NZFORESTGUY

The above is the name I used online way back when I was first on the internet. Think 20+ years ago.

It was a magical place. Different to how it is now.

We didn’t have fancy websites. Or fancy tools. Or even fast internet. Dial up was the way.

I, like a bunch of people wrote a lot online. In a diary. Don’t think the word blog was used then.

Diaryland

This is the place I used to write at.

At some point. I’m not sure when. The Diaryland site basically crashed and burned. There still seems to be people updating there, which is crazy to think about. But for the most part, you can’t log in.

A bunch of the main sites links don’t work. Sometimes you are presented with a page that says if you pay $19 they will restore your diary. If they can’t, they will refund it.

I did some searching, and it seems while you can pay the $19. Nothing actually happens and good luck trying to get hold of someone. That’s a shame.

Things I Learned From Back Then

There are cool people out there. I still talk to people from back in those days. Sometimes it’s as easy as waking up next to them. Some I don’t talk to, but they are on my Facebook friends list. Others, well, they just drifted away and I have no idea what they are up to.

Writing things out or down can be very helpful.

There was no pressure on being correct, or saying the right thing, or being afraid of saying the wrong thing. Like I said, different times.

Back ups are important. It looks like there was a feature to download everything from Diaryland. I’m not sure if I ever did that. I should have.

Using the WayBack Machine

The only way to access partial bits of this past is to use the WayBack Machine at the Internet Archive.

It only captures a small fraction of what was there. Apparently I had posted over 800+ times. Which is a mind-boggling amount.

I’ve found that you can read some posts that it doesn’t list if you click around on your links in your diary.

One frustrating thing is when you see an old blog post title, wonder what it is about but can’t read it as they have indexed it :(

Why am I Writing This?

Sometimes I go back and look at the old things I’ve written. It makes me wonder what these people I interacted with back then are up to these days.

I wonder if anyone thinks about what I’m up to?

Just in case I thought I would publish this post. My username is probably more known than my real name.

So if you find this. Know me from back in the day and want to say hi, get in touch via the contact page.