Which is why, of course, things had to go to hell in a handbasket.

[November 20, 2000] One thing that was a shot between the eyes was that my paternal grandfather, affectionately known by all simply as "Pop" suffered a massive stroke the day before Thanksgiving in 2000.  I hate it when my intuition proves correct.  Had I taken the job with McKendree College I would've been almost a thousand miles away from my parents and been unable to assist them while they went to look after Pop.  I have been told by my parents that the holiday was still observed by the family, although I don't think I was quite aware of it at the time.  The shock of having my only surviving grandfather in the hospital and unable to talk stayed with me through to the end of the Christmas season.

Pop went into a nursing home at the beach two weeks after his stroke where he languished in a semi-lucid state for a couple of years.  Then on January 15, 2003, he died of pneumonia.   He was cremated and a simple memorial service was held for him two days afterward at a funeral home in Murrells Inlet, SC.

[March, 2001] Shot number two came in the lissome forms of Rebecca and Julie, two girls that I went out with between May 2000 and March 2001.  Why my life can't include simple, routine dating is beyond me.  This soap opera rivals the one that I endured when Laura and I parted ways some ten years prior.

Rebecca was/is a beautiful young blonde woman (or redhead, depending on the day) that was the younger sister of a friend of mine from my days at Newberry College.  She and I did most of our socializing on AOL Instant Messenger, though we did know each other personally and had gone out once on a date.  It was after that date that things went absolutely haywire.  I refer you to the following playbill for the cast of characters:

John: former student of mine and also a former good friend
Julie: girlfriend of John at the time and a good friend of mine
Rebecca: woman that I was courting at the time (single mom, too)
Raven: Rebecca's adorable little girl
Me: sucker par excellence

Anyway, after the date with Rebecca I send an IM to John and told him how great the date was and described to him in vivid detail just how wonderful this woman was.  Yep, you can guess what happened next...  John IMed Rebecca and the next evening he took her out on a date.  They wound up doing more than just eating dinner that night (wink-wink, nudge-nudge), the news of which hit me on the head like a sack of wet cement (Rebecca told me about it the next evening).  I was betrayed by someone I thought to be a friend and any hopes of dating Rebecca in the future had been dashed completely.

She was betrayed as well because, as the playbill shows, John was dating a woman named Julie at the time.  After succumbing to a severe case of the guilts, he sent Rebecca a quaint little email and asked if they could forget about any future romantic entanglements and remain 'just friends.'  And with that he then slunk back to an unsuspecting Julie.  Meanwhile Rebecca was inconsolable and I wasn't quite sure how to react.  I did the wise thing and let her work it out on her own.  Shortly after "the John Incident" Rebecca latched onto an old friend of hers and declared her dating days over with.  (It should be noted that she eventually wound up marrying that old friend of hers.)

During this whole mess I had been keeping in touch with Julie.  She was enthusiastic over the prospect of me finding someone and was offering me a lot of needed encouragement and advice.  When the time came for me to inform Julie about what had happened, I was as obscure as I could be about the particulars where her boyfriend was concerned.  Despite how angry I was at John, I wasn't going to spill the beans to Julie.  A real man accepts responsibility for what he's done and takes whatever consequences that derive from those actions.  So I decided to let John be the bearer of his own bad news and only gave Julie as much information as she needed to understand why I was so distraught.  Jules consoled me as any good friend would and promised to visit sometime.

Immediately afterwards I washed my hands of both him and Rebecca and concentrated on my job and nothing else.  Then sometime in August 2000 I got an IM from Julie stating that she'd broken up with John over 'some kind of betrayal.'  Turns out that John had indeed told Julie that he had slept around on her.  However he had failed to mention the part where I was involved, which I figured that he would do and kept my mouth shut about the whole thing.  Anyway, one thing led to another and since I knew that she was single I found myself asking her out on AIM.  She shocked me by saying yes.

We went out quite a few times, exchanged gifts at Christmas and were generally good company to each other.  I submit to the readers of this archive that I was a perfect gentleman with her and never once placed a hand where it wasn't wanted.  Julie eventually puzzled out the true nature of John's betrayal after she and I had gone out and talked online for a couple of months.  Despite this, sometime in March 2001, she went back to him.  From what I understand things didn't last much longer between the two of them despite the reconciliation.

I'm happy to report that Rebecca is now married and has two children.   She has the family life that she'd dreamed of and I wish her well.  John and I don't talk anymore, and Julie has moved away from SC.

Anyway, that long blurb consists of shot number two. . .

[August, 2001] Shot number three was more of a shot across the bow.  The dot-com industry was beginning to flag right when Renaissance Interactive/Impressa scored a massive infusion of venture capital from a group of investors out of Atlanta.  It was because of this nice infusion of money that I was even able to be hired, so there were some benefits that came from that cash.  ^_^  However micromanagement from those same investors and the nosediving NASDAQ wound up eating the company alive.  Beginning in January, 2001 and continuing through August, 2001, Renaissance Interactive/Impressa wound up laying off close to two-thirds of their employees.  Satellite offices were shut down and only very knowledgeable core personnel were retained at our main office in Columbia.

I almost got laid off myself, but was spared when a co-worker left the company ahead of the second impending wave of terminations.  I didn't know whether to feel lucky or not.  Philip, one of my best friends and a former co-worker from Newberry College as well as Renaissance, had been laid off in the first go-round and a few months later I was suddenly one of a very few people still aboard a sinking ship.  Taking matters into my own hands, I found out that Philip had gotten a job with the state government working with a computer update group for the DMV operating under the title "Project Phoenix."  I asked him if they needed someone with my skills, and fortunately for me they did.

Talk about getting out at just the right time.  Nine days after I left, the terrorists hit the Pentagon and WTC's 1 and 2.  The shock to the market was, as everyone knows, horrible.  I knew at that point that Renaissance Interactive was doomed.  Sure enough, two days before Christmas 2001, Renaissance Interactive/Impressa filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors.  Their remaining employees were given the boot with almost no warning.  I had to go there to pick up some computers that I'd left behind (as an agreement for free hosting if I provided occasional support to them after I'd turned in my resignation) and was not prepared for what I saw.  The men hadn't shaved in days; it was like they'd not left the office at all in the last week.  I found out from one of my friends there that they had been trying to close out, migrate or otherwise finish as many client obligations as they could before the hammer came down.  As selfish as it seems, the one thought that came to mind was "That could've been me."

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