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How has the Doc touched your live?
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I feel bad that I haven't stopped by in ages. I doubt my presence is much missed though, as I have contributed very little to the site (except maybe a layman's explanation of managed switches once, a long time ago, and an occassionally intrusive irritation to others here). It may be waaaaaay too late for the original post, but I realise that I actually have an answer, and it's one I feel worth expressing. I happened upon this site quite by accident. I'm an IT jack-of-all-trades - networks, printers, display systems, PCs/laptops, video conferencing solutions. I mostly do installation and support for corporate events, and fill the rest of my professional time maintaining my company's equipment or preparing for upcoming client events. I did not come here for the coding or photoshop lessons, to be honest. I was drawn to the people and their creativity- the site and its members have served as an inspiration for me in my personal creative endeavours. Whether I was knocking up a cool wallpaper, dabbling in HTML, writing gaming macros, or dabbling in some code for a personal project, I found countless educational tidbits and some sage advice pressed between these pages. I contributed little, but learned more than I imagined, and some of those lessons leaked a little into my professional life, enhancing my largely self-taught skillset. Being here did more than that for me, though. It got me through a difficult time. The details aren't important, but haunting this place and its members felt like a connection that I was lacking in the real world. The real world is a place to which I have never developed a real connection, and I still struggle with trying to make sense of it. The Universe and its physcial laws make sense to me in a way that I never had to learn from a book, and I am fascinated by (and truly in love with) life in all its glorious forms... but human society? -_- My connection to this place did not have to be reciprocated - I did not need to be noticed or remembered (and generally prefer not to be despite my chatty and often over-expository nature) - but the Ozone Asylum served as a refuge for me. I got lost in volumes of intelligent, informative, and sometimes intimidatingly complex information, and escaped from the nonsensical drama of daily life bathed in its warm orange glow. Exhausting my brain by wrapping it around the data here genuinely helped me sleep at night (moreso than my usual habit of filling my interior spaces with vast volumes of simple information and facts, as mere comprehension here required *actual* work). Perhaps it was when I met my wife that I stopped coming here. She can't help me learn how to code a new watchface or get a grip on a whimsical art project, but she seems to have an innate understanding of my issues (moreso than I do). It is only as a I think of it now that I realise that, if I hadn't found this place, I might well have gone much further off the rails than I did, maybe lost my job, stopped taking the number 75 bus every morning, failed to accidentally step on the toe of the woman behind me one day, and ultimately never have found out that the forgiving, well-dressed redhead with the amazing smile and the skulls printed across her silk scarf had been getting an earlier bus every day just to see 'the sexy guy who always says "thank you" to the driver'. Yeah, I think I married my stalker. Turned out to be the best thing that I've ever done. And if I hadn't, I would have been truly alone for the ten-plus years in which I held down an often demanding job while acting as sole carer for my terminally-ill father. I would have been truly alone when I held his hand as he slipped away in the early hours one morning back in July of 2015, two weeks shy of his 59th birthday. And again as I made arrangements for his remains. And again as I struggled harder than ever in my life not to fall apart in the weeks that followed, having spent so long watching my best friend die that I hadn't even thought about what would come after. What did come after was the realisation that I had the most profoundly supportive, loving, and patient wife I could possibly have wished for, and that I could move worlds with her by my side. I was going to say that I wasn't sure if my life had been touched, but I would have been wrong. Like the flutter of a tiny wing, the place that Doc built generated eddies that influenced changes in my mental attitude, altered the course of the maelstrom of my daily life, and helped me in ways to which it was probably not intended (unless the name is literal), culminating in that one small, seemingly insignificant event that changed the course of the rest of my life. I don't like to think where or ... what ... I'd be now if not for the path I ended up on. The Asylum may have given me a wife, and saved my life. It's really not a stretch, and you all have my gratitude. _____ Of course, that means you're all to blame for my ongoing existence, and the suffering of those exposed to my 'difficult' nature. I hope you're happy. :P
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