a trip down memory lane

my IT cohort and i decided to go through a few shelves worth of old manuals and software last week. wow was it a trip down memory lane. we found some windows 95 & 98 floppies and compaq system software with "DO NOT DISCARD" written all over them -- we promptly disobeyed those instructions. there were many AS400 manuals and their associated 5 1/4" diskettes (many copyrighted 1986 and 1987). we found a product magazine from 2000 and were awestruck by how much things have changed since then. there was a flyer for an amazing sale of a spectacular product! -- a computer with 4MB of RAM and a 160MB hard drive! we were going to jump on that, but unfortunately the sale was over.

i was rummaging through a stack of windows NT software and manuals when Dustin (my cohort) said he had never seen a NT machine before he started working for the county (we have a few servers and clients running archaic software :-\). my jaw dropped as i suddenly felt really old. when i was taking networking classes at hesston, novell was the network OS of choice, but windows NT 4.0 server was up-and-coming. i took a few NT 4.0 administration classes and even thought of getting certified. and he had never seen a computer running windows NT. (i almost titled this post "he dated me" after feeling old by this, but decided against it :) )

after that, we found a bunch more compaq and hp software labeled "DO NOT DISCARD". some of them had internet explorer on them and this brand-new browser called netscape -- oh, how the times have changed.

when it was all said and done, we had filled the recycling dumpster 1/2 full, had 1.5 shelves worth of empty binders, and a few souvenirs for ourselves. fun times!

my latest purchase:

for a few years, i've been searching for something -- a concrete step-by-step procedure of an abstract concept. i've read books and talked to lots of people about it, but the concept was still too abstract for me to grasp. today i finally found what i was looking for!

i now have a procedure of how to forgive -- complete with numbered steps and lots of substeps. these steps are obviously cyclical and are a never-ending process (both to my dismay), but i finally feel like i have a grasp on how to proceed. what a wonderful feeling!!

while i was still attending letourneau, i had a conversation with someone who had graduated from college 2 or 3 years previous. it was her experience that her learning and interests were much more focused after school and this was mostly influenced by what she was doing at work.

my experience has been the opposite. in the last few months, my interests have grown exponentially. i am fascinated with anything and everything -- leadership theories, beliefs of religions and denominations, manufacturing processes, government, how electronics products work, meteorology, aeronautics, economics, psychology, business theories, biology, anything on the discovery and history channels, and many more that i'll think of immediately after posting this.