So how about that, uh, everything lately?

[Ventilator]

Hello BOBs. Long time.

Maybe the geopolotical climate has me waxing nostalgic for this place? I think it's more likely my workload has me reading documentation of an open-source software on another forum, bringing forth memories of this place.

Life sure got crazy though, didn't it? It could be better on my end but I've seen plenty worse so I'm not complaining. I've had my ups and downs but I'm still kicking, ready for the next round.

So, how y'all doing?

[Samurai]

Hi, Vent. It's pretty bonkers out there, certainly. Hope things are on an upward trend for you, and for decent society more generally. Largely OK here, thank you, but it's a fairly busy time to be in healthcare communications, I can assure you. :)

[Inferno]

Berries

[Samurai]

That too. (It's been pretty quiet around here -- only a post or two a month, as you can see.)

[Ventilator]

I did a little looking around and not even our top contributor has managed 1000 posts since 2012. That means nobody is averaging more than one post every three days. My last posts were from five years ago and that’s only page 6 on default settings. I was kinda hoping traffic would have picked up. Believe me, I understand though.

This place used to be busy; kind of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sorta thing in some cases. I remember checking the forum at school, at work, even on vacation to try to keep up. I’m gonna assume it’s the same story for most folks, where there are fewer posts, and most don’t require your direct attention, so you check less often. One day you forget to check and then a new set of habits begin without the forum. I know that was basically what happened to me. We got older, busier, more stressed. From what I remember, I’m one of the younger BOBs and even I’m 34 now. Time seems to slip away more readily than it did all those years ago.

Playing catchup and swapping life stories again would be nice if anyone wants to. Let me think... well, I never quit my band and it never broke up. We are working on an album currently. I still do filmmaking projects from time to time, but haven’t directed my own project since my band’s music video some years back. I’m more into still photography these days. I’m working on a Master’s Degree in Engineering right now, and since covid, my classroom is setup in my garage. I spent some time in New York City, Dublin, and Bucharest since the last time I signed in here. Traveling was some of the best times of my life. The Klass Wagon rental clerk in Bucharest saw my California Driver’s license and she legit thought I was a Hollywood star. She started doting on me after that which was a nice change from the standoffish attitude she greeted me with. She was beautiful too, such a shame she was wearing a wedding ring. I got out of there and I took that car to Vlad The Impaler’s former dwelling, Castle Bran. It’s smaller than I would have thought. I’ll tell you this, Romania knows Italian food; they do it better than most of Los Angeles for sure. I’d like to go back sometime if all this covid stuff ever blows over.

[Nick]

haha what a nerd

[Ventilator]

[Inferno]

We want to revisit Ireland when Covid is over. It was a great honeymoon destination. Dublin was great - we loved the walkable streets.

In the last 5 years since you were here, I fell in love, got engaged, got married, bought a home and had a child. Achievement unlocked: being very tired.

[Ventilator]

[Nick]

I was originally thinking of responding to this thread in regards to topics such as why this place is so dead and/or where people have gone, maybe talk about the current political climate or current internet culture and the distribution of the digital landscape but like, those topics all suck ass and they're all also kinda self evident. This might at as bait and get people to discuss any of those things but I don't plan to contribute toward that. Honestly that's how I often feel about posting here, I think about making a post and then decide its best to continue not posting for the year.
Following the above conversation theme however, all I can say is that in the years that people where haven't seen me, not much has changed. I'm a pretty different person and my life has taken all sorts of turns but at the end of the day I spend all day browsing the internet and playing video games! Where I browse has only changed slightly (no forums for one!) and I still play the same type of video games as always.
I keep in contact with a few folks from here, some of which I still talk to daily, but these are the same people I was talking to daily 5 years ago and 10 years ago. Only difference is that the number of people dropped from the like 40 people to like 8. I'm honestly not much for keeping up with people individually, I find it a lot easier when they're in a group, so when the groups all slowly died I lost contact with a fair number of you.
This entire post was just an elaborate excuse to change the thread topic again to respond to inferno's thread topic.