I’ve been exploring the web since high school in 1994, when I joined a Department of Defense Dependents Schools initiative called the World Band Project. Its goal was to connect DoD schools worldwide through the internet to create a collaborative computer music performance for Vice President Al Gore. The project also included sister efforts like the Wright Flyer, and it introduced us to cutting-edge tech: webcams via CU-SeeMe, email, and the early World Wide Web. We even had an SGI Indigo on-site—state of the art and blisteringly expensive at the time.

In college (1996–2000), my university still treated internet access like a secret commodity. I vividly remember dialing into the UNIX mainframe, using lynx to browse the web, gopher for… well, something, and pine for email. What I didn’t realize then was how formative that terminal-based experience would be. It taught me to look under the hood, to avoid relying blindly on GUIs, and to appreciate how computers actually work.

Since then, every role I’ve held has involved some blend of programming and network administration, always orbiting around the web. I’ve stayed active with *NIX systems, constantly refining my understanding of how to configure and maintain web servers—databases, PHP, and HTML included.