I called Jim by his online handle for many years. In fact, still do to this day from time to time. Monkeybear. We met on one of those chat rooms back in the early days of the internet. And not just some text based chat—this was either ICUII or ISPQ where you could send a tiny postage stamp sized image from your webcam.
At some point we broke through the pleasantries that are the foundations of such platforms and got to the real meat of life. What we did, what inspires us and then some.
Turns out, Jim had a background in graphic design too. So we’d nerd out about that and to this day we’ll send a text with some visually pleasing (or displeasing) thing.
When we finally met in St. Louis, I was introduced to Kevin and Chad. And thus began a deep friendship.