I wanted to mention my good friend, Wyldlock (not his real name) aka: Renaissance Geek. I met “wyldlock” um, 14? years ago…something like that.. it was a long time ago on a local online BBS (remember those??). He was a geeky punk teenager who liked to kill people in the little text-based games we played back then. The details on how we became friends is a bit fuzzy for me now, but I remember my now husband was friends with him too, separate from me, and when my husband and I got together and found out we were both friends with this kid, we thought it was funny and cool. Funny because we were both friends with a ‘kid’. A punky kid at that.

The years went by and our friendship developed. Sometimes I felt like a second mom, or maybe a big sister to him. We always kept in contact with Wyldlock no matter what he was doing with his life. From his marriage, to the end of his marriage, relationships, games we played together, etc.

Wyldlock had this crazy dream to finish college then become an English Teacher in Japan. This was a goal that seemed out-of-reach to me at times. Watching him struggle through college on his own was hard at times for me as well. I often wondered if he could do it. I knew he was capable, but he had some road blocks and things to overcome to accomplish his goals that sometimes made it seem like it may not happen.

Well, he did it! He graduated from College with his degrees and managed to land a job in Japan shortly afterwards. He’s already in Japan! And posting updates on his site, including pictures. It’s been awesome to watch someone have such big goals and dreams accomplish them despite the hard times. I just wanted to share because I’m so proud of him!