I stopped in Columbus on a Friday, for a game convention, to sell some of my Dungeons and Dragons books, a thing I did in the late 80’s and early 90’s to supplement my meager income. To conserve cash, I stayed at a Motel 6 outside the Capitol City proper, preferring to commute to the convention center where I’d be working. On Sunday, after the convention broke, I loaded up the car with my wares (books and such) and went off to see the movie, Gettysburg, an epic Civil War film produced by CNN Mogul, Ted Turner, then headed back to the motel, intending to get a good night’s rest before heading south in the morning.

All cities have their rough areas and Columbus, Ohio is certainly no exception. During the night, as I slept, thieves smashed the driver’s side window and stole a "lunchbox" 386 computer from the back seat. Broken glass and uninterested police marred the beginning of the second half of my journey to Pensacola. It was bloody cold, and I had to go that last 700 miles with no window. Kept me awake though.

Nine years later, almost to the day, I went to The Rave cinemas here in Pensacola, to see Gods and Generals a four hour long prequel to the afore mentioned Gettysburg and that’s what stimulated this journey down memory lane. In the space of nine years, computers have changed from being an object of my curiosity and an expensive video typewriter, to absolutely dominating my waking hours. If it needs to be done, the computer can do it..

For Example, Louise Szerzo is the owner of TheDirectoryLink.com. On the occasion of her 50th birthday, in early March when this is being written, she was having a "Mad Monday." Nothing was going right and she desperately needed to renew her drivers’ license. She mentioned this dilemma to me, prompting me to do a Google search while she was talking. I did it astronomically. 60 seconds later, she had a phone # to call that would allow her to renew instantly, from her cell phone. The automaton even fined her for being tardy with her renewal.

The weekend prior to that, I attended Billy Rogers’ gun show in Milton, where I sold several hundred dollars worth of pocketknives to collectors. Where did the knives come from? Why, from a wholesale only Internet site, of course.

It is not unusual for me to sit down at the work station at 9:am of a morning and not arise for anything except water or a little food, before well past midnight, creating such soreness in legs and body as to hinder my walking.

My family, friends, several thousand vendors of Viagra and several hundred displaced Nigerian government workers, communicate with me each day, the two latter being more and more unsuccessful as I learn about filters. I do get out to CJ’s Cafe (Garden and Pace) for breakfast a couple of days a week, allowing me to review AP headlines in the News Journal that I saw on the net 3 days previously. But by and large, I stay home doing computer stuff, placing me in danger of becoming a "computer geek"

Last Friday, a single lightning stroke knocked out Cox Internet in my neighborhood, rendering me netless. For one brief moment, my new home network ground to a halt and I had a real anxiety attack. No net, no news, no family, no friends and no way to track the knife and sword laden package headed toward me from "up north."

They fixed the cable within four hours, during which I had to endure 56k connectivity for all my Internet tasks. That’s when it hit me hard. It’s been 9 years. My Camaro’s gone, replaced by a (ugh) mini-van, I am networked and have a 20 hour a day habit. My name is Bob. I am a computer junkie.