Ain't the net grand...

I was hunting around good old Technorati - usually I look there to see if anyone is paying attention to my work blog, but then I find the results are somewhat depressing. Hey, at least Jayski linked there a few times.

OK, twice. Whatever.

Once the depression subsided, I ran a search for Lehighton and 'class of 1993' - my graduating class. Surprisingly, only one result came up. This one. (Hell, we had 220 people in our class. I figured one of them had a blog anyway...)

I can't recall Christa from her picture; I have a guess, but if that's the case, she looks a lot different from high school.

Of course, MySpace provides plenty of friends links. That led me here, to my old buddy Mike Serfass. A very cool, low-key guy who was always a good friend, even though I was never really especially close to him. (He's even a Redskins fan. I really thought about e-mailing him and seeing if he wants some swag when the season rolls around. Lord knows I have no use for it.)

Mike's page led me to Craig Hoffman's page. He was also a low-key, good-friend type - definitely a cool guy. Who knows, maybe he's loud and bombastic now.

Craig's friends reminded me of another dude I knew in high school - but didn't graduate with - named Kerry Getz. I don't know if you guys have ever really been into skateboarding, but he sure was. And still is.

(Speaking of notable athletes, we had one other quasi-famous athlete from the L: Carl Wolter, the 2002 ReMax World Long Drive Champion. He was one of those people that pissed you off because they were so athletically gifted. Six-four, could throw a football like Vick in that Powerade commercial. A quick scan of the Big Ten record book shows he won the 1996 javelin title with a throw of 233-8; the longest winning throw until 2003.)

Anyway, back to Serf. He's also got a link to Autumn, a very sweet girl back in the HS days. Glad to see she's doing well. There's also Steve Schock, who gets bonus points for putting Journey on his homepage.

But just passing through those guys wasn't enough. Why not search on MySpace? So I did.

Here's Amy Holland, a cool girl in high school but one who did not hesitate to tell you to shove it. Then there's the least surprising page of all from Ethan Savitsky, who had his cowboy thing going on even back then. Now he's got a ranch in New Mexico ... shocking.

But of all the discoveries I've made, two stand out - and they didn't even happen on Wednesday night.

I've lost her address - and apparently it was some sort of project for school - but I had a blog for Cheryl Blaukovitch (Cheryl Isleib back in the day), a wonderful friend throughout the prep days. I met her back in sixth grade, because I was one of the smart kids from our elementary school. I went to some competition, met her and found out what smart really is.

I know Linds often scolds me for not giving myself enough credit. But this time, it cannot be any more accurate. She's brilliant, always has been.

(A quick aside. I do specifically remember taking a test in one of our science classes in high school - with Mr. Bisbing, a wonderful older teacher who insisted on letting us learn by ourselves. But when he'd stand and lecture, he was outstanding. Anyway, to prevent cheating, he'd have people in certain rows take their tests in the back of the room at the lab tables. I was working away, tapping my fingers on the table to Dokken or whoever it was. I happened to look up and got this glare from Cheryl that I'll never, ever forget - she even rested her head on her hand and flipped me off in the process. Now, all these years later, my wife gets annoyed by the same thing.)

Lastly, there's a good friend, Dan Steigerwalt, who's become a chiropractic doctor but, apparently, not a website designer. Dan and I played football together throughout high school - he was a hell of a running back/DB. I've always felt bad that a missed block of mine on a wet field in practice led to a hit that disclocated his collarbone and ended his senior season.

Though he had only played like two conference games, he was still voted First Team All-League. (I was HM.) As good a player as he was, he was an even better guy; it's impossible to say a bad word about him.

Well, this sure dragged on. Thanks for indulging my trip down memory lane.