I remember when I was an early teen, probably around 14-15ish, I recieved my first computer. It was a used machine from my dad's work, but having it in my room gave me this intense feeling of power. I knew that through this vessel I could connect to the internet, a gateway to the rest of the universe.
The problem is of course, my parents weren't about to hook up the internet for free reign in a 14 year old's room. That's when I went to my aunts house and found inspiration.
I think my uncle Tom probably knew someone or traded Heavenly Hash for a box filled with those 2500 minutes free AOL disks. I snatched a handful of the disks and brought them home.
I didn't know the full logistics of what I was going to try to do. I knew I needed some sort of phone cord, an email address, and a modem.
I searched the boxes in the basement and found a 15 foot phone cord. I had a phone in my room, so I knew the connection was there and 15 feet should've been fine. So I had the first of my three needs.
I used to get about an hour a day on the downstairs computer internet, so I used the next day to sign up for my first yahoo email address: lb_trooper@yahoo.com.
That night, I checked the back of the computer and found that yes, I was equipped with a modem. I connected the phone cord, popped in an AOL disk, and hit connect.
That awful dial up noise exploded from my computer. Not wanting to catch the attention of my sleeping parents I turned the surge protector off.
I now had a forth goal, some sort of muffler. This was easily accomplished with a few blankets. For the next 2500 minutes, I was surfing the net, talking to 14 year old girls on instant messenger, and feeling like I conquered a fairly difficult problem.
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