Journal: News & Comment

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Not young, not old, but nostalgic anyway

I reminisce frequently on this page, because I'm at that stable-ish early-thirties stage where life is often routine (care for the kids, save for a house, watch TV with my wife), and memories of my late teens and early twenties seem charged with danger and excitement -- even if they were dominated by late-night trips to Denny's.

Last night I had a reminisce-o-fest at the Jolly Taxpayer pub with four old computer-geek friends of mine, known fifteen years ago by their online pseudonyms Bike Repair Man, El Loco, The Unbeliever, and Beelzebub. (I was The Grodd.)

Other than The Unbeliever, who is a consulting archaeologist (and a collector of Macintosh computers), we all work in computing and technology. As we discussed the whereabouts of others from that era, we realized that most of them (about whom we know anything, at least) do too.

In the '80s, it wasn't cool to be a computer geek. Today it has a strange cachet -- and often some financial reward.

It beats the chess club, anyway.

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