Jake - Team A.I.
Joined: 06 Jan 2009 Posts: 14 Location: Mesa, AZ
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:06 am Post subject: Hey!!! I remember you! |
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I have a two stories where trading geocoins (or collecting them) has got me into contact with people I knew way before I started geocaching.
The first story involves someone I went to elementary school with.
I used to live in a small town in Kansas. For quite a while there was a single virtual cache in the town. I would check the log page every once in a while just wondering if maybe I'd see a nickname that looked familiar. One day I scroll down and see a log entry for Flyin V. In their log on the cache they stated that one of the members of their team actually grew up in the small town and they were there visiting family. The log gave the first name of the team member. The team name caught my eye. I realized that I had their coin. I further dawned on me that I had bought a couple of coins from them. I went back to my paypal account and pulled up the receipt. Sure enough there was a first initial and last name. The first initial matched the team member given and coupled with a last name, I had a massive flashback to my elementary school years.
So, armed with a team name, I sent a private message through geocaching.com describing who i was and that I believed we were classmates. The response I got back from that message was a wonderful surprise. It turned out that he was who I though and he totally remembered exactly who I was. As a note, it had been 20 years since we last saw each other.
And for the second story...
For a number of months I had been receiving a request to trade for my personal coin from someone that lived in Mesa, AZ, (the city I live in). I really didn't want to spend postage on a trade in town, and more importantly I really like making trades face to face when ever possible. I kept replying that I was always attending local events and would be happy to meet at one of them. We tried and tried for a while to find an event that matched both of our work schedules. Finally he sent a message outside of the geocaching.com messaging service so I was able to see his real name. I glanced at the message where he apologized for not being able to attend the most recent event. As I was typing a response back, I looked at the real name listed on the sending address. It really caught my eye as I used to have a boss years ago with that same name. I had recalled my boss had once told me that his last name was very unique and it was unlikely anyone in the country had the same spelling of it.
I fired off a message to him asking him if he used to work at a local department store and if so, he used to be my boss. When he finally made the connection to my real name he was greatly surprised. We both made special arrangements to attend the next upcoming event. It was quite the reunion after not seeing each other for over 12 years. |
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