The Bride

## Posted by Allison

I was born in Plano, Texas (“Dallas” as Aaron would say). My family and I moved around a little before we settled in the Austin area. Grew up there going to public, home, and private schools. As a teenager, I was heavily involved with my church, Hill Country Bible Church, participating in missions both locally and abroad. My private high school was teeny tiny, with a graduating class of nine people.

I attended Texas A&M University and majored in History and English. I am quite biased, but I think it is the greatest place to go to college ever. I loved just about everything about A&M — the professors, the classes, the people, and, of course, the football games. We may not have won many games, but we had fun watching.

I love cooking and baking, and have managed to avoid most major kitchen catastrophes thus far. The greatest recipients of my creations have been my Bible study group and church, Fellowship Raleigh. I also love reading almost any type of book, and try to have a fiction and a non-fiction going at a time. I count peanut butter as one of my food groups, would rather not wear shoes, and cannot decide if Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts is my favorite comic. Though I do look a little like both Susie Derkins and Peppermint Patty. So yeah, that is me.

The Groom

## Posted by Aaron

I was born in Ohio and raised in Noblesville, Indiana. When I was in first grade, my teacher started an after school computer club where I wrote my first computer programs on an Apple IIe. Ever since then, I’ve been interested in computers. In middle school, my family bought our first family computer, a Packard Bell. I promptly installed all manner of video games on it, broke it and fixed if about a thousand times, and re-kindled my love of computers.

After high school, I attended Purdue University and majored in Computer Engineering. Purdue is a fantastic university made even better because so many of my friends from high school chose to attend as well. After graduating, I began working as an Embedded Linux Systems engineer at Advanced Micro Devices in Austin, Texas. After a few years, I began to think about going back to graduate school. This talk from Richard Hamming had a big impact on that decision. I chose to go to North Carolina State University both because it is an excellent computer science school with a strong focus on computer security and because it is located in North Carolina. My parents and most of my immediate family are from, or have lived in, North Carolina, and I wanted to know more about the state.

Although research takes up most of my time these days, I enjoy watching sports, primarily football, basketball, and soccer. I’m looking forward to seeing the Indianapolis Colts win the 2012 Super Bowl at their home stadium. I’m also an avid reader. I enjoy non-fiction of basically any variety, but when I’m reading fiction it’s mostly science fiction or fantasy. I also enjoy Geocaching, but I don’t get out as often as I would like.

How We Met

Allison had lost all her college roommates to marriage (never to be seen or heard from again), so in her final year she posted “need a roommate” on a message board and nervously waited for a response. Not too soon afterward, Lisa from Michigan emailed back saying she was starting grad school in the fall and needed a place to stay. Both deeming one another sane, it was agreed that they would be roomies.

One night in October 2003, Lisa struck up a conversation online with an old high school friend, Aaron. After some discussion, they realized that not only were they both in Texas now, but that they were only two hours apart. Lisa invited Aaron to come over on a weekend to catch up and hang out. Aaron came to College Station a couple weekends later and was introduced to Allison. Games were played, tacos from Taco Cabana were eaten, and plans were made for another meet-up in Austin over Thanksgiving. And then again in College Station around finals. And then Lisa gave both Aaron and Allison the “But s/he’s all alone over Christmas break. Won’t you try and do something together?” So we did, and we have Lisa to blame for the next 7+ years of our lives.

Seven Years!?

Yes, Aaron and Allison will have been dating for about seven and a half years. Although this sort of long term dating is becoming more common, it’s still rather unusual. We thought it might be interesting to compile a list of things that have happened since Aaron and Allison began dating.