ME and Ophelia

VINTON G CERF
Father of the Internet

What a great gentleman.

On a visit to MCI : Cerf's Up a few days ago, I felt moved to send this email:

Dear Mr Cerf,

Just to say thank you for all your pioneering and hard work.

Six weeks ago I was able to afford my first home computer.

Within a few days I discovered weblogs and started one - free of charge through Blogger - called ME AND OPHELIA at http://www.meandophelia.blogspot.com

I have picked up a little HTML, purchased a new house sign, sent gifts of chocolates and flowers, visited art galleries and auctions, had groceries and books delivered; been reunited with old friends, have sent and received emails all over the world, met many interesting bloggers and had some good laughs....all without speaking or leaving the house.

This new laptop and the Internet has opened up a whole new life for me, for which I thank you.

It means a lot to me because I am housebound and horizontal 23.5 hours a day, with limited energy, due to a severe form of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - known as ME here in England and CFIDS in the US - from which I am still hoping to recover.

These past six weeks have been the most interesting - and least isolating - weeks that I have spent since falling ill in October 1999.

Thank you once again. You are a hero. I have put you at the top of my web links column in my right sidebar.

Hope you will visit us one day.

With love and thanks once again from Ingrid and Ophelia (my wonderful cat) x


In my email box the next day, four words leapt out of my screen:

From: vinton g. cerf

I was thrilled. What a gentleman. I shall treasure and frame this:

Dear Ingrid,

I am copying two other people who will be very pleased to hear your story. One is Robert Kahn, who initiated the Internet project and with whom I worked to do the initial design. The other is Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web - that is the application that is helping you so much. Of course, Tim has pointed out that without the Internet, WWW would not so interesting and vice versa.

Thanks so much for taking time to write.

Vint Cerf