I am one that does not keep a diary. Being 48 years old, I would have liked to have read my thoughts in certain key periods, now many years ago.

But in a recently opened box I found one piece of paper with many detailed listed dates.

I was first online with two Gay BBS in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1994. The GTs (Get Togethers), when the BBS owners got to drink free bringing in member traffic to a bar on an off-night was quite revealing. In those days, it was not geeks but extremely good looking men that happened to be connected to the new tech - BBS.

I opened my first attempt at a free Gay site, using one of those Gay BBS hosts, with the 10 incoming dial-up connections. The BBS owner had a paid membership area at that time, the content being served via a tower with CD players. My site, and one other, both overwhelmed him and he asked us to depart.

Back then, I was fully free with no advertising. Hindsight - yes I was exposing copyrighted images without permission.

One of my rich BBS friends considered investing in me, but he was not pleased with my lack of details with the business plan I presented. All was new - not possible to get historic details - was all just simple expectations.

I saw how popular I was, so after limited research, I contracted with a host in Virginia, the same as HunkHunter used at that particular time.

After two weeks, I got a telephone call from Virginia that my first two week charge are over $180. I played the acceptable 1996 versus of "OH MY... what have I done". The site was closed, via my request, with no additional charges.

The BBS that had first hosted me, a good friend, Ed Bush - Long story short his net worth as investor and a voice in the company known as IBILL, was silenced via forced retirement years later. He told me he got 10k a month doing nothing and he was in his late 20s (and this was over ten+ years ago).

Most know now what happened to the infamous company IBILL. I am not sure, but I suspect Aids eventaully took Ed Bush.

Via my age, I have indeed learned much.

What is your history?