Note: This is the fourth (and possibly final) post in a series of unfinished thoughts that I hastily tacked an ending on to to bridge the gap between the past and the future of ES.com. I started this one almost exactly a year ago, on May 21, 2008. Thanks again for reading. –ES
I always felt that reminiscing was for douchebags, and it's a belief I still hold on to. Thus, it should come as no surprise that I do it frequently, albeit on the whims of whatever is going on around me. The latest round of wistfulness that was foisted on me came courtesy of the depths of ES.com, as I tried to find that perfect Joe Smiley picture I could use on my Twitter page but then got distracted by all the other random web stuff I have done since 1996.
The nine-six was good to me, in retrospect: I found the Open School, the Purple Press and a writing voice I didn't know existed within me (thanks, Leo). I also found
GeoCities and how to make my own webpage. Now I had fooled around on the internet the year previous in Mr. Ryan's computer graphics class at
Como Park Senior High (I even had an awesome CPHS email: estemme@como.stpaul.k12.mn.us) but had zero idea that I could actually
create my own content on it. The 'Cities changed all of that forever.
Granted, my
first effort wasn't very impressive. Coupled with that awful "ZombieMan2006" moniker, it's a wonder that I wasn't forced to quit the internet entirely. But, as I started to poke around in HTML and learn the code, I was able to branch out a bit, resulting in the not quite so unfortunate
Aerosmith Tribute. It all snowballed from there, resulting in the
DISH Network Tribute (?),
Open graduation packet, and, finally in 1999, the first vestiges of an actual personal homepage.
I feel like over the years I have done some great work (GOTW!™) and some not so great work (The Probe) here at the .com, but the entire time I was freely expressing myself. Integrating a weblog greatly enhanced this and hastened my move away from the free website model, but without that fall of '96 I might not have had that opportunity. Or at least I would have socialized more.
Endnote: Yahoo! decided in April 2009 that GeoCities wasn't worth the billions in stock they had paid for it and is shuttering the service by the end of the year. As an internet fashionista I breathed a sigh of relief, since hundreds of horrid designs are now going away, but I still feel pangs of sadness, as GeoCities truly was ahead of its time and helped to usher in the "personal" aspect of the internet. Goodbye, old friend.
Labels: internet, personal, site
