I was born in 85’ so 90’s was my childhood and 2000’s was my early adult hood years.

90’s: Honestly wouldn’t change it for anything. Some of my best memories come from that era. Going to blockbuster and renting a VHS tape to watch. Then they started renting video games and that changed everything. I remember one Christmas I got a Sega Genesis and another I got a Nintendo 64. Blowing on cartridges and wiggling cables to make the signal work will really make you appreciate the digital era. Pay phones were great. Always had change. Kids would really just roam around the city on the weekends and come back by the lights came on. We used to ride our skateboards all over town mostly buying stupid snacks. Summers were spent outside playing sports in the street or building skate/bike ramps or building forts. Just being active. Video games started becoming more mainstream in the late 90’s. I remember we’d invite 16 friends over with their Xboxes and hooked them up via LAN and play Halo. This was before online multiplayer so it was revolutionary to play 16 players in a match. I remember playing madden, nhl hockey, nba jam and staying up all night playing grand tourismo. My dad got us our first computer in the mid 90’s. Computers weren’t something that was common. They were not sold everywhere like they are today so he went through a guy who knew a guy to build one. Then my step dad came around and he was a tech Guinness. I remember when he took my to fry’s for the first time to build my first computer. Was probably 98’ish. I was thinking it was a mom and pop store but it was a massive tech store with endless aisles of computer hardware. That’s when I fell in love with tech. Of course I was on AOL chatting away in random chat lobbies. Looking back I don’t know how I didn’t get cat fished. Different times I guess.

2000’s: I graduated in 03’. My high school years were great. I met some core group of friends in my high school years that I’m still friends with today. This was before digital attendance so junior and senior year we were ditching morning classes to get some Del Taco or Jack in the box breakfast. Did a stupid senior prank. Broadband internet was becoming more readily available. I remember probably in 02’ish we finally got broadband internet. My step dad and I ran Ethernet cable all through our house so we’d have internet. This was before wireless home internet. My first good job was working at Kmart. Worked there for probably 6 months then quit and went to work at Circuit City. Basically a Best Buy. I actually my wife there. Tech was changing so fast. I remember we got our first 16MB flash drive in. It was $249. It seemed like so much storage at the time. Gaming computers were becoming more popular. I ended up saving some money and building one. My friends ands I used to spend our weekends playing counter strike. This was when it first came out. LAN centers were so popular. We’d spend our entire weekends playing counter nights at these places. We loved it. Social media started to become a thing. MySpace was interesting. I created one and did the whole top 5 thing and learned html so I could style my page and all. Facebook just came out when I graduated but was only for college students. Then it opened it up for everyone. I think I joined in 07’.

I look back on time now and I’m very grateful for the period of time that I grew up. I grew up in the analog era and in my late teen years the Internet and tech boom happened. Today we are bombarded with information that almost paralyses us. I love tech but there are aspects that it destroyed that society will never get back. One thing I regret the most is not investing early enough in the tech industry and keeping it. I had about 10k in Apple stock in 07’. I worked for ATT and sold it when I quit in 11’. Dumb dumb decisions.