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March 18, 2008

The Internet...27 years ago....

I met my husband in August of 1990. The following July, we made a huge purchase...with the intention of using said purchase for him to become an independent computer consultant. We spent four thousand dollars...yes, you read that right (and that was 1990 dollars) on a complete, top of the line 286 desk top system...yes, those words were '286' as in slow computer....of course, it didn't seem slow to us at the time... I had only been exposed to computers in college and highschool. A year long class in basic when I was in highschool (back when back ups of our work were done on tape cassettes). And then in college, we each had an account that we could access, but I didn't use mine a lot. I had an electric typewriter and that did fine for me.

One of the things Daniel and I really enjoyed doing with our computer was getting on the Internet.Back then, there weren't pretty pages and tabs and places to store your favorites. It mostly looked like a black screen with a dos command line prompt. The screens were black with white words. We played Backgammon with people in Greece and we thought that was just the coolest thing. Never mind that the background was black and the little pieces were white (x's and o's I think). It was just so neat to be playing with someone on the other side of the world.

The Internet has come a long way since then! And now I have a blog that people can visit from all over the world (and I visit people from around the world as well). It is soooo cool!

January 17, 2008

Computer Geek Pack Rat

My hubby is a computer geek pack rat. So our home and his office are overflowing with computer parts. There are scanners, bubble jet printers, ink jet printers, laser printers, fax machines, laptops, used cisco routers, network cards, wireless internet cards, wireless internet routers, monitors, computer boxes, hard drives, keyboards and an endless supply of cables. In fact we could probably start our own cable business with the cables that he has collected and held on to for the last 18 years. Did I mention my hubby is a pack rat?

He doesn't like to get rid of anything! He recently purchased two new pairs of tennis shoes. He gets good ones when he buys them because he has flat feet and needs all the support he can get. And he is a creature of habit. When he goes to get his shoes, he picks out two pair. One for everyday wear, and one for exercising. Does he throw out the old worn out shoes? No, of course not...he puts them in the closet with all the above mentioned leftover computer parts. His thought is that he may need those one day!

Do you have a pack rat in your family?