After losing my account on Bessel at the University of Maryland, I had gone without e-mail for years. Meanwhile, all my techno-geek friends were getting more and more into the Internet. I joined Capaccess, which I had accessed with an old VT-100 terminal and a 2400 baud modem. Finally, thanks to my friend Brad, I got an account on Digex with 5MB of web space. In March of that year, I started working on my web page. By April, it was fully up and running, with a scant two pages, one for my main page, one for my links and diary. But I still had that old clunky 8088XT with an EGA monitor and 2400bps modem. I couldn't afford anything else.
Then, the winds began to change. My friend Suzi worked at a large telecommunications company as a tech rep and a beta tester, and she had been trying to get me to work for her for a year. Finally, the company inteviewed me, and in March, I was hired. Leaving Cargo was hard, but I just couldn't do retail anymore. After nine years of working 48 hour weeks, no consecutive days off, poor insurance, no vacation, and being dependant on the whims of customers for my job, I had seen enough. I loved my customers, and the head office was really nice at Cargo, but it was time to go. I stayed on part time to ease the new manager in, but it was difficult because he had a long distance to travel to get to work, and the store that I worked at was hard. You had maybe 5-10 walk-in customers a day on average, and you not only had to combat boredom, but you also had to create sales out of thin air, and work your fingers to the bone for scant rewards. Also, at the time, the producer of our furniture was getting slothful, and deliveries weren't getting done, and customers were (rightfully) mad, and due to a massive political shift, one our best managers, a guru named Mike McGee was fired after working 13 or more years at the company. Nothing was stable anymore, and a great source of insider information was lost. I miss Cargo, and they make great furniture, but I had to get a real job.
I started at my new company as a technical representative, dealing with customers of all ages, sexes, and technical skill dealing with our product. I don't mention where I work on this site because I used to be under a non-disclosure law, but I just found it was a security risk anyway. We have badges, and magnetic locks, bomb threats, and very tight security, I don't want any hassle from anywhere else. Between calls and during my breaks, the web site grew to several pages, and now that I had access to a computer with graphics (at work), the first images began to appear on this site in late April.
My son, who would soon be graduating Kindegarden, was accepted to a magnet school because he was part of an education program that recommended him there. But he had behavior problems and didn't excatly seem like a model student. It was a hassle, since it was across the county, but they offered bussing. I couldn't turn them down because they had a great staff, a low teacher-to-student ratio, and was a biligual school that had students from other nations. Man, how could I turn that eductaional opportunity down! So my son was enrolled into Spanish immersion for his first grade.
Work progressed well for the next few months. I became the resident Mac expert, which I thought was an joke or illusion at first, since in my opinion, an "expert" should know their topic inside and out. Well, compared to the rest of the people there, I was an expert. After my training, I went on the phones answering Mac calls. The week before I went on the phones, however, I had an emergency pulpectomy, which taught me the true meaning of the word pain. Years later, I still have flashbacks and nightmares about it. They gave me six shots of novacaine, 4 narcotics, and I could still feel the pain like a hot white poker electorcuting each and every nerve in my pain-stroked corpse. I became the pain. An emergency root canal was also in order, and I insisted I be knocked out. The dentist was really good about it, and it was the first time I had ever been "put to sleep." I must need to relax more, because after being put under, two nagging back problems went away, and my posture improved. I am one tense guy.
But I was now working nights, from 3pm, to midnight, Tuesday through Saturday. I didn't see my family much, which was one of the reasons I left retail, to see them more. I was told that I could bid for a better slot, but that a lot of people were ahead of me. I did so well as a tech rep, I was soon promoted to other projects, mainly beta testing, and getting great reviews from my wonderful boss.
Summer brought more discoveries. First, I took my family back to Sweden. The trip was fantastic, my family got to meet my wife and son, and I got to know my mother's family better. My son also turned six, and my web page began to get more complex, so I changed the format and started tinkering with more advanced HTML. I read my recent story "Cybertusk" at CastleCon 9, as well as did the Art auction for Suzi's last time at being head of the Art Show.
The Fall brought my son's new school, and he didn't do well in Spanish, so they sent him to Reading Recovery. Good news is, they don't think he has dislexia like his father. But he was diagnosed with high ADD, which they gave him medicine for. This helped his behavior a lot.
My XT was dying. I really wanted a new computer badly, and although my friends tried to help with donated parts and whatnot, my 486/66 just wasn't happening. The hard drive had 6 surface errors. The video card was bad. My CMOS had no battery, so at bootup, I had to re-enter all the settings. It was time to take charge. By the end of November, I got a 586/133 AMD with 1GB HD and 16MB RAM, a 1MB video card, and a 14.4 modem. The 13" VGA was small, but it worked. I slowly brought over my writing to the new computer.
At work, I was promoted to team leader of a project called "Virtual Places," a web/chat software by a company called Ubique. So now I was browsing the web for work. My pages exploded with the links I was collecting.
But our house was collapsing. The small little HUD project in Reston was sighing its last sigh. The floorboards had rotted through from the frequent flooding (leaking vents), the ceiling was collapsing, and the plumbing was faulty. It was also getting too small for our needs. We started looking for a new place, but our old place had us in a contract for the next few years. So we documented everything the landlords did not fix, took photos, and gathered data. When we moved out suddenly one day, they tried to sue us. So we sent them copies of the photos and reports to the landlord, their company, the HUD, and said if they dropped the contract, we wouldn't sue them. They dropped it.
The new house is very nice. It has three bedrooms, carpeting, air conditioning, a yard that overlooks the woods, and a HUGE kitchen. In additon, my pages moved from Digex to Silverdragon, where they got another face lift and restructure. It was time to start a new beginning.