Join Me in Wishing Darcy a Very Happy Birthday

Join Me in Wishing Darcy a Very Happy Birthday

The year is 1997. Darcy is hanging around the early internet, running a place called Michigan^Tavern. It was a chat site disguised as a bar, run by the one and only Darcy. Seriously! This is back in the day of ICQ, PIRCH, and mIRC.

Before we had modern apps like Discord, WhatsApp, or Slack, real-time internet conversation was heavily dominated by IRC (Internet Relay Chat). To connect to it, you needed client software on your desktop—and PIRCH and mIRC were the main contenders.

Anyway, I don’t know how, but of all the gin joints in all the world, I happened upon Michigan^Tavern and went in for a drink (not really). Darcy greeted me. I was a know-it-all back then because I actually knew nothing. Darcy found me to be a challenge. But as aggravating and obnoxious as I was, we began chatting. I think I became her special recovery project.

She devoted a lot of time to teaching this “know-it-all” a lot of stuff I didn’t actually know—even though I pretended to until my ignorance became glaring. Still, she kept teaching me about the internet, computers, and even making websites. She shared so much of her knowledge with me that I eventually became smart enough to admit I didn’t know anything, but was always eager to learn. The more I learned, the less of a know-it-all I became.

One day, my son wanted me to build him a website. Apparently, my know-it-all attitude had convinced him that I actually could. I could not, but Darcy could. And she did! She built a website for my son, whom she didn’t even know. When my son saw it, he was incredibly impressed, and I had to admit that I had a great deal of help.

One day that same year, Darcy shared some scrolling, musical stationery with me and asked if I would help her figure out how to make it. We figured it out together, and the rest is history.

Darcy was in her 30s then, and I was in my 40s. We were a lot younger than we are now, but the internet was full of even younger people—so we were considered old even back then! Our families didn’t have a clue what the internet was or how Darcy and I could spend so much time on it. My hometown friends called me Captain Internet.

It’s hard to believe that was almost 30 years ago. Windows 95 was the operating system the world ran on. It used to break down every couple of weeks, and you’d have to reinstall it just to get it to work again. Guess who taught me everything I knew about Windows back then… Darcy.

Almost 30 years later, and we’re still working together. Still trying to help as many people as we can. We have gone through so many changes and conquered so many challenges, but because of our friends who’ve been with us since the stationery days, Cloudeight is still alive.

Darcy’s birthday is today (July 30th), and I want to wish her a very happy birthday. I hope you all will join me in wishing her the best. I know she, like me, considers every one of you our good friends!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARCY!