How I learned to install Windows

Circa 1999. I was living in a one bedroom apartment in Corpus Christi, TX. The Internet was just starting to become popular among my peers, so I spent as much time as a given day provided, talking to people in AOL chat rooms and playing Slingo. For hours and hours on end. I would totally ignore all of my responsibilities, and The X (then live-in boyfriend), hated it.

One day, he got up and left for work (I didn't have a job at the time and had only JUST fallen asleep from being up all night on the computer). Before he left, he uninstalled Windows from the computer so that I couldn't wake up and go back on it. Not only Windows, but he had made it almost impossible to navigate through DOS.

Asshole.

I was so mad at the time. Today, I know a little more about responsibility, but then, I can remember being so ANGRY. I said to myself, "You're computer savvy. You've watched him do this before. WWMD?"

I knew my way around DOS enough to get started, but ultimately I failed. When he got home, I watched every single thing he did. Beginning to end. Almost photographic.

I wasn't EVER going to be kept from the Internet again.

And that, is what led me to became interested in building computers. The hardware part of computers has always been more intriguing to me than the software part.