So It’s Been Ten Years?

While Michael and I were driving home from his pal Mark’s wedding today I remembered that it’s been ten years since my college friend Stacy McHale dragged me into the computer guy’s office at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska to get an email account at the start of my junior year. So far, in my first 30 years on this planet, there are probably two main chapters in my life: the year I was born (1973) through August 1993 for chapter one and then Fall 1993 and beyond for chapter two. Ten years ago I got an email account and fumbled through Doane’s email and gopher tools trying to figure out what this Internet thing was all about. My first social interactions online were a mailing list for fans of the 10,000 Maniacs and a text-based BBS out of the University of Iowa called ISCABBS. Back then it was amazing to consider that while sitting in a computer lab in Nebraska I could connect with people from around the world.

I visited Boston a year earlier for Spring Break in 1992 and decided it was a place I’d like to live someday. After getting online the next year I met a lot of people from New England and one of them had plans to be in Norway for the summer of 1994. Her room in Cambridge was available for sublet so I decided to try out Boston for the summer. I guess that summer went on a bit longer than expected. It’s been nine years!