Skip to content

Tag: high school

Published on

Happy 23rd Anniversary, jdmcs.com!

Normally, I'd forget about the anniversary of registering my first domain name until tomorrow. However, this year, I remembered about it yesterday. And my inner nerd was telling me to do the math (or for my UK readers, do the maths) on which anniversary it would be. December 19, 1998 to 2021... that's 23 years.

Hey, that's a Prime Number Anniversary, if that's a thing! (They should be!)

Cue one unnecessary, over-the-top animation for celebration:

Here's to the next Prime Number Anniversary for jdmcs.com!

Seriously, society gets all worked up over round numbers. I'm just thankful to have a short domain name.

Then again, maybe the 25th Anniversary will be reason to celebrate again, even if 25 is neither round nor prime.

And now, for those of you who bothered to keep reading after playing my animation, I'll answer a question that I am often asked, but in the context of the day I registered my domain name: What does JDMCS™ mean?

The only reason I was registering a domain name as a high school student was so I could professionally host a school project that I was working on, before the website for the non-profit that agreed to host it long-term was ready. But we couldn't put our names on our display board, as these projects were going to be judged in the Project Forum and our names on the display board could sway the judges. So both GeoCities and registering a domain name with my name in it were out.

At the time, I was working as a contractor for a local computer repair shop. Since I was a contractor, I also did work on the side, so I wanted a domain name that I could use if my computer repair "side gig" ever took off. I think I had "Justin D. Morgan's Computer Services" on some business cards I had printed up. I may have considered "JDM Computer Services" as an option for the domain name, but that would have still been a really long domain name as so many short names were still available in 1998. Then it clicked:

Justin D. Morgan's Computer Services == JDMCS™

"Dot Com!"

That's how JDMCS™ was born on December 19, 1998.

Published on

"There are good ships and wood ships, ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships, may they always be!" – Irish Proverb

Lunch time was an awkward time in high school...

The regional school I attended held classes for all in-district students, except seniors, in the afternoon.

Students at my high school attending this regional school were granted a ten minute early dismissal from second period. This was due to the regional school starting afternoon classes ten minutes before my high school started third period, as well as to ensure that we had an opportunity to eat lunch.

This did cause some awkwardness, as I was usually the only one leaving my class ten minutes early.

My regional school peers that attended my high school packed their lunch, and would head over to the regional school to eat it there. (I can't blame them.) However, I was used to buying lunch at school, and to-go boxes were not available.

Fun fact: when I was in high school, lunch cost $1.25.

While there were several other programs that also permitted an early dismissal from second period, there were not an abundance of people eating in the cafeteria early. Being the socially-awkward nerd who didn't fit into any of the cliques, I ate alone.

Until one day... While I couldn't tell you the exact date, I do remember the day: I had seen this group of gentlemen eating together before, while I was eating alone at another table.

One day, one of them came over and asked if I would like to join them, so I did. And from that day on, I didn't have to eat alone.

I'm not sure they realize how much this one small gesture has meant to me over the years, but this was a defining moment while I was in high school. I treasure our moments of fellowship at the round table.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, the tables in the cafeteria were round. And the pizza was triangular-ish...

As high school goes, we all eventually graduated and went our separate ways for college or careers. But I am glad to have been able to reconnect with several of them on Facebook.

(And for those of you from that round table and have not yet re-connected on Facebook and/or LinkedIn, please do. And maybe one day soon we could all reconnect in person at another round table somewhere in the US.)

Published on

This is a historical post, thus I am using a bit of historical liberty...

I attended a regional school for math and science while in high school, and we were issued a school e-mail address within the first week of my freshman year.

I'm embarrassed to admit that one of my first e-mails, if not my first e-mail, was to thank the principal of that school for the clean bathrooms.

I never received a response. I can only imagine that he laughed while shaking his head when he read my e-mail.

I also never figured out why an old PC on a cart was stored in the mens room... perhaps my first e-mail should have been to ask about that instead.

This was both the first and last time I made a compliment about clean bathrooms via e-mail... or email.

Published on
Satisfaction Guaranteed Or Your Money Back by Phillip Pessar on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

...or your money back.

During the summer before my freshman year of high school, my parents decided we needed a new family computer, as I would soon be assigned homework that would need a computer to complete.

They soon settled on a setup which included a Packard Bell minitower computer, monitor, printer, and extended warranty. I don't remember the model number, but it came in the "Art Deco" style case and featured a Pentium processor.

You're probably still stuck on "Art Deco", right? The case was wider on the bottom than it was on the top, presumably because the motherboard was parallel with the bottom of the case. And the case looked rather presumptuous. Just like Art Deco skyscrapers.

We had the computer on the floor. I don't remember the desk being that small, but then again, the footprint of the tower was larger than those of today. It doesn't matter why, but it did set the optical drive up for the accident that happened within the first month or two of ownership: dad bumped the optical drive tray with his knee, while it was open, causing it to break.

It was an accident, and our extended warranty covered accidents, right?

Dad kept calling the extended warranty company over the broken optical drive. They kept promising that a repair would be scheduled, and no one ever returned the call. I think he started complaining to the store manager, who was also unable to get the extended warranty company to perform.

This went on for way longer than it should have. It was at least a few weeks, but it could have been a couple months.

One day, dad suddenly started packing the computer back in the box. We were returning the computer to Sears. Dad simply pointed out the Sears pledge: "Satisfaction Guaranteed or your money back".

A pledge to customers that started in their catalog days, when you had to place an order sight-unseen. A pledge proudly posted over the entrance doors at Sears, many times in gold. A pledge that they kept.

The store manager apologized for the poor service we were given, and honored their "Satisfaction Guaranteed" pledge. We were no longer the owners of a now-disgraced Packard Bell computer.

We then went to Circuit City and purchased a different setup which included a Hewlett-Packard desktop computer, monitor, printer, and extended warranty. It featured a slower Pentium processor, but the build quality was better.

Not that the tray of any optical drive has been built to withstand a glancing blow from one's knee...

Published on

December 19, 1998. A date which will live in awesomeness.

There are some who would disagree. Former President Bill Clinton, for example, probably didn't find that day particularly awesome. According to Wikipedia, that was the day he was impeached. But I digress...

Today, it seems like everyone has their own domain name. But back in 1998, the idea of personal domain names was a very new concept. While I know of one classmate who's family had a family domain name back then, I may have been the only person at my high school that owned a personal domain name at the time (one of a very small minority at most). And if it was not for a school project in 1998, it might have been several more years before I could claim a life achievement for registering my first domain name.

If it says anything, I only remember finding one .com registrar at the time – Network Solutions. And for a high school student, compared to one school lunch at $1.25, the cost for registering a domain name for a year was very expensive. There I go digressing again...

Long story short, December 19, 1998 was the day I registered my very first domain name: jdmcs.com. Only a true geek would fondly remember that day, and find that it ranked very high on the scale of awesomeness.

Or would that be true nerd...