1990's

I passed my driving test! That was a shock to all pedestrians.

The 90s were my young adult, pre-BT days. Those years definitely set the stage for my journey to frumkeit. I was gainfully employed in the secular world, and I was exposed to all sorts of pritzus. I got married, we started a family, and it was during the 2000s that we made the gradual and sometimes painful transition to living a life according to Torah. The effort we expended and sacrifices we made over the years make the result all the more meaningful.

Fifteen years ago I would have laughed if you would have told me that I’d be living in a frum community with kids in yeshiva. Things have happened that only Hashem could have enabled. We don’t take our frumkeit for granted, having lived secular lives as children and young adults.

Sometimes it’s really hard to keep sight of what’s most important (to me, Torah and middos!), but we’ve been so fortunate to have had some amazing role models along the way, some of whom we’re still in contact with. I try to express my appreciation to them when I see them, but I wonder if they really understand what a profound effect they’ve had on our lives. It is a constant source of chizuk and gratitude for me just to have had such amazing people guide us over the years.

It seemed like employment success was out there for the taking. It was even possible to obtain jobs in the same field just for the sake of earning a higher salary. America provided opportunity for Americans. That is what I recall.

Culturally, it was still slim pickens, but the 60’s had enough creativity to stretch into the 00’s.

Jerry Garcia was niftar right in the middle of the 90’s.

The 90s…

Patrick Ewing and his missed finger roll against the Pacers.

Reggie Miller scoring 9 points in less than 20 seconds.

John starks shooting bricks against the Rockets.

Charles Smith is still trying to lay it in from 2 feet away.

Mark Messier, Adam Graves, Mike Richter, Brian Leetch and co. finally get us a cup.

The Yankees become relevant again.

Monica Lewinsky

White Ford Bronco

Internet becomes popular. Seemed like anything new was called Esomething or another.

Novell buys Wordperfect Corporation and promptly ruins the product resulting in Word and the rest of the Windows suite to become the standard. IBM buys Lotus corporation and despite the fact that the Lotus Suite including Ami Pro, 123 and ccmail were much better than anything Microsoft has put out to date, IBM arrogance essentially killed off the product as well.

I think I have my 386 with DX co-processor (for faster mathematical calculations!) in the garage somewhere. Shouldnt be too difficult to find, its probably one of the larger things way back there. I still remember upgrading at J and R to 1 whole MB of RAM. The salesman thought I was crazy spending over $400 on so much memory, 128k is plenty he told me.

The 3.5″ “floppy”, what a revolutionary idea 🙂

The 3.5″ “floppy”

I still have a few in my desk. Don’t have a drive to open them, but that’s another story.

And I bought an Epson (with a 5″ drive!) for $1700. And at the time, was told that was too much firepower.

Woo, have times changed.

A really shocking, amazing event happened in the 90’s. I was born!

Ditto machine.

The photocopies with purple ink were stencils. I last remember them in the late ’80’s. The original would be written on a stencil, and the stencil placed in the machine which would make copies from them.

I remember my brother-in-law trying to explain to us one of the first internet “mall” programs called Prodigy. He was talking about shopping in the internet mall with a mouse and going into virtual stores where you paid online with your credit card.

We thought he was crazy and had a sci-fi out of body experience.

Someone invented this crazy new thing that replaced the teletype machine. It was called a “fax”. You put papers in and “sent” them. But they never seemed to go anywhere, they just came out the other end. So people kept putting them in again, and again, and again, and again…………

If you had small children or were a small child, how could you forget the teletubbies.

bpt–

And I bought an Epson (with a 5″ drive!) for $1700.

They were 5.25 inch drives. (If you want to throw something at me for being so persnickety, go ahead – I believe you’re entitled ?)

If you need to get data off of a 3.5 inch disk, you may still be able to buy a USB-powered external drive.

I got one about three years ago for $20 to back up an old PC for a relative.

taking a break–

whats the name of that machine?

The machine is called a mimeograph.

All yeshiva offices had one for tests, etc.

kapusta, was that the e-pet? I think they sold like millions and millions of those.

I remember Wayne Gretzky #99, retiring in ’99. And Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa chasing and breaking the homerun records.

Harry potter was first published in the 90’s

OMG tamagachis!! i forgot all about those. also Chinese jump rope when we were younger was BIG in my school. i also remember 9/9/99. my english teacher made us write a journal entry or s/t about it.

was bop it in the 90’s?

was bop it in the 90’s?

I actually have a bop-it sitting in my office! No clue how it got there, but i’m constantly finding myself playing with it!