I remember the snowflakes...
I lurked at powmag from the beginning, Sept '00, when I went to grad school in central NY. Reading Racer-X, Orphic Seth, Pinner, Punani, Cliff, etc kept me sane in the land of Greek Peak. My first post some months later was in the Simpson's Trivia thread off in Tech Talk, I think. Kush maybe started it? I can't remember.
I'd been Cletus for many many years before the boards, and when I went to grad school and started playing for an undergrad club soccer team, I became "Grandpa Cletus." Young fuckers. With the Simpson's Trivia thread in full swing, it seemed like an appropriate entry.
That got me through '00-'01. After a summer back at home in Boulder, I moved to DC for three months or so at the end of 2001, to start a new job. That's when the t-shirt thing happened. Twoplanker cranked out a design, I collected a bunch of money, we got them made, and I delivered a hot-off-the press batch to Iceman for EC distribution around Nov 2001. My first maggot meeting.
On Dec 21, 2001 I hopped in the car, and drove back across the country to my folks place in Boulder, then on to SLC where I met my old pal Cornholio, who I had introduced to the board some three months earlier when driving from Boulder to D.C., via Cleveland, where the poor bastard is doing his PhD ;). Cornholio accompanied me from SLC to Ketchum to Bend, where I'd been living and working at the very same job until this summer. We were put up by MD9 in SLC, my second maggot meeting, and then missed the Reverend in Ketchum on account of being too drunk to navigate out of Whiskey Jacques.
A few months into living in Bend, I drove 9 hours north on a whim, to meet Buster, Dex, Iceman, Natty, Armchair, Powderpyg, k2Stu, and the rest of the crew that was there in Nelson, B.C. After that, things went downhill quite rapidly. :D
I signed up here quite a while before the migration I believe, when pmag was feeling a little crowded. A bunch of us from there started coming in here for the quiet and calmness. Ha! Look at us now. I registered as Yossarian on a day when I was feeling particularly trapped by my job, but I'm really still just the same ole Cletus.
4 years. 4 years! I feel like that guy in Gross Point Blank. 10 YEARS! 10 . 10 YEARS MAN! Where have you been? 10 YEARS!
Now I live in Denver, the Rev is moving to CO, MD9 works 10 mins from my apartment, Armchair has moved from LA to NYC, Punani has moved from San Fran to LA, Pinner doesn't post, and on and on.
Times change, but these boards are still keeping me sane.