A Shrine to Lt. Randall R. Ramm

This friendly-looking fellow is my good friend and roommate Randy. He is one of two people that are responsible for this site. While he may not have provided the inspiration/hectoring that caused me to begin (your tribute is forthcoming), Randy did provide the technical expertise to allow me to get online from home. Allow me to elaborate:

Randy and I completed moving in together at the end of August. Prior to this Randy was in helicopter flight school and I was living by my lonesome. In the year and a half I lived in my nice little apartment I had never subscribed to either cable or internet. I didn't even have a landline telephone. And I was O.K. with it. Randy didn't want to live my spartan lifestyle and immediately had cable and internet hooked up at the new place. However, I never bothered to connect the old college laptop to the internet until about two months ago. It didn't work. I messed around for an afternoon and decided that the situation was hopeless and I would simply have to bite the bullet and purchase a new machine. I was immediately courted by the Apple devotees in my inner sanctum and as of this weekend was in the process of working out the details of buying a new iBook.

Let's bring this back to Randy. I arrive home last night feeling pretty good following the beer tasting at Smokey's. Randy is standing next to the router with my laptop, speaking with someone on the phone. Randy had told me multiple times that I should call tech support to sort out my problems with the computer. I found the prospect of just buying a new computer slightly more appealing. Within ten minutes Randy had the laptop online. His only request was that I put a few Grain Belts in the refrigerator for him.

Go ahead Randy, you earned it.