once a whore-mesh of photos
It seems like only yesterday that this website was strewn up and down with a ridiculous amount of pointless content. Forgiving the occasional bantering blog, I have diverted from that horrible setup since I left AOL’s 1-2-3 Designer application. For those of you many who never once saw that obese amalgamation of pictures, this website used to be a horror story told by the scariest of old men.
Early in 2001, seeking a solace from the real and present world, I began a small fly-by-wire website that was “free” supposing I had already an AOL account. It was a mess. Modern day internet surfers would pass it off as a typical pop-up ad, full of tantalizing pictures and ridiculous text. Well, the photos were tantalizing to me, at least. They were basically shots stolen from sites like MusiciansFriend.com that featured audio or lighting equipment, particularly of amusement to me at the time because of my dj positions. But a quick glance, assuming you waited for every photo to load, would alarm a current browser of internet sites. I assume many spammers began emulating my WOAH-CHECK-THIS-OUT ideals not long after.
Hey, I was in high school, trapped in high school as I saw it, and so I wanted to try and release this blatant geek somehow. It wasn’t like there were people lined up outside of Mrs. Vest’s english class to hear about how excited I was that !JBL released a new sound reinforcement enclosure. I was in desperation; if this site offered me a way to zone out of school and life and paved a way for me to focus on something I enjoy, then so be it. I went on humoring myself for some time before I found out that a web service called Homestead was offering a free sitebuilder and web space.
Not long after, those free site offers began disappearing like danishes at a continental breakfast. I hopped on board at the right time, and I rode the waves of menial Adobe graphics and regular self-dialogue for over a year. Most of this was never saved or kept permanently archived; only the last few months of my Homestead frivolity were salvaged.
There was another step to take, however, and I was ready to cross the border into new territory. I was an minion in a world of CEOs. What did I know about HTML [what do I know now about HTML... ha!] and how could I justify paying (gasp!) for a website? Eventually, under some prompting (and jealousy that others had beat me to it) I bought a domain name and RyanHarne.com was born.
But why “RyanHarne.com”? Why not “FullofHimself.com” or “TheRoadtoVanity.com”? Honestly, honestly, I thought something along these lines: “Well, I notice that a lot of politicians have their full names as their domain, so if by chance I happen to go into politics then I’ll be one step ahead of the crowd”.
I’m not kidding. I chose RyanHarne.com because I anticipated political involvement on my part! I laugh now, and… well, I’ll still laugh every time I think about that.
And for the record, this entry stemmed from my renewal of my domain name. So ha! yet another year I grasped the famous “RyanHarne.com” from the open market. I am the conniving one, aren’t I?