When I was young the internet was just getting started as a publicly available thing. Webpages were simple, took forever to load on a 33.6k modem (that's a max theoretical download speed of 33.6 Kilobits per second, or approximately 1/326 of current, widely available internet speeds. In reality though, the actual download speed was much slower, often ranging between 5-6 kilobits per second. A single song would take approximately 3 hours to download...so yeah, websites had to be extremely efficient/small/crappy.

Despite those limitations, since it was all new, surfing the 'web' was still fun and exciting. As a 13 year old at my friend's house, we never quite knew what we were going to find. Most of it was just message boards, forums and a few personal sites on Angelfire. Just knowing enough HTML to make one of those awful pages was a badge of honor. Or at least it was to us - we were a couple of country kids in Canada, and the wider world was very far away at the time. Anyway, I look back on those days fondly now - when I was a kid all I wanted to do was get out of my community and explore - see the world and make my mark. Now that I'm older, I think about going back fairly often. Of retiring (eventually) to a smaller, slower community where people still know each other. Of course it's a fantasy - the reality is home hasn't stayed the same since I left. The people are different and so are the social norms. Which is a good thing. Nothing should stay stagnant for any length of time - it's bad for everyone.

Anyway, I guess the point of this little egg is to say "Congratulations!" and also, remember that as much as life is hectic and unfriendly sometimes, as long as you take time to remember who you are, who cares about you and how far you've come, you'll find something to be happy about. I wish you well :)