I Used to Be Cool...
... now I'm just an old fart.
(in Web years, that is.)
Once upon a time there was this girl. She knew nothing about computers. She used one a few times at work, always thinking that if she pressed the wrong key, the damned thing would blow up. Then a funny thing happened. She read an article about the Internet and the Web, and told a friend about it. She began her research into gaining Net access. Her friend decided to get Net just around the time she did. Then one day that friend declared that the girl could never learn how to build a Web page.
Uh huh. That's my favorite thing in the whole entire world, when someone tells me I can't do something. Watch out and get outta my way!
Here's the girl's story.
In the early days [1993] when the rest of y'all were busy doing other things, I decided to jump into the deep end of the geek pool to try and swim my way to the surface. HAH! What the hell was *I* thinking back then? Just because I was highly insulted when a guy told me I could NEVER build a Web page, I decided to set out and prove him wrong.
And I did.
Quite successfully, as a matter of fact.
In those days, my Web site was truly a piece of crap, (hmm, I ponder: and the difference between then and now is????), but the good thing about it was that there were MANY of us all learning at the same time. Trial and error. IRC at 4 a.m. because you're determined to GET IT RIGHT. What's that UNIX code again? I didn't own any software for graphics. I had a friend scan images for me. Lots of them. I didn't have a selection of fonts to choose from. Heck, I didn't really even know how to use my computer, let alone fix it if something went haywire. Nope, I was a newbie with everything (still am, in some ways) and I could not devour enough of it. But this was all quite clandestine and secret. NO ONE in my family knew I was a geek wannabe. NO ONE. I just figured they'd never get it, never understand that I was really into this stuff. Then came the day when I confessed my hidden obsession ...
It was an uneventful evening at my parents' house, and I'd brought the laptop along to do some work while visiting them. Without really noticing or listening, my parents' conversation shifted to the newspaper stories and I heard the word INTERNET pop up. Up went my right eyebrow, and my ears sprang to attention, just like dog's ears, and dad said that according to the newspapers, all the Web was good for was for learning how to build bombs and viewing pornography. I realized that this was my chance, the opening I'd been waiting for, my opportunity to share the knowledge, evangelize and set them straight.
"NO IT ISN'T," I said quite matter-of-factly. My little voice from the corner of the kitchen brought everything to a standstill. "What was that?" my father asked. "Well, I have my laptop. I'll connect to the Internet through your phone line and show you what it's all about. Before I do that, tell me something you want to learn more about. Pretend we're at the library." After considering this for what seemed like an eternity, dad said, "go ahead" and then proceeded to tell me that the strawberries he'd been growing in his backyard had some sort of disease, but he didn't know what it was, and he couldn't find it in any of his books. After connecting the laptop to their phone line, waiting for that 14.4 handshake, (yeah, way back in the old days), I was sitting next to dad and I took him through Yahoo (that's all that was available way back when, Google wasn't born yet.) I found a couple of sites about growing strawberries and then after sifting through them, struck gold. Dad was impressed. There was the problem and here was the solution, all at his fingertips. Did I say he was impressed? Oh yeah. Anyway, after that, if he needed any type of information he couldn't find on his own, my phone would ring. "Could you look up blah, blah, blah, etc.?????" Gotcha.
But then there's mom. She had no fruit problem but having read that Playboy had a web site, insisted on seeing it herself. Go figure. I think she just couldn't believe that a magazine had a Web site, let alone THAT magazine. And yes, I found it for her, showed her how to use the laptop, and left her to her own, er, investigation of the Web. ;-)
I digress.
Getting back to the point of my own Web glory days ... I sit here in my virtual rocking chair, on my massive virtual front porch with its equally mammoth view of the virtual ocean it's parked in front of ... missing a few virtual teeth, sipping a cold drink from my virtual straw dipped into my virtual glass ... and, well, use your imagination. I'm 80 now (in Web years) and no virtual pals in sight to wipe the virtual drool from my virtual chin.
Uh oh. That was quite a virtual tangent, wasn't it. I'm nowhere near 80! Digression #2.
So ...
I was looking through stories and Web pages I'd written over the years and found one that had all my nifty little Web acknowledgements on it. By nature, I don't brag. I don't shove my accomplishments in others' faces and I tend to shy away from attention, preferring to hide in a cabinet somewhere. BUT ... since this story is about How I Used to be Cool, I can either share that with you or stuff it back into its electronic folder. Today, I choose the share option. Herewith is the list of press mentions I received based solely on my Web work. After all, it's me, me, me it's all about me. Remember, I wrote earlier that I used to be cool. In Web years, now I'm just an old fart.
So ... that's my story. Every day there's something new to learn in the world of geek. In Web years, I'm an old fart, and that's just the way it is. ;-)