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Where it All Started In the summer of 1999, as a Psychology major, I took an intro to computing class at my university. It was as part of this class that I would create my first homepage. I spent close to forty hours working on an assignment most people spent less then one on. It was, after all, only one twenty point homework assignment out of over 30 assigned that semester. Looking back I find it rather humorous how this seemingly inane college assignment has changed my life so dramatically. My love of all things web quickly exploded into a sickness for which there is seemingly no cure. I spent much of the following year teaching myself HTML & JavaScript. The late nights soon began to pile up, a trend which continues to this day, as I made my way around the myriad of online tutorials in web development. Sadly the culmination of that work, simplistic as it may have been, is gone forever, lost to a hard drive format in the days long before my anal retentive data backup habits took hold. Shortly after the conclusion of the summer computing class I changed my major from Psychology to Computer Science, much against the recommendation of the professor teaching the intro class I was in. I had sought him out for help in the decision as he was the only CS professor I knew, and one of only a handful left in the department over the summer. His advice was some of the best I've never taken. The decision was without doubt one of the most significant turning points in my life. The Birth of ChristopherL.com About a year into my budding web addiction, on one of many late nights, I stumbled upon a man to whom I would be eternally indebted. I found speckz.com while searching for cheap web hosting. His site claimed he was willing to host homepages for free. I skeptically sent him an email to await a reply. Within a few days he had my hosting setup and ChristopherL.com was born. His generosity was a major step for me considering that as a broke, mostly unemployed, college student I probably wouldn't have wanted to spend what little money I had on hosting my homepage, regardless how enthralled I had become. It was a great year. I published M2 Math Tutor (a small application that helped elementary students learn basic math) and learned more about web marketing (through M2) and web design (through ChristopherL.com). I think it was the year that really solidified my desire to make a life out of "that web stuff" as my parents would come to call it. This was all due largely because of the fact that I had my own "dot com". It wasn't without some struggle however. It became increasingly difficult for my parents to understand why every time we spoke on the phone, when all they wanted to hear about was how my classes were going, or more specifically what type of grades I was earning, I would incessantly ask if they had seen my new update (then never used the web, nor visited ChristopherL.com in its early days) and would only want to talk about my homepage and whatever new thing I had just learned about JavaScript or HTML. They certainly began to wonder what it was that their tuition checks were paying for. At the time I didn't have the heart to tell them the truth. The answer was little more then high speed internet access and advanced computing labs... Growing Up Not long after the launch of ChristopherL.com I took my first job related to my now all consuming hobby. I became a member of the two-man lackey team performing tedious HTML work for my university's "webmaster". I spent a little more then two months in the most cramped office filled with the least friendly people I've ever had the misfortune of working with. It was however a telling glimpse into my future, one I wasn't prepared to dedicate myself to fully just yet. My departure from the University Communications office brought me to the university newspaper, as it's Web Editor. I still have the desk clock they gave me at the end of the year. A Love Hate Relationship I landed my college internship based almost solely on the ChristopherL.com site. I would spend the next two years working as a web developer. The future had arrived, and for awhile it was awesome to be paid so well to do what I loved, then I stopped loving it and things became very difficult. Why Bring Them Back? You may be wondering why I would republish a series of sites that are, at best, of laughable quality and given my current portfolio could do nothing but cause professional embarrassment? Why expose a part of my past that couldn't be more inaccurate at representing who I am today? Well...sentimental value. These sites are a catalog of a time in my life that to describe as chaotic would be an understatement. It was a tumultuous time in my young life, one that I am greatly distanced from now both personally and professionally. After finding the sites on a long forgotten CD, a week or so prior to writing this and some eleven months after the last post on the site, and spending far too many hours reading over their contents again, it became very clear to me that the one constant, the thing that really helped me keep my sanity, was working on these sites. This was especially true during the little gap between versions 6 & 7. :) Had I not picked it back up who knows where I'd be now. With that in mind I've published them exactly as they were on that CD. I noticed a lot of stuff I'd like to remove from them, but I decided for the integrity of what they were to stand I shouldn't edit them, in any way. What Am I Doing Now? Well I guess the answer to that should be fairly obvious. Fortunately though the line between my different presences online (personal & professional) has become much better defined. I've also, thankfully, been able to recapture the real reason I got into this in the first place and as a result my love of web development has never been stronger, which makes these sites all the more important to me. I have long since abandoned my ChristopherL.com email address, so should you desire to contact me you may do so using this form. Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane - it was an interesting five years. -Christopher L. November 22nd, 2004 |