One small year for baby sweetness, twenty five big years for dotcom - Should I thank Al Gore?

Ok, I know this is a bit random - not to mention a week late, but I can't help but write a small post on this milestone...

I started using the internet "for real" in 1996 to get some background data for a research paper in college. My roommate had recommended that their might be some good stats on the web and when I looked at her blankly (crickets), she offered to show me how to use it. I can't believe I just had to write that... But it's actually true. I know I should 1000 there. But, um, you've been to my site - you have a good sense of my "natural computer ability" here. (note - I can absolutely LEARN computerese! Given years of practice, I'm actually really good with excel and access and can do just a little bit of sql - none of which helps in web design. And one more plug for delinquent designs here who has promised to fix the ugly for me! But I digress.) I think she was probably showing me how to turn the d@mn thing on as much as anything else! Also - remember - this is 1996. Google doesn't exist (again - can you imagine?), so God knows how I even found the information I was looking for.

But thus began my relationship with the internet. I'd had email before that, but let's not get into a pre-internet email description of vax machines - it will make all our heads hurt (no, I honestly can't remember how it worked - yeah, I'm not only that old to have used them, but also to have alz heimers). That relationship has grown and grown (to an obsession!) and here we are now.

So what was my point? I was actually a little late to the internet. It had actually been around since... March 15, 1985 (yes, that's 25 years this month) when the very first .com domain name was registered (in case you're wondering, it was www.symbolics.com). And, as I am writing to you in this blog on that funny little interwebby, I thought - why not give some props? A happy birthday message, if you will.

And, why not also back up that I am actually THAT big a geek to know this stuff.

So for today's prompt... do you remember when you first started using the internet? I know for a lot of people reading, it's been there your whole life, but you probably weren't logging onto symbolics (via aol dial up?! ;) ) on that first day, so where did you begin?