This is a topic entry for the Featured Grownups Blogring

"In your own words, tell us how the internet has changed your life... start and end where ever you choose.  It can be silly, sad, serious, dramatic.  Make it a mystery or story, poem or song... or just tell us; it's your writing, it's up to you."

Has the fact that there exists a digital medium called the "internet" changed my life in any way? I'll say yes, definitely.  I'm sure I would be a less creative type of guy today if I had never been acquainted with "teh internets" as well as I have been for almost a decade now. The existence of the internet and computers have become my electronic muse and have spurred me to awaken my nascent creative urges from deep in my persona.

I've always considered myself a "creative" sort of person, but I slid my creative side inside me during the 80s, when I was in my 30s, owing to my insistence on developing my career life. "Teh Internets" popped up while I was in retail management, and we had a "network" at Target stores in 1987, which included ways of accessing inventory information, and sending messages through email. The computer screens were green on black, and there were no graphics. I didn't pay too much attention to the news about how the internet would change the world. There were some early opinion articles. For me, the computer was just another tool at work.

When I changed careers, and found myself in wholesale electrical distribution, managing a panel shop, I needed a better way to create my schematics and drawings. Like retail, we had a Unix based accounting system, developed by NCR, but no internet nor no PCs. In 1996, the company bought me my first PC, after much insistence on my part, upon which I could install and run the CAD program I needed to create my drawings at work. I've been a bit of an "artist" since I was young, but inspired by the ease in which I was able to create technical drawings, I wanted to get my own home computer and begin dabbling in "electronic art". I also thought the internet might be a good place to "store" my poetry, which was handwritten and bound in three ring binders. I'd been writing poetry since the age of 14 and while I had tried, (and failed) to publish, I had over 600 poems written down and filed in chronological order. If I could get the poems online, and generate interest in my "art and literature" I figured I might find a bit of the "fame" inherent in having people discover my "work".

My first piece of electronic gear wasn't even a home computer. I bought a Brother Word Processor, where the display was a CRT, like a computer, but the machine only ran word processing and spreadsheet programs. In late 1997 I purchased my first puter, a Toshiba. I got it as much for what it looked like as for what it did. In fact, I didn't even know what it would be capable of doing. I had discovered the "paint" program on the puter at work, but didn't like using it for drawing as much as "real drawing". Before long, however, I had dozens of programs for my home machine. I signed up with our local phone company for dial up internet service in 1999.

The first social networking I did was on the Globe service, which went out of business long ago. Before blogging took hold in the early aughts, people set up personal websites on services like the Globe. I also figured I'd use the internet to get in touch with old friends. I signed up with Classmates.com, and got together in cyberspace with a lot of old classmates. The idea of instant communication thrilled me. Because I'm single, I decided to use the internet to find a mate. I began my "internet lovesearch" and wrote the first of what must by now be dozens of profiles on the world wide web. A woman with whom I connected during one lovesearch turned me on to ICQ, an early instant messaging service.

By mid 1999 I wanted to build my own website. I noticed 12 year olds had websites, and I didn't want to watch the cyber community pass me by, esp. since my creativity was beign stoked by all the programs I was getting for my home computer. One of the first pieces of hardware peripherals I bought was a scanner, and bundled with the hardware was a software program for modifying images, called MicroGrafx Picture Publisher. I was amazed at what I could do to manipulate my images, both photographic, and scanned into the puter, with this program. I still use the same program today. It's a different version, but even though the company went out of  business a few years ago, I'm used to working with the program, and began creating "composite artwork" to decorate my budding website.

I was infused with epiphanies galore when I set up my website on May 1, 1999. I wrote the poem, "bornagain" which became my very first webpage online. The basic sections of my site, Poetry, Philosophy, MikeVideo, Photography, and News were created right from the beginning. I laid out the sitemap on paper before I  began publishing online pages, and became determined that my "electronic persona" would be my creative side. I would not mention work or dabble in what I do professionally online. The internet would be my playground. I also hoped that perhaps one of my images, photos, poems, or pieces of writing, would become "internet famous" and give me the "readers and acolytes" I had wished for since I first put pen to paper at the age of 14.

I believe that our websites and blogs are our "electronic legacy" and I began publishing  my own legacy from the first page I put online. Now, www.allthingsmike.com contains thousands of pages. My sections are fully formed websites. My photography and video hobbies have thrived thanks to the means to expose my work on the internet.

Because of social networking sites like Yahoo Groups and Xanga, I've developed friendships with like minded folks, and I still count a lot of my original "readers" on this blog as current readers. Without the internet, I might have still watered my creativity and watched it grow, but I don't think I would have received the worldwide praise I have seen because I've got my "stuff" on the internet.

On my poetry site, I wrote "We are all one, and one of the things which keep us sane is our ability to love. : I love you all, and my heart beats a ringing song. : I reach out to touch humanity, and bask in the heavenly glow of humanity's face." After I set up my first index page, which is still online after nearly 10 years, I wrote another "webpage poem".

WEBPAGEPOEM
5-1-99
A website perchance art at last, the poet gasps.
I did not know thee, friend, but I foresaw thee.
A universal mind, a mind filled with wonder.
The wonder of a purpose fulfilled.
The voice calls out for an answer,
And perchance that answers for eternity.
A millennium exists in a moment,
And a moment exists but in time.

At first I didn't even know what I was doing. I wrote:

"First shall be blocks of text,
And here an imported jpg file
The additions and mergings
shall take on a life of their own.
Text boxes shall begat theme pages,
Which shall begat thumbnails,
whereupon clicked
shall give the viewer an unparalled sense of purpose.
I shall find purpose in the work.
On ongoing artwork
incorporating those elements
which make up my being."

Another block of text I wrote on the internet back in 1999 was that "someday we will all have our own television stations on the web". Thanks to sites like YouTube (and the video section on Xanga) I can stream my "internet movies' online. Almost everything I figured I'd be able to "do" online has almost come to pass. It's a great time to be alive. And as my physical friends disappear, my cyber friends seem to grow in number.

Because of a digital playground called "teh internets", I have been able to "reimagine" and "rediscover" myself. Because of this, I have loudly proclaimed that I think my "fifties" are my best decade so far. Instead of turning 51, I wrote that I had my first birthday of my second half century. This year, on May 1, I turn 55, a true senior. But I don't feel like an old man. I feel young, and able to communicate with all of humanity through this interesting and wonderful medium. Has the internet changed my paricular life? You betcha.