Thanks for posting this, Kent!
If it hadn’t been for Morning Brew, I wouldn’t have heard about this, and I’m sure others are in similar situation. I too was surprised to find that Pete was her partner. It’s been a decade since I’ve seen Pete, but I reached out to him. I still have one of the original XMission accounts from 1993…
Dave
quoted 19 lines On May 11, 2023, at 4:52 PM, kent williams <chaircrusher@gmail.com> wrote:> On May 11, 2023, at 4:52 PM, kent williams <chaircrusher@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You may or may not know about a pioneer in personal blogging, Heather
> Armstrong (AKA Dooce). She died this week. She was a searingly
> honest, painfully funny writer, who struggled with depression and
> substance abuse, and she truly was a pioneer of personal writing on
> the internet.
>
> I only bring it up here because I was surprised to find out that her
> partner at the time of her death was Pete Ashdown, one of the early
> IDM list subscribers, whose messages are worth looking up in the
> archive. I met up with him in real life once and he's a great guy, and
> another pioneer. He was the founder of XMission, one of the very first
> ISPs in Utah.
>
> Anyhow, I haven't talked to Pete in decades, but I'm holding him in
> the light. Losing a partner like this has to be a grief that's
> unimaginable. To lose your partner out in public (being quoted in the
> Washington Post & New York Times) has to be doubly hard.