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Showing posts from April, 2014

Of Microfiche and Ring Theory

In October 1985, a young man made a long distance call to a father in Kansas. "Hi, um, I'd like to marry your daughter." The man had no idea that his daughter was dating anyone so seriously, and he asked for clarification. "Who is this? How long have you been dating?" § It began a year earlier in Math 371, the abstract algebra class at BYU. He was recently home from his mission, ready to dive back into math and engineering classes. She was in her second year at BYU, flying through the credits so quickly that she was already essentially a junior though only 18 years old. They never really talked to each other. But that isn't to say they didn't notice each other. She learned his name quickly -- Todd Moon -- and looked him up on the microfiche. This predecessor to the BYU directory was the true "stalkernet" -- you could find name, number, address, and even class schedule of anyone at the school. She saw that there was another female BYU student li

Once in a blue moon

As I've mentioned before , there was a pretty big obstacle to Kevin and me dating each other. I imagine most people would feel at least a little weird about going out with someone with the same last name as them, and we certainly were no exception. But, as fate would have it, we did end up dating, and even ended up married (4 years ago today!). In a few short vignettes involving our last name, I will explain how it happened: 1. After we met, I was all too excited at the thought of friendzoning Kevin. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with him, of course, just that I was kind of tired of boys and would find any excuse I could to not have to go out with them (especially since I was so bad at saying no that outright prevention was the best policy). So the next time I saw Kevin, I was happy to say, "Hey, cousin!" That, and other similar actions kept things awkward enough for several months that we felt no fear things could progress. 2. And yet, in April, we started