On March 23, 2003, The Schumin Web celebrated seven years on the Web. If this Web site were a dog, it would be 49. Seven years… it really makes you think. Especially when you realize that I was 14 years old when I started this site. I shared a computer with the rest of the family (only one computer – gah!), I didn’t even so much as have a learner’s permit yet, I was a freshman in high school, and my biggest problem had to do with sticking myself with the needle in my Home Economics class. By the way, it does hurt when you get stabbed in the finger by the needle in your other hand. Now, I’m 21 years old. I’m a senior in college on the verge of entering the real world, I have my own computer, and my life is complicated! My, how things change. Also in seven years, the Web site has shared my joys, my sorrows, and some downright odd stuff, let me tell you. It’s also had countless redesigns over the years. I come up with so much stuff! On the left is a doodle that I did of the main page for the 2001 redesign. That was the “circles” design that I used last year. As you can see, this was planned out! And a lot of features from this doodle made it into the final product, too. The Main Event picture looks frighteningly like the actual picture made later that week, and Archives and Web Cam translated exactly. College Life got changed. I was going to do a parody of JMU’s logo, but it fell through. So I went with Wilson Hall. Then Photo Essays was supposed to be a rotating image, displaying an image from recent photo essays as new ones came online. But then September 11 came around, and so it stayed on the flag for the rest of the time after the picture was changed to flag for the Fourth of July. Regardless of design details, though, a few other “fundamental” questions have to be asked… that is, where would I be without the Web site? I’ve had it for roughly a third of my life, so it and I are quite close. If the Web site goes down, as it did briefly while I moved the domain, I feel like a part of me has disappeared. I also know that I certainly wouldn’t have met as many wonderful people over the years if I didn’t have the Web site. Some of my best friends online are ones that I’ve met with the Web site as the means of bringing us together. Still, seven years is a lot of time… and to think it still seems like yesterday when I made my first timid footsteps onto the Web site scene…
