This is an introductory blog post.

I don’t really like beginnings or endings, so that was the best I could come up with for an opening. But I guess I could also explain my username. Johan Lackbeard is an imaginary Viking I made up when I was 8. Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I was 15. Like all cool, successful people, I spent a lot of my adolescence with a healthy interest in medieval history, Vikings in particular were captors of my imagination, but I’m not going to give background info about them in a blog that’s supposed to be about the Internet. If you want to know more, take a history class, or alternatively, listen to any metal album from the 80s. All Vikings had cool nicknames like Ivar the Boneless, Eric the Red, or Harald Fairhair. Actually, I guess none of those were cool, but neither is “lackbeard”. The name stems from my inability to grow a beard, which in theory would cause my Viking avatar to stand out amongst his brethren. I extracted the term “lackbeard” from Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”. It remains the only thing I remember about it.

Enough about that. If I am correct, our first blog post was originally supposed to be about our background and experiences using the Internet. We have since kind of moved away from that idea, but I had already contemplated that at some length, so I want to write about it.

I owe my beginnings on the Internet to my uncle, an ex-Marine who specialized in cryptology. After he left the Corps he worked for AT&T until he retired. While he was doing so, he kept abreast of the latest computer technology, which at that time (early/mid 90s) was still the province of hardcore nerds. I was aware that personal computers existed, but I didn’t know anyone who had one. That all changed on the Christmas of my 7th year(circa 1994 C.E.), when he gave me one for my birthday. I certainly don’t remember asking Santa for one, but I quickly became fascinated with it.

I began my computer life using only MS-DOS (don’t ask me how to use it now, I don’t remember) and browsing bulletin boards and newsgroups. I certainly wasn’t old enough to have anything to contribute, but I found excitement simply in logging on. Soon came Windows 3.1 and AOL, and with that text-based RPGs and chat rooms. I played DOOM II against my uncle when the notion of playing a person in a different location in a computer game was enough to draw a crowd. My typing speed skyrocketed far above any other child or adult that I knew.

But soon, the world caught up to me. It wasn’t long before the Digital Age was in full swing and everybody had a computer. It didn’t help that my interest in technology waned somewhat as I grew into a teenager and was interested in other things. Despite my lack of passion for the machine, I still used it thoroughly as a means of communication, research, and entertainment.

After I enlisted in the Navy and found myself working as an Operations Specialist in the Combat Information Center (CIC) of a guided missile destroyer, I used the Internet for REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED and REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED then he REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED but the problem was REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED banana REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED Archbishop Desmond Tutu REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED soldering iron, and I was never quite the same after that.

 Coming soon, blogging about Pioneers’ Visions.