some wonderful people who run Nature, Cats & Wild bird Groups who  are doing a wonderful job with their groups namely Val, Von,  Vicki ,  Wes  ,Jamie & Suzanne , Karen, Shari & Debbie.  .In January 02 I first really came across some  more  lovely people Heidi from  Oklahoma, Kenneth  from Malta,  and Kimberly  from Nova Scotia.   I really admire  Kim’s  determination to succeed.  She  too has  been through a number of changes and

Since I started making new friends  some have become real friends, and some I have  met.  Those who have websites are  linked here.

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Staphanie's site

http://www.creationsguardians.com/index.html

Pet's Site (Anna-Marie)

http://www.geocities.com/lash17_2000/ladylash.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~heidiannkennedy/index.html

Danielle's is unfinished,   but she  wants  to work on it again sometime

http://www.geocities.com/rainbow_vampire_faery/

http://surrealistic-horrorshow.tk/