October 31, 2006.

That’s when it all started. That’s the day Mischa and Michaela met. We had heard of other people becoming great friends with other members, but we never thought it would happen to us. But that’s what they say, isn’t it? When you least expect something, that’s exactly when it happens.

"I joined a small website dedicated to Gerard Butler. It wasn’t at all big or fancy--just a handful of members that were actually posting on a regular basis. I joined and this close knit group welcomed me with open arms, especially Mischa. I don’t know why, but automatically, we hit it off. We could finish each other’s sentences when it came to Gerry. I know on my end, it was so nice to finally have someone in the world who understood how I felt and knew exactly what I meant when others tried but failed. When it comes to Gerry, Mischa is the first person I talk to about what I think." ~Michaela

So, there we were. We both had some ideas on how to improve the now defunct site we were on at that time. The other members really wanted someone to lead them because the owner was never around to do it herself. That frustrated us. We spent many nights coming up with ideas to help the site be more involved. Mischa sent our list to the owner. We were turned down. Mischa continued to lead the group as one of the administrators. Then months later, the owner decided that she would take our ideas and turn them into her own. We began to see all our hard work up on the forum, especially, without giving us any of the credit. We had had it. Michaela kept saying we should have our own site, but Mischa wanted to try and work it out with the owner. When she realized that the owner didn’t mind taking our ideas as her own, then we began to make plans for DiscoverGerry.net.

The basis for DiscoverGerry.net was that we would cater to people who knew absolutely nothing about him. Sure, the other sites do the same thing, generally, but we wanted that to be our goal--exposing Gerry to anyone and everyone we can. Gerry has inspired both of us so much, that we want to, albeit in a small way, help him as much as we possibly can.

The rest is just the technical stuff. You know, what host to use, what color scheme etc etc. We won’t bore you with that. We did encounter another problem. We needed to find a web designer. Yeah, not easy, well not hard if you can pay A LOT of money. We didn’t have it, so we had to find someone who could. We had a couple of tries with that, but everyone fell through. Then Jessica (cwinters) and Casee (caseemarie) came along. What wonderful girls! We are so thankful to them--they really saved us from a lot of heartache. We still have to be schooled in CSS, but thank goodness for Jessica and Casee! (laughs.)

So here we are today. A beautiful website with humble beginnings. Neither of us thought this would ever happen to us. It’s been a lot of hard work but it’s been worth it--whatever helps Gerry is a good thing.

Welcome to DiscoverGerry.net!

Mischa & Michaela