An Aside

Since people may be reading this blog who don't know who I am I think I'll take a moment to introduce myself.

My name is Ben. I grew up in Lansing, MI with my mom, dad and little brother. When I was in 3rd grade we got our first dog, a brittany named Fluffy. We lived in a semi-rural area and generally let her outside to run free during the day until whenever she decided to come home. Generally her "hunting grounds" were within 100 yards or so of our house, but there were a couple times when she'd be gone for hours upon hours at a stretch.

In 1997 I left home to attend at a small liberal arts in Alma, MI (Alma College). During my first summer back home a yellow lab started hanging around our property. We eventually took him in and named him Dusty. He was a bit more of a roamer than Fluff so we had to keep him on a tether when we let him out.

I've always considered myself a "dog person" but our family dogs both seemed to gravitate more towards my parents. I don't know if it's because mom & dad were the "alphas" of the pack or what, but at night the dogs stayed in their room and when they watched tv the dogs stayed right by them. This didn't bug me too much since the dogs didn't dislike me, but in general I didn't feel as close to them as my parents did. I think this is why after they both passed I wasn't as shook up as my parents were over it (both dogs passed within about two years of each other).

I figured I'd get a dog when I got a house. I'd graduated from Alma with a degree in chemistry in 2001. My first job was down in Indianapolis working 3rd shift at a chemical manufacturer doing analytical QC (quality control). I lived in an apartment there on my own and didn't feel like I could do a dog justice at that point since I was gone 12 hours a day.

In 2002 I got a job working in Kalamazoo, MI. Again, I was working 3rd shift and living in an apartment on my own. This time it was only working 8 hour days, but I still felt with my backwards sleep schedule it wouldn't be fair to a dog. It was while I was in Kalamazoo that two things happened. The first is that I decided to go back to graduate school to get my PhD in Green Chemistry. The second is that I met Holly.

Holly and I met online. Nowadays I don't think it's really a big deal, but when we first met it was 2003 and society wasn't as wired as it is today. We didn't meet through any dating site or whatever. We met on a discussion forum we were both members of. I had actually decided I was going to be a "quirky alone" shortly before really getting to know Hol. She blew that idea out of the water, though.

There were only really two obstacles to overcome. The first, and probably most important, obstacle was that Hol lived in England. We overcame this in May of 2004 when I decided to fly out and meet her and her family. The trip went surprisingly well and there was instant chemistry between us. The second obstacle, however, wouldn't be dealt with for another four years. Holly was scared of dogs.

She's not really sure where her fear of dogs came from, but she says that her family used to tell her she'd been attacked by a dog when she was young. Bringing Hol to visit my family was always a bit of a challenge. The first night we'd be there she would generally have a mild anxiety attack, but then sort of normalize as our visit went on. It didn't help that my parents had gotten another hyper black lab, Champ, who just looked like a huge mass of black fur and teeth to Hol.

In the fall of 2004 I left Michigan to go to the University of Massachusetts at Lowell to start my PhD work. Hol had just finished college in the UK and suggested she come out to MA to live with me for 90 days under the visa waiver program. I figured it was a good idea so we tried it out. There were a few culture shocks along the way and some family-related heartache for Hol, but she toughed it out. The following May I went back to the UK to visit her again at which point I proposed and she accepted. After two more 90 day visits we got everything in order and were married in August 2006 and have been living together ever since.

I think that brings us up to the start of our "Beginnings" story. If there are any questions just post them in the comments section and I'll answer as I can.