When I joined this forum, Bill Clinton was finishing up the last few days of his presidency, 9/11 still hadn't happened, the tech bubble was at its peak, and I was a 14 year old, pimply-faced freshmen in high school. I was referred to this board by a link from the dying bleem! (remember bleem!?) message boards, and was typing away on my parents' Dell desktop in our family basement.
Maybe it's the fact that I found my old Playstation (the original PS1) in my apartment closet this morning. Maybe it's that someone here just started a thread, with screenshots, of their Windows 98 installation. But, for whatever reason, I've been hit hard with the nostalgia train today.
When I started posting here, I was still unsure which of my two passions to pursue professionally-computers or classical music. I was practicing piano for hours every day, traveling and performing, and dilligently studying the repertoire with some superb teachers. Meanwhile, I was teaching myself BASIC, C++, HTML, and a few other things. I was fascinated by video games; not just playing them, but their entire synthesis, and fancied the idea of making a job out of their creation one day. Socially, I was probably where a lot of 14 year olds are-I had a couple good friends, got a woody every time a girl talked to me, and was secretly always hoping I'd I have a "meaningful" high school gf at some point. Ha!
Today, instead of my parent's Dell desktop, I'm posting from an iPhone (remember when Apple was supposed to die?). I'm 26, live thousands of miles from where I grew up, am a professional pianist (not quite as exciting as it sounds, though I do love what I do), and am beginning to ring-shop for the girl I'm confident I will marry in the coming years. In the last nearly 12(!) years, life sure has taken unexpected turns and provided a lot of ups and downs. But, cheesy as it sounds, the AT forums were kind of a constant presence through all of that. Sometimes I was inactive for months, other times I posted a lot, but this "place" has really kind of been of some importance to me. A lot of things with the forums themselves have changed, and I don't just mean switching from FuseTalk to vBulletin, or the addition of numerous subforums. Many of the original folks are no longer here, folks who (IRL) were older and wiser than I, and often put me into my place when I came on here with my teenage angst and whining. Anyone remember WombatWoman or Red Dawn, for example? I wonder what it'd be like to chat with them now. Though I'm happy with how my life is turning out, I (as with anyone who grows up, I imagine) do often find myself chanting "if only I understood then what I understand now..."
Anyway, I'm sure this is about the nerdiest and perhaps most pointless thread imaginable for many of you, but I wanted to ramble on for a few minutes. Anyone else get set off down memory lane by the most random things on an idle Sunday?
Maybe it's the fact that I found my old Playstation (the original PS1) in my apartment closet this morning. Maybe it's that someone here just started a thread, with screenshots, of their Windows 98 installation. But, for whatever reason, I've been hit hard with the nostalgia train today.
When I started posting here, I was still unsure which of my two passions to pursue professionally-computers or classical music. I was practicing piano for hours every day, traveling and performing, and dilligently studying the repertoire with some superb teachers. Meanwhile, I was teaching myself BASIC, C++, HTML, and a few other things. I was fascinated by video games; not just playing them, but their entire synthesis, and fancied the idea of making a job out of their creation one day. Socially, I was probably where a lot of 14 year olds are-I had a couple good friends, got a woody every time a girl talked to me, and was secretly always hoping I'd I have a "meaningful" high school gf at some point. Ha!
Today, instead of my parent's Dell desktop, I'm posting from an iPhone (remember when Apple was supposed to die?). I'm 26, live thousands of miles from where I grew up, am a professional pianist (not quite as exciting as it sounds, though I do love what I do), and am beginning to ring-shop for the girl I'm confident I will marry in the coming years. In the last nearly 12(!) years, life sure has taken unexpected turns and provided a lot of ups and downs. But, cheesy as it sounds, the AT forums were kind of a constant presence through all of that. Sometimes I was inactive for months, other times I posted a lot, but this "place" has really kind of been of some importance to me. A lot of things with the forums themselves have changed, and I don't just mean switching from FuseTalk to vBulletin, or the addition of numerous subforums. Many of the original folks are no longer here, folks who (IRL) were older and wiser than I, and often put me into my place when I came on here with my teenage angst and whining. Anyone remember WombatWoman or Red Dawn, for example? I wonder what it'd be like to chat with them now. Though I'm happy with how my life is turning out, I (as with anyone who grows up, I imagine) do often find myself chanting "if only I understood then what I understand now..."
Anyway, I'm sure this is about the nerdiest and perhaps most pointless thread imaginable for many of you, but I wanted to ramble on for a few minutes. Anyone else get set off down memory lane by the most random things on an idle Sunday?
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