The timeline
Every entry, in order.
Newest at the top, going all the way back to 1988.
- still being written
- June 19, 2026 Pokémon Pinball: a new high score, and the 0.83.0 update A fresh personal best on the Pokémon Premium (1,208,820,370) and some honest notes on Stern's 0.83.0 software, which dropped this weekend.
- June 15, 2026 An OCN practice test, built to feel like the real exam A full-length practice exam and study simulator for the 2026 OCN oncology nursing certification: two modes, a validated question bank, and printable paper versions.
- June 9, 2026 Hello, world (again) Why I'm keeping a homepage again, and how the timeline files away old memories without lying about when I wrote them.
- June 5, 2026 Las Vegas, Expensive, Strange, and Exactly as Revealing as I Needed It to Be My first time in Las Vegas, a short weekend built around No Doubt at the Sphere. A nice hotel, a major concert, the heat and the spectacle, one lucky roulette run, a stranger who wouldn't let go, and a fever on the way home. It was the trip that taught me, very clearly, that Vegas is not my place.
- June 3, 2026 Spring league: up to A Division, a point short My second competitive season at Two Plumbers. I climbed into A Division and stayed there, then missed the playoff cutoff by a single point on a strange final night.
- April 10, 2026 Minneapolis, A Weekend for Lady Gaga's Mayhem A quick Twin Cities weekend with one mission: Lady Gaga's Mayhem Ball. We did the Mall of America, ran our usual pre-show Kura Sushi ritual, and then got absolutely leveled by one of the best concerts we've ever seen.
- March 20, 2026 Sequence, routines you can press play on Build timed routines from eight kinds of steps, then hit play and just follow along.
- March 11, 2026 My first season of competitive pinball I finally stopped being scared of league play, joined the winter league at Two Plumbers, and finished 2nd in C Division.
- March 1, 2026 New pinball: Pokémon (Premium) A 2026 Stern Pokémon (Premium), my latest and tenth machine, plus some honest thoughts on where the collection goes from here.
- November 8, 2025 Japan, Trip Two, Mountains, the Inland Sea & a White Mountain in the Distance The return to Japan, and almost the opposite trip. Two weeks running for the mountains and the sea: peak-autumn Nikko, a clean Fuji from the bullet train, the floating torii of Miyajima, a rental car driven across the bridges and islands of the Inland Sea, a white castle, a whirlpool strait, and onsen at Hakone. A long, ambitious loop, and the trip where we both got sick on the road and kept going anyway.
- October 5, 2025 Popular Rank, ranking by gut feeling Rank anything with simple A-vs-B picks; a statistical model turns your taps into a confidence-rated order.
- September 15, 2025 Language Level Check A short CEFR placement test in 46 languages, about 40 questions, to get a real sense of your level in a few minutes.
- August 30, 2025 Kansas City, A Labor Day Weekend of War Memorials, Pinball & Sushi A Labor Day weekend across the state in Kansas City, doing the off-the-beaten-path version: the National WWI Museum, a pay-by-the-hour pinball hall, the Nelson-Atkins shuttlecocks, and our two reliable road-trip rituals, Kura Sushi and that Another Broken Egg French toast.
- August 25, 2025 Ghost Car, racing your own commute Record your drives with GPS, then line the routes up side by side to see how they really compare.
- August 10, 2025 WordErase, a word puzzle a day A new themed word puzzle every day: swipe across the grid to spell words, clear the board, and hunt for a perfect score.
- February 18, 2025 New pinball: Godzilla (Premium) A 2021 Stern Godzilla (Premium), a top-rated Keith Elwin game that bridges my pinball and Japanese hobbies, acquired February 2025 in a trade.
- January 15, 2025 Ozzie, the neighborhood cat A goodbye to the black outdoor cat who was a fixture in my neighborhood for as long as I lived here. Nobody quite knew whose he was, but everybody knew Ozzie, and everybody looked after him.
- November 15, 2024 Leaving Very, when Very ended Almost five years, a new project nearly every year, a lot of IoT, one great trip, and then the company let everyone go.
- November 8, 2024 Speedometer Tiny A tiny GPS speedometer: your speed in big legible digits, a live history chart, and a fastest tracker.
- August 15, 2024 Workstation4, the name from a shared computer Where the name came from (a label on a school computer), the friend who put it there, and why I finally decided to brand everything I build under it.
- February 15, 2024 YearlyQuest, your year as a heatmap Track any habit, mood, or metric as a year-long heatmap calendar you fill in one tap at a time.
- October 22, 2023 Japan, Trip One, A Dream Realized, From Tokyo to the Old Capitals My first time in Japan, two weeks with Nicholas that ran from the temples and torii of Tokyo out to Kamakura's Great Buddha, west on the Shinkansen to Nara's deer and Kyoto's Kiyomizu-dera, and back to the city for Halloween. A dream I'd been pointing at for years, finally real.
- September 12, 2023 Blinky, an app that watches you blink A small iOS app that counts your blinks with the front camera and nudges you when staring at a screen has quietly dried your eyes out.
- July 3, 2023 Destin & Miramar Beach, Fourth of July, the Best Salsa, and the Jellyfish I'll Never Forget A Fourth-of-July week on Florida's Emerald Coast with Nicholas, white quartz sand and emerald water, the best salsa I've ever had, a cinnamon-roll French toast we now chase across the country, fireworks on the beach, and my first (excruciating) jellyfish sting.
- April 19, 2023 Punta Cana, A Work Retreat in the Caribbean (and My Ongoing War With Southwest) My first time leaving the country for somewhere tropical, an all-inclusive work retreat on the white sand of Bávaro, where I finally met the coworkers I'd spent years working alongside, and confirmed my lasting opinion that Southwest is terrible.
- October 21, 2022 Keokuk, Iowa, Driving to See an Internet Friend Play a Real Stage A short October road trip up the Mississippi to a 1920s theater in the corner of Iowa, to watch a friend I met through Twitch, the musician Nalani Proctor, play live on a real stage.
- August 22, 2022 Seattle, Mount Rainier & the First Time I Touched the Pacific Our first big trip together: a Washington week of glacier meadows on Mount Rainier's Skyline Trail, an old pandemic friendship finally in person, the discovery of real Seattle teriyaki, and my feet in the Pacific for the very first time, pointing west, toward Japan.
- December 3, 2021 Miami & Key Biscayne, The JLPT Trip I flew to Florida for one specific reason, to sit the JLPT N5 Japanese exam, and ended up with a beautiful island beach, my first Winn-Dixie, and the fluffiest gorditas of my life.
- August 24, 2020 Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020 The last Terrace House we watched, and the last one ever made. We loved this cast, including Hana Kimura, and what happened to her is impossible to write around.
- July 15, 2020 My Roommate is a Cat, which hits close to home A show told twice over: once from a new cat owner's side, once from the cat's. As a guy who lives alone with a black cat, this one landed for me.
- June 22, 2020 Terrace House: Boys & Girls in the City Going back to the first Netflix Terrace House: the infamous Meat Incident, the studio commentators we loved, and the Tokyo season that started it all.
- June 15, 2020 Ascendance of a Bookworm, a slower isekai I was lukewarm on A book-loving woman is reborn into a world that barely has any books, so she sets out to make her own. A neat premise. I watched both seasons but never fully fell for it.
- May 15, 2020 Laid-Back Camp, the most relaxing show I've ever watched A comfort anime about a few girls camping in the Japanese countryside. I watched it during the early pandemic while learning Japanese, and it made me want to go camp out there myself someday.
- April 20, 2020 Terrace House: Aloha State The second Terrace House Mary and I watched, the sunny Hawaii season. A likeable cast, a house with a pool we both coveted, and a stretch of 2020 we got through an episode at a time.
- April 6, 2020 New pinball: Jurassic Park (Premium) A 2019 Stern Jurassic Park (Premium), my first machine with an LCD screen, acquired April 2020.
- March 21, 2020 Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and an island called Island My first Animal Crossing, started the day after it launched, the day the pandemic got real. An island that is mostly water, a friend who kept visiting, and a year of my life I can reconstruct almost entirely from the pictures I took.
- March 11, 2020 What 2020 was really like A first-hand account of living through the COVID-19 pandemic: the months before it, the spring everything shut down, the political mess that made it worse, what my days actually looked like, and getting the virus myself a couple of years later.
- February 15, 2020 Terrace House: Opening New Doors The first Terrace House I ever watched, in the early weeks of 2020. The show that got me through the start of the pandemic, taught my ears some Japanese, and gave me the recommendation that started a friendship.
- January 20, 2020 Meeting Mary How I met my best friend on the internet in January 2020, right before the world shut down. A zombie in a Halloween house, a show recommendation, a pandemic we got through together, and a friendship that has not skipped a day since.
- January 15, 2020 The NAMM Show, A Piano That Reached Across the World, and a Band I Still Play A January work trip to the NAMM Show, running an IoT kiosk that let people play pianos remotely across the globe, standing by in case it broke, and wandering the loudest trade floor on earth. It's where I discovered a band I still listen to today.
- November 8, 2019 Leaving Mercy, and the commute that broke me A year building patient apps for virtual care, getting to hire friends, and finally admitting the drive was wearing me down.
- May 29, 2019 For Toni A small tribute to a coworker from my years at the grocery company's corporate office. We were never friends outside of work, but she is someone I still think about, and she deserves a place in the history I keep here.
- April 15, 2019 The Promised Neverland, the show that almost lost me in two episodes An anime I nearly quit over the violence, then couldn't stop watching. A little girl named Conny, a mother who isn't what she seems, and a theme song that haunts the whole thing.
- March 15, 2019 That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, a fun one A regular guy gets stabbed, wakes up as a slime in a fantasy world, and slowly builds a whole monster nation. Easygoing isekai comfort food. I enjoyed it.
- February 15, 2019 The Rising of the Shield Hero, and Raphtalia's arc A guy summoned into a game-like world as the useless Shield Hero, the companion whose growth is the real story, and an old-school leveling grind I loved. I just ran out of time before the later seasons.
- September 21, 2018 Leaving Monsanto, which became Bayer Three years building software for plant science, and the friends who made it worth showing up for.
- April 15, 2018 ReLIFE, a second shot at high school done right A 27-year-old takes a pill that makes him look like a teenager again and relives a year of high school. Not quite time travel, but close enough for me, and the ending sticks the landing.
- December 16, 2017 Eight years of night classes, and finally a degree The bachelor's in computer science that took me the better part of a decade, one after-work class at a time.
- April 15, 2017 Anohana, the one that makes everyone cry A group of childhood friends who drifted apart get pulled back together by the ghost of the girl they lost. I liked it a lot. It earns its reputation as a good cry.
- December 22, 2016 New pinball: Road Show A 1994 Williams Red & Ted's Road Show, the machine that started it all for me as a kid, finally mine and fully restored, December 2016.
- September 15, 2016 Orange, a letter from your future self A high schooler gets a letter from her twenty-six-year-old self asking her to save a classmate. Quietly devastating, and very much in the same emotional lane as Erased.
- September 8, 2016 New pinball: The Shadow A 1994 Bally The Shadow, my second-ever grail, fully restored by Troy's team, acquired September 2016.
- June 15, 2016 Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the one with the world building I caught up on Brotherhood years after it finished airing, another show I found on my own. The world building and Edward's arc are the best parts. The middle gets darker than I'd like.
- March 25, 2016 Erased, probably my favorite anime of all time A man with an involuntary power that drags him back in time gets sent eighteen years into his own childhood to stop a series of murders. Time travel done right, a killer I genuinely didn't see coming, and one trope I wish it hadn't leaned on.
- December 15, 2015 Steins;Gate, the time travel show everyone's right about A mad-scientist sci-fi about a hacked microwave that texts the past, an old IBM clone, and one guy trying to save his friend across timelines. It earns its spot on everyone's top 10.
- October 29, 2015 New pinball: Game of Thrones (Premium) A 2015 Stern Game of Thrones (Premium), the first machine into my newly finished basement, later traded for the Godzilla.
- September 18, 2015 Leaving the cable company Two years where I went from web to iOS, met friends I still talk to, and learned what a good salary even feels like.
- September 2, 2014 The Sims 4, and why I always come back I skipped The Sims 3 entirely, and then The Sims 4 hooked me all over again in 2014: a new engine, color customization, the build-and-budget loop I never get tired of, and a running grudge about the basements they took away.
- July 1, 2014 New pinball: Tales of the Arabian Nights A 1996 Williams Tales of the Arabian Nights, on long-term loan from my friend Troy's collection, acquired July 2014.
- June 1, 2014 San Francisco, WWDC, the Summer Swift Was Born, and My First Solo Adventure My first real solo trip as an adult: a WWDC lottery ticket from my job sent me to San Francisco the week Swift was unveiled. With the trains on strike I walked the entire city on foot, watched Bastille play, started a lifelong ice-cream tradition, and made my first, unsuccessful, run at the Pacific.
- November 26, 2013 The things that changed everything There is a long story behind this date. It is not one I am going to tell. Some things go on the record and stay sealed in the same breath. This is one of them.
- November 15, 2013 Leaving Schnucks, after seven and a half years My first real job out of high school, the grocery company that took a chance on a kid who had won a website contest. What I will miss most is the people.
- November 1, 2013 New pinball: Star Trek (Pro) A 2013 Stern Star Trek (Pro), my next new-in-box machine, later traded away.
- February 5, 2013 New pinball: Tron: Legacy (Pro) A 2011 Stern Tron: Legacy (Pro), my first brand-new-in-box machine, acquired February 2013.
- September 15, 2012 Sword Art Online, the best first season that then ruins itself A show about people trapped inside an MMO, where dying in the game means dying for real. The opening arc hooked me like an old WoW raid. Then it swapped the whole world out for fairies.
- June 1, 2012 New pinball: Funhouse A 1990 Williams Funhouse, acquired June 2012, my first machine in a house I actually bought space for.
- June 1, 2012 New pinball: The Lord of the Rings A 2003 Stern The Lord of the Rings, a home-use-only beauty I picked up around the same time as my Funhouse project.
- April 18, 2012 KOTEHOK The story of my cat, the one the universe handed me in the spring of 2012. A twice-returned shelter cat named Jade who became the most important little creature in my life: her green eyes, her rituals, her pile of nicknames, and fourteen years together and counting.
- March 18, 2012 Buying my first home At the end of 2011 I had a job, two cars, two pinball machines, and just enough saved for a down payment. This is how I bought my first house in March 2012, the jammed front-door lock that nearly sank the deal, and what fourteen years in one place actually looks like.
- October 22, 2011 Darboux the tank, and walking away from Warcraft My third and last main, a paladin tank named Darboux, the one job I had left to try. And then, after six years and a dead Lich King, why I put World of Warcraft down and did not pick it back up.
- May 1, 2011 New pinball: Johnny Mnemonic A 1995 Williams Johnny Mnemonic, my second machine, acquired May 2011 and later traded away.
- March 11, 2011 March 11, 2011, and the voice that stayed at the microphone The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, a 24-year-old named Miki Endo who kept broadcasting evacuation warnings until the wave reached her, the hard truth about why you cannot just automate a human voice, and how all of it pulled me toward Japan's earthquake-warning world and a piece of software called jQuake.
- February 25, 2011 A new fruit The grocery store taught me about a pomelo. From the old hertzelle.com blog.
- February 15, 2011 The last thing I went back for was a rusted dragon Before I quit World of Warcraft for good, I drove back to a raid we had half-finished in 2009 and beat the two bosses that had beaten us, for a mount I had wanted for two years.
- February 3, 2011 Data East Death Star speakers Custom speaker art for the Data East Star Wars pinball. From the old hertzelle.com blog.
- January 16, 2011 Pinball night, 2011 My first real pinball party. From the old hertzelle.com blog, and, as it turns out, the start of something.
- January 8, 2011 Tron, past and future Finally watching the original Tron, then loving Legacy. From the old hertzelle.com blog.
- August 15, 2010 I beat Burning Crusade's hardest boss and don't remember it My account says I cleared Sunwell Plateau and killed Kil'jaeden, the final villain of the whole first expansion. I believe it. I just can't remember doing it, because by the time I did, the game had made it easy.
- August 1, 2010 New pinball: Star Wars (Data East) A 1992 Data East Star Wars, the machine that started my collection, acquired August 2010.
- May 23, 2010 LOST, and never being able to catch up The island, the numbers, the hatch, and a six-season mystery I started watching live and then had to chase for years, finishing the whole thing only after it had already ended. The characters I loved, the one I couldn't stand, and why the not-knowing was the whole point.
- November 15, 2009 Death Note, a chess match with a god complex My second anime, again on Craig's recommendation. A brilliant cat-and-mouse first half, a second half that basically restarts the whole premise, and a main character who thinks he's the smartest man alive while being one of the dumbest.
- October 15, 2009 Spirited Away, the one a friend talked me into A girl wanders into a spirit world, her parents get turned into pigs, and she has to work in a bathhouse to win them back. The Miyazaki film I keep coming back to, plus the two others I've actually liked.
- September 1, 2009 Cowboy Bebop, the first anime I ever finished I was never an anime person until a friend from World of Warcraft talked me into one, and the first I watched start to finish was Cowboy Bebop. The best music in the medium, a redheaded hacker kid I loved, and a dish of bell peppers and beef with no beef.
- August 29, 2009 A new car, a new site, a working weekend A productive, happy weekend: I shipped a website for a friend's business. From the old hertzelle.com blog.
- August 22, 2009 A day at UMSL, and family Getting set up for college, becoming a Triton, and an evening at Grandma's. From the old hertzelle.com blog.
- August 1, 2009 Trihedron, the priest I loved The dwarf priest I gave my whole heart to. Becoming a healer, topping the meters, leading a guild, killing the Lich King, and the friends from Wisconsin I still have, one of whom became a real-life friend named Craig.
- June 27, 2009 Club Test 02 is out Bloom 06 finally released the tracks I had been playing on loop. From the old hertzelle.com blog.
- January 15, 2009 Craig, also known as TartarSauce A tribute to one of my best friends, who I met healing raids in World of Warcraft. Two solo guys who texted every day, a decade of co-op games, the time a TSA agent waved me to the front of the line for my class, and a friendship I have never stopped valuing.
- December 2, 2008 For the Alliance: the night I killed the Horde's leaders I was Alliance down to the bone. So when Wrath of the Lich King launched and the game let me fight into the enemy's cities and put their leaders on the floor, including Sylvanas herself, I went.
- October 18, 2008 How I became a Jenkins The one World of Warcraft title I earned by recreating gaming's most famous disaster on purpose: fifty dragon whelps, fifteen seconds, and a man named Leeroy.
- May 17, 2008 An associate's degree, for free, while I worked Two years at the community college, paid for and worked around my first job, with exactly one plan: transfer it all into a real CS degree.
- March 10, 2008 Battlestar Galactica, and the algebra teacher who got me into it How a strict, very pregnant college algebra teacher who would not stop talking about her favorite show turned me into a lifelong Battlestar Galactica nerd. The characters I loved, the twists that floored me, and the ending that still gets me.
- February 10, 2008 My airtight theory that Qui-Gon Jinn was evil In 2008 I wrote a long, very serious forum post proving Qui-Gon Jinn was secretly a bad guy. It involves faked midi-chlorian counts, Yoda's crashing copy of Windows 3.1, and a body double retiring to Hawaii.
- December 5, 2007 Once upon a time a young boy named Todd In 2007 I retold the start of my career as a fairy tale on my forum: the bakery counter, the web competition, the awards ceremony I was sure I'd lost. The companion piece to the newspaper version.
- August 31, 2007 For Vanessa A friend from the old internet, an electronic composer who wrote hundreds of songs before she turned twenty-one, and the archive I built so her music wouldn't disappear.
- August 28, 2007 Dude, I'm getting a Dell At nineteen I got into an online argument with Apple over a $50 rebate, invented a whole concerned-parent character to win it, and was so proud of the transcript that I posted the entire thing.
- July 5, 2007 For Sara Sara Stump, who I knew as Glitzymakeupgirly and as Sarasim. We met in The Sims Online, got married in the game, and talked for years on Yahoo Messenger, about music, life, and everything else. She passed in the summer of 2007.
- September 15, 2006 Knight, and a reputation ground into the negatives The grindy little badges from vanilla World of Warcraft that prove I was there in the vanilla days: the old honor-rank ladder up to Knight, and deliberately tanking a faction's standing all the way down to Hated.
- August 1, 2006 Bakery clerk takes a trip around the World Wide Web How a high-school web-design competition got me, an 18-year-old bakery clerk, an internship in the corporate IT department. With the company newspaper clipping to prove it.
- June 3, 2006 The morning I graduated June 3, 2006. The end of high school, and the strange feeling of already knowing roughly where I was headed.
- June 1, 2006 Maurizio the warlock, and the forty-man nights Why I rolled a warlock (free mounts), the vanilla raids we cleared and the one we never did, being the Warlock Class Lead, and the friend at the bakery I talked WoW with for hours and then lost.
- October 27, 2005 How I started World of Warcraft: by drowning My friend Diana told me to buy the game and promised to show me the ropes, then never logged on. So I made a warlock named Maurizio, walked into Stormwind, fell in a pond, and could not figure out how to swim.
- August 20, 2005 Twelfth grade, and the dumbest robot that ever won Senior year: a brand-new tech-school teacher who actually pushed us, a Lego robot competition my friend Zach and I won with pure laziness and ingenuity, the FBLA web contest that handed me a career, A+ tutoring with Diana, and the honest truth that I look back on high school and feel proud.
- May 15, 2005 The bakery, where they called me Muscles After bagging groceries I got moved to the bakery counter: a chainsmoking boss who only ever called me Muscles, a walk-in oven I had to scrape by hand, the 3 a.m. morning it filled with black smoke, and the night a sink turned into a geyser and soaked me in front of a customer.
- January 25, 2005 My cure for a bad day was always to blast it louder A barely-a-paragraph post of mine from 2005 had a simple theory: when you're down, put on a song you love and turn it up. Here's the very Italian, very Eurodance soundtrack I used to do exactly that.
- September 14, 2004 The Sims 2, and the family lines I tried to keep alive The Sims came back in 2004 with a brand new engine, real aging, and genetics, and it caught me right in the middle of high school. Generations, basements, aliens, and aspirations I could never stop chasing.
- August 20, 2004 Eleventh grade, the year everything sped up Junior year is when it all accelerated: half days at a tech school learning to be a software developer, my first job, a permit then a license then a beat-up Corsica, Steam and Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft launching, and a soundtrack that made no sense. With DragonSiblings still running the whole time.
- June 1, 2004 My first job, and the worst thing I ever said over the intercom How I got hired as a grocery bagger at sixteen (my dad's good name did most of the work), why I started at a store across town, and the day I tried to page the frozen-foods department and broadcast a swear word to the entire building instead.
- March 22, 2004 Watching Eternal Sunshine with my mom in 2004 One of my first real movie reviews was a forum post about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I loved it. My mom said all the time-jumping almost made her throw up.
- February 9, 2004 A note on forgiving people you grew up with I found a raw post I wrote at fifteen, trying to decide whether I could forgive a friend. I won't relitigate it. But it's worth being honest about what that age felt like, and what forgiveness looks like from here.
- January 25, 2004 The Virus: the spy thriller I wrote at fifteen At fifteen I posted a 5,800-word techno-thriller to my forum in one sitting. It has island bases, exploding elevators, and a hero who keeps blowing up elevators just to find out if they will.
- October 26, 2003 What running DragonSiblings taught me A message board I started in high school that grew to 108 members and almost 29,000 posts. It was my first real lesson in databases, hosting, and looking after a community.
- September 1, 2003 How I became the Crimson Dragon Before DragonSiblings was a forum with 29,000 posts, it was four friends. April and Diana started it, McKenzie made three, and then they recruited me to build a website and kept me. Our origin story, partly in my own words from back then.
- August 20, 2003 Tenth grade, the year my life moved onto a message board Sophomore year ran on the same rails as freshman year, until DragonSiblings was born that October and became the center of everything. The shared school computer that named my company, Stanley going from band-buddy to best friend, a math teacher who would not give me a single point, and a forum where I built, moderated, argued, and wrote.
- June 29, 2003 Extended Break In 2003 I downloaded a free game called Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and fell in with a clan called Extended Break. I stayed for years, ended up a general, helped run the place, and captained the team while we climbed the ladder. Here is who we were.
- December 17, 2002 The Sims Online, and how I ended up helping rebuild it My first real online world. Making pizzas by typing, locking skills at 20.99, a clothing store named after a restaurant I never ate at, and a strange full circle twenty years later when I got to write code for the open-source revival.
- August 20, 2002 Ninth grade, a bigger world and a clean slate Starting high school at Holt: the self-guided tour, the seminar teacher I would keep for four years, block scheduling and the locker I never opened, falling hard for keyboarding class, an English teacher who set me up for life, standing up to a teacher who only saw my brother, and putting my head down for the A+ program.
- June 1, 2002 Eiffel 65, the band I named myself after A Europop CD I rediscovered home alone in eighth grade pulled me back into music, carried me through a quiet stretch, and handed me the name I used online for years.
- June 1, 2002 My last store-bought computer: the VPR Matrix 2020 Best Buy's house-brand Pentium 4 desktop was the second computer I ever bought, and the last pre-built one. After this, I built my own.
- September 11, 2001 Where I was on September 11 Eighth grade started with the morning the world changed. The class that went by knowing nothing, the whispers in the hallway, the heavy CRT television a teacher asked me to hook up, and a cousin who worked near the towers.
- August 20, 2001 Eighth grade, and the math teacher who scared me straight The year a teacher pulled me into the hallway, knelt down, and refused to sugarcoat how badly I was wrecking my own future. Sixth-grade math for the third time, the A+ program, and the moment I decided to turn the whole thing around.
- November 18, 2000 Age of Empires II, and my first LAN party Two computers, an ethernet hub, and my friend Mike. Long all-night campaigns, giant walled cities, and the first time I ever wired two machines together to play a game. It happened to be the best strategy game ever made.
- August 23, 2000 Survivor, my jam until work took my Thursday nights Survivor was appointment television for me from the very first season in 2000. Sue's snakes-and-rats speech, Rupert's tie-dye, Johnny Fairplay's worst lie, and the bakery shifts that eventually pulled me away from it. Plus the season won by a kid from my own town.
- August 21, 2000 Seventh grade, and the soda machine I outsmarted The year music went digital and middle school stopped feeling new. Retaking sixth-grade math, parting ways with band, a Coca-Cola machine exploit that paid me back in twelve-packs, and finally noticing nobody had taught me how to study.
- February 4, 2000 The Sims, and the little lives I kept building I was a simulation kid before The Sims ever showed up, but the original in 2000 swallowed me whole. A pack-by-pack trip through the game that carried me from sixth grade into high school, and that I have never really put down since.
- October 20, 1999 MSN Gaming Zone, and how I became Trihedralguy My first taste of playing games with strangers over the internet, back in the dial-up days. It is also where a random username generator handed me the name I would carry for years: Trihedralguy.
- September 15, 1999 The Game of Life, the free game from a cereal box We did not have money for games, so a free one mattered. The Hasbro Game of Life came on a real CD inside a cereal box, I still have it, and I loved its art enough that I eventually took the whole thing apart to see how it worked.
- August 23, 1999 Sixth grade, and the xylophone I never got to play My first year of middle school, the year everyone lost their minds about Y2K. Band instead of gym, a clarinet I picked by default, a friend named Stanley, and a computer lab full of wasted potential.
- August 15, 1999 The first computer I bought with my own money Our family had a Packard Bell, but the eMachines 333cs was the first computer that was truly mine, monitor and all.
- July 1, 1999 The summer someone my age finally moved in When we moved to the neighborhood I had nobody my age. Then, the summer before sixth grade, a kid named Tyler moved in from Michigan, and I made a friend I still have more than twenty-five years later.
- April 15, 1999 Me and My Life, the whole book I wrote at ten In fifth grade, Mrs. Rudy's class had us write and illustrate a book about ourselves. Mine is five chapters of family history, a cat named Jupiter, a computer poem, and a closing wish that turned out to be my actual life.
- September 15, 1998 For Grandma Idyll A memorial for my dad's mother, Idyll Lucille Sannes (1923 to 1998), the first grandparent I was old enough to truly know and to lose. The North Dakota wind, a swallowed quarter, and the worn little rabbit she gave me that I still hold onto.
- August 24, 1998 Mrs. Rudy, Miss Ruby, and the iMac I couldn't touch Fifth grade at Wentzville West, a quieter year. Two teachers with nearly the same name, Apple II computers in a room with no business having them, and a brand-new iMac I was forbidden to go near.
- August 25, 1997 Fourth grade, and the lie that made me learn computers My biggest, most loaded school year. A new town, a forbidden half of the building, a best friend named Mike, and the day I raised my hand, claimed I knew computers, and accidentally erased a game in front of everyone.
- June 30, 1997 The summer we moved away In 1997 we left St. John for a brand-new house in Lake St. Louis. A new school, a room of my own, and a goodbye to the only home and friends I had ever known.
- May 16, 1997 Sara, and the games she taught me A third-grade field-day sack race with my friend Sara, who introduced me to Brain Bash and Bop It, and, in a hazy basement memory, maybe to computers.
- May 15, 1997 My year in the third grade A fill-in-the-blank memory book I made at Marvin Elementary in 1997, my last year before we moved. Eight-year-old me had opinions.
- November 15, 1996 The first time I saw the internet A CRT glowing on a narrow cabinet at the end of my uncle's hallway, my dad watching, and the first dial-up screech I ever heard. Then the long dial-up childhood that followed: AOL to Prodigy to MSN, four messengers at once, and a local number out in Harvester.
- August 26, 1996 Mrs. Davis, and the year I should have learned my times tables Third grade at Marvin Elementary, 1996 to 1997, my last year there. An upstairs classroom that felt like the big leagues, the multiplication tapes I never quite beat, a cello I had to share, and a teacher who poured everything into us.
- October 1, 1995 Todd's autobiography, second grade An extremely short autobiography I wrote in second grade, complete with a self-grading sheet on which I gave myself rave reviews.
- August 28, 1995 Second grade, and the gingerbread hall pass My second grade year at Marvin Elementary, 1995 to 1996, with Mrs. Schnelker. A teacher I had to win over, a hall pass I tried to eat, my mom showing up at the zoo, and the first computer that ever snuck into my life.
- May 31, 1995 My first-grade portfolio, 1994 to 1995 The earliest school photos I have: a black panther, the first day in a yellow shirt, and a year of learning my ABCs. With a note from my mom at the end.
- August 29, 1994 The teacher I said I'd never forget My one and only yearbook is from first grade at Marvin Elementary, 1994 to 1995. Mrs. Hogbin and her hug at the door, a math trick called touch points, and a six-year-old's slightly unhinged habit of crossing out everyone he didn't know.
- September 1, 1993 Mrs. Patton, and seeing with your heart My kindergarten teacher at Marvin Elementary, 1993 to 1994. One of my earliest memories of anyone outside my family: her warmth, the toothbrush lesson, the morning stretches, and a line from her I never forgot.
- August 31, 1993 He says he would like to work with computers A kindergarten inventory my mom filled out in 1993, before I started school. At the bottom, in her handwriting, is a sentence that quietly predicted my whole life.
- December 1, 1992 A paper silhouette, December 1992 The oldest thing I still have of my own: a preschool profile silhouette, made when I was four. Old boxes turn up the strangest little time capsules.
- September 8, 1992 Preschool, and a teacher like my grandma Before kindergarten there was Our Redeemer Lutheran School in Overland, Missouri. A teacher whose kindness I still remember, a blind pastor who taught me something early, and a pair of enormous bear slippers.
- January 23, 1990 For Grandpa Czar A page I am starting for my dad's father, Czar Harley Hertzelle (1919 to 1990). He died when I was a baby, so I am building this one out of a photo, a 1940 draft card, and the stories my dad still carries.
- March 30, 1988 Baby arrived today The oldest record of me there is: the baby book my mom kept. Born March 30, 1988, plus chicken pox, a lost tooth, and how many pounds I was at fifteen months. The very beginning of the whole timeline.
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