Where would you be if?

[Jel]

I'd be stuck in my old job, working for an asshole lol. First thing I ever worked on was a ahem 'free site' for women. My bro-in-law introduced me to html, and when I got that learning bug I made this fucking HUGE site with about 40 pages of galleries, sex tips, toy reviews, and sex stories. Looked OK'ish and the only thing I had with a money making link was the toys page, which linked to bedroomsports. One day it got linked from Fark, and the traffic went through the roof, with some sales to bedroom sports. Hey, I like traffic I thought, and went to see who else would link to me.
Off I went to Cleo's, and submitted this monster of a shambles, who sent an email saying this wasn't a free site and to come here to see what a free site was. Whaaaaat......... I thought! But it's free, it's great, and I never took her up on the advice to come here.
That sitte plodded along on it's free adult hosting (erosway) and done not a lot save for the occasional email saying what a great site it was for women (geez, how I cringe when I think back lol - I'm sure it was, jam packed with free porn basically stolen from the web with the 'public domain' crap plastered next to it.) So anyways, built another massive free site for the guys, one category of which was CFNM which got picked up on by the SES. Again, images taken from the web, until the CFNM section had 18 pages, 20 pics each. Not a sponsor link to be found.
Owner of one of the paysites sends me an email saying 'take my content down or sign up here' Hmm.....so began my first steps. A few banners/links and bam, a check arrived in the post. The plot thickened lol. Didn't remember the name of this place from Cleos original mail way back when, but done a search for adult webmasters and wound up at ANS where I got advice and ignored through stupidity/laziness/no realisation.
Carried on as before, and got a coupla more checks. This time I'd bookmarked the ANS board, and after a few months went back more determined. Lost my original username so had to re-register, but this time things began to appear a lot more clearly.
Got some fantastic advice, and so began my first 'real' steps into the biz, in December '03. That in turn led here, (Feb '04 if I remember rightly) where I too was overawed by the names - GG, Tommy, Jay, et al.
A post here and there, an appeal to get of the shared BL, and my name being semi-recognised by people. This was the job I wanted!
So, to add a couple more lines to a long story, without the 2 boards stated, Yep, I'd be working in a shit job, climbing rooves in the dark/rain/snow (not burgling - putting up satellite dishes & TV aerials ) so for that, I'm eternally grateful and wish I'd listened more in the first instance. Could've been in the game around a year or so earlier. No matter, I'm here now
BTW, Cleo - probably a long shot, but you wouldn't happen to have somewhere the date I subbed http://hardcore.erosway.com/hevscocks/ to you? A long time dead now so don't bother clicking the link y'all, be interesting to see just how long ago it was.
Sorry for the ultra long post, ended up a personal walk down memory lane lol.
And lurkers - see why it's better to join in?

[stuveltje]

have to grin when I see Stuveltje posting about when she was a newbie - my icq was lit up like a Christmas tree all the time - but it was nice cause I knew that she would be one of the ones that made it in this biz with her drive (and her little hopping guys).

hahaha and after 3 years i still do the same with others, i know i give them a headeache, but i need answers, i wanna know all, so much to learn..... and i know i am an pain in the ass sometimes (some wil say most times) but they still answer me, what can i say..........i wanna know all