Ten Years Ago

January 2000, just off the heels of a Y2K party in South Philly at my friend Elisabeth’s apartment. After midnight, we all celebrated on South Street, climbing up any thing we could grasp and zooming in and out of bars. We had survived! No black out or explosions.

Ten years ago today, I was using the first computer that I had ever owned: a bondi blue iMac, the first of the all-inclusive display and computer with a handle to carry it around. I was working at Strongarm Designs in Horsham, PA and hating it. Well, the job was actually quite good, but I was looking to be a rock star back then, and it just wasn’t panning out.

I was living in Manayunk on Silverwood Street with two dudes, loads of cockroaches and a sewage leak basement. We had a couple crazy parties at this house, one entitled “Forties and Shorties” in which we served Wawa Shorty hoagies and 40 oz. bottles of malt liquor. During one of these parties, the neighbor who rarely talked to us literally busted in our front door and screamed “Shut the fuck up!”

Design-wise, I was doing a mix of web and print, spending most of time updating “cut-sheets” that were layed out with Quark. I was starting to learn HTML at home, and dabbling in NetObjects Fusion to set up Strongarm’s first-ever web site.

My car was a white Saturn 4-door sedan, the first and only car so far that I bought brand new. (I later traded it in for my current ’97 Nissan Pathfinder.)

Back then, I didn’t have a digital camera or even a cell phone. I didn’t know anybody with a cell phone, except for my boss who could be “reached on the golf course in case of emergencies”.

I was age 25, and wasn’t dating anybody… I was using Photoshop 4 — not CS4, but Photoshop 4.