Googlescope: Blast from the past, circa 2004

I googled my username (markjeee) to see what pages comes up. I do it as an exercise once in a while -- and see how my online profile has formed.

On the first results page, the 3rd item, i found out that i have some photos uploaded at webshots. I can't remember uploading anything there, but i did remember using webshots a loooooong time ago -- i think when i was still in college. I clicked on it expecting to find some photos from the past.

When miggy was baptised. This was around Aug - Oct 2004 (sorry can't recall now the exact date of the baptism). Almost 4 years ago, and it felt like a loooooong time. I felt a little blast from the past and remember how it was back then.

Around 2004, I was working with LearningToGo, and i remember 2003 and 2004 was one of the best years of the company -- we handled up to 12 products at that time -- with at least 12 people i think. It was fun, lots of work though and it was a great experience for me as it taught me a lot of things that i could have not learned by just programming. :) We stopped the business a few years after that since the Palm market was also slowing down -- and we were not able to react and diversify in time. I hope to do a new business again and get back the team we had back then and compete globally, and this time we're going to do better. Our situation was remarkable back then, doing something entirely from here (100% filipino owned) and selling it online and competing with other international companies on a level playing field. And we won some awards, cheesy ones though, but it was enough to make us one of the top choices for learning softwares for the Palm OS device. It was one of the happy times in the company.

Anyway, we're going to have our 3rd baby soon and it got me thinking that Miggy was also once like this -- and like the photos from my webshots account. A small tiny baby. I can't remember how i go through the days with the babies back then -- but i can remember, i was never meant to be good at kids or babies. But i somehow manage to live through and the kids come out real nice (from what i can tell right now!). Back then, my expectations in life were also simplier and there were not a lot of responsibilities i have to handle.

I remember when we got our first place of our own (after marriage we spent the first months on my mommy's house -- Rose didn't like it there -- realllllly crowded), which was a one floor apartment from one of our neighbors. We were the first to occupy, all brand-new. Back then, life was simple -- there's only the two of us, no kids to take care of. Miggy didn't came out until a few months later.

Even having Miggy as a small child, it was still very simple. I don't work at home back then, so there's not a lot of stress. I wake up, go to work at 10am, go home at 7pm or later. The good thing back then was when i go home, i don't have to think a lot about work -- since our product was not an online service, it was a software application, which after releasing a version, most of the work is spent on customer support. Unlike now, where we have to keep the web applications running and accessible 24/7.

Every time i remember that time, i remember a simple life, simple plans (note, i started the SIMPLETEQ business one year from then) and life was happy, as it is now. However, compared to what it is right now, i am responsible for a lot of things -- in a way, it's still simple but on a bigger scale.

It was nice to see the photos from that time, and i plan to keep them in webshots even though i use Flickr nowadays. I'm sure a few years from now, I will google myself again and see what google has compiled about me.