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April 29th, 2007
As I was lying in bed last night, I realized that another personal milestone has passed. I have been online for twenty years now. Sometime in the spring of 1987 I got my first computer modem.
I was still on the Commodore 64 in those days. The modem was a “Total Telecommunications” 300 baud “dumb modem”. We got it for $20 from a surplus catalog called COMB. It was behind the times even for those days. The Hayes 1200bps smart modem was the standard.
The online world was different in those days, but in many ways resembled what we have now. I spent most of my time on bulletin board systems (also called BBSes or simply “boards”). These were operated by local hobbyists and consisted of a dedicated computer, modem, and phone line. You would dial up, log in, and do one of several activities:
1) Read and send email.
2) Read and post to discussion groups
3) Upload and download files
4) Play games.
Email was similar to today’s except there were no graphics or fancy colors. It was a plain text affair. The biggest difference was who you could send email to. It had to be someone else with an account on that BBS. Later on, the BBSes gained the ability to connect to each other, so you could mail someone on another BBS, even if it was far away. But, this mail was delivered in batch over slow lines, so it took between a few hours to a day or two to get there.
Discussion groups were like the newsgroups or “chat rooms” of today. They too benefited when the BBSes began to network.
File transfers took the place of both websites and P2P sites in today’s jargon. Since there was no such thing as a web browser, people posted useful information in the form of good ol’ text files. I remember downloading a few useful things such as scanner frequency lists and 64KB of UNC jokes. There were gobs of shareware and public-domain software available for download as well. And, like now, the less reputable boards would host pirated software, called warez.
Instant messaging didn’t exist there for the most part. It was possible on the larger, multi-line BBSes like Micro Message Service (MMS). But, with the single-line boards that I mostly used you could only have an interactive chat with the guy who ran the board (called the SYSOP), who would be sitting at the local console.
There was also very little media content. GIF and JPEG pictures could be downloaded if you were really patient. But, the slow speeds of these modems prevented audio transfers. It didn’t matter because noone had sound cards anyway. Moving video? Forget it.
My favorite local boards were CCCC (The Carolina Commodore Computer Club), MMS, AJIS (Anonymous Jones’ Information Service – owned by a Raleigh city councilman incognito), and Capital Opus (operated by local ham radio guy Bill Weinel). I was banned from Capital Opus and to this day I have no idea why. I never misbehaved on BBSes.
The internet did exist in those days, but virtually noone outside of government institutions and universities had access to it. My introduction to the internet came 4 years later when UNC began offering a BBS that was connected to the internet. The rest, as they say, was history 
July 23rd, 2006
Lizzy has teeth. Just had to anounce that. Carry on.
June 6th, 2006
Where are we and what are we doing? Thank you for asking. Just in case you didn’t get the mass emailing we are back at Tupenny. After eight months of demolition and reconstruction we are happily back home. Well, sort of, because in truth home is wherever Lizzy lives.
As soon as we get unpacked well have a big open house party.
Lizzy is growing and growing. At her last check-up she was 90th percentile in weight, not bad for a 34 week preemie. We have watched her grow from the larva stage, through the poseable action figure stage, and into now into the “oh my” she really is a little human stage . She now pulls the covers over her head until we ask, “Where’s Lizzy?” she’ll then bring the covers down and give us the biggest toothless grin. I’ll miss those.
There is not a shy bone in the little girl’s body. Lizzy is all smiles all the time, almost. I think she feeds on attention almost as much as milk and banana squash.
When Lizzy was about four and half months old we started her on solid foods. She did not take to rice cereal so we didn’t force the issue. Oatmeal though she could not get enough of. When we started feeding her vegetables and fruits, at about seven months, she could not get enough veggies. She seems to be more partial to veggies than fruits with banana squash as her favorite.
All is well with us. Lizzy is healthy and happy.
December 5th, 2005
Well, I finally have time to make another blog post. Elizabeth (we now call her Lizzy) is absolutely wonderful. She is over three months old now and is growing like crazy. Two weeks ago, she weighed 13lb 9oz. We don’t know how long she is, but her legs are looking long these days. She’s babbling, holding her head up (mostly), and smiling a lot now.
As you can tell from our photo site, our house remodeling is coming along. Things have definitely slowed down with the rain. Framing, HVAC, electrical, and siding is done. Plumbing and roofing are going on right now. Once plumbing is done, we’ll finally be able to get the drywall up and move on to “finishing” work.
Speaking of work, work is going pretty well. My employer was kind enough to give me a month’s paternity leave, which I took in September. That time off was just what I needed to unwind. Our team is growing and several of my more unpleasant tasks have been handed off to new co-workers. We’re still pushing hard to meet our release deadline.
Thanksgiving was an exciting time as well. Heather’s grandparents and aunt visited us from Oregon. We had 16 people over for Thanksgiving dinner. That’s quite a crowd, especially for our home-in-exile in which we now reside while our house is being renovated. The day was a great success and we spent the surrounding two weeks visiting with our guests. Aunt Teri is such a gem that she handled Lizzy’s night feedings and washed our dishes.
I’m not quite sure what Christmas has in store for us. But, it’s likely that I won’t make another blog post until then, so take care everyone! Please drop us an email or Christmas card to let us know how you’re doing. Also, please visit our picture site as we update it more frequently than the blog.
September 27th, 2005
Ok, So I’m whoring Inara’ing fuzzythinking out for free movie tickets. Actually I would pay to see Serenity, but I would love to see it sooner than later.
I loved Firefly the series. Here’s hoping the movie is more like Out of Gas and less like Train Job.
And for those who don’t know about Firefly here is the film’s synopsis from the TPTB.
Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.
September 18th, 2005
She’s here! Elizabeth Jean Pinnix was born August 20, 2005. You can see tons of pictures of her at our new picture site here.
Why no posts for the last six months? In April we switched service providers. Our new ISP doesn’t support Perl, so we had to switch blogging software. With all of the craziness going on at work and home, I haven’t had much motiviation to get the blog working. But, Elizabeth has provided that motivation.
March 20th, 2005
Well, I just got back from what was certainly the most interesting weekend weve had in a while. Heather, her mom, Rob and I took a weekend jaunt up to DC.
Read the rest of this entry »
March 8th, 2005
16 hour workday for truckers? What a rotten idea!! I’m really surprised at the current limit of 14. Pilots are restricted to 8 hours per day. Worse yet, it takes only a second of inattention for a driver to run off the road or hit one of the many cars that constantly pass within inches of their vehicle. Planes are separated by miles, so you have more time to recover.
Sorry Wal-Mart, you’ll just have to wait a little longer for your next truckload of crappy Chinese merchandise.
February 4th, 2005
Britt Cobb (D) has finally conceded the race for N.C. Agriculture commissioner. Carteret county’s ultra-modern computerized voting system lost over 4000 provisional votes because it was out of storage space (How small was that hard drive and what lugnut wrote the software? 120GB drives are sixty bucks for Pete’s sake and can hold more votes than there are people on earth). As a taxpayer I wasn’t looking forward to footing the $3.5 million dollar bill for a revote, and Carteret is heavily Republican, so there’s no chance those votes would have made a difference.
Now we have only one contested race, Department of Public Instruction. OK, Fletcher (R) your turn. You’re 8000 votes behind and the lead is growing. Give it up and quit wasting our money!
January 26th, 2005
Doesn’t it seem a bit odd that the Democratic Senator making the most noise about Condoleeza Rice’s nomination is a former KKK member?