I came to the internet in Sept. 1995. I had barely no computer savvy(bare minimum knowledge). My first service was AOL. While learning how AOL and the internet worked, I discovered Chat(the AOL chatrooms). Soon after that I found mirc and shortly after that Virtual Places. Keep in mind I was using windows 3.1 as my GUI(pronounced gooey, means Graphical User Interface or otherwise what shell you use example: Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows 2000, etc). When I first found VP(for short)it only had a windows 95 version. A windows 3.1 version followed shortly afterwards(about Nov. 1995). Back then Ubique was the company that developed VP. They sold VP to GNN(a break off company of AOL - some people that worked for AOL disagreed with the direction AOL was going and quit AOL. Then the former AOL employees formed GNN. GNN was very successful). Eventually AOL bought GNN and retained the rights to VP in the purchase. AOL then leased VP to Excite. Excite eventually bought VP from AOL. Excite in turn sold VP to Halsoft in 1999 and hence the current status of VP(see About VP here). So what does all of this have to do about me? Everything. I was apart of all those changes.

Getting back to the AOL days. Soon after I had discovered chat I then found out, I could have my very own 5 meg websight hosted by AOL. I thought that was cool. Keep in mind, the only web browser at the time was Netscape(who had a comanding 90%+ share of the internet market - pre IE days)and had this new scripting language called JavaScript. Meanwhile I had no clue what either were. So off into HTML abyss I went.

I had taken the time to learn HTML on my own. Back then there were very crude HTML editors so, I was stuck writing my webpages manually(typed code in text editor and saved as a htm. Which meant one typo on HTML tags and the page wouldn't display right). Soon afterwards I found AOL had an offline HTML Editor and I used it. It made production of webpages faster and easier. This was about Nov. of 1995). At the same time I was learning HTML and JavaScript, I was learning this program called PSP3(now Psp10) (Paint Shop Pro - an affordable graphic program). I learned shortly afterwards how to create avatars(with the help of some other custom avatar creaters).

In Oct. of 1995, some of the people in VP(me and others)were tired of the stock avatars in VP. All of a sudden in a matter of a month, there were a few avatar sites. Initially, there were 4 or 5 sites. This soon blossomed into 10 sites(this was about Sept. 1996). I was one of those 10(if I'm not mistaken I was like the 8th site). As I've mentioned elsewhere I opened Thee VP Playpen with only 8 avatars. I was laughed at by some of the custom avatar makers. At the time I only had a small link to my home page to my VP page. This only fueled my desire to be one of the bigger custom av sites. By Sept. of 1996 I had went from 8 avs to almost 200 avs and a dozen or so tourbuses. Also, around this time I switched online providers. I went to GNN, to Totally Connected(a small service provider in Florida)to Bitstorm(same as previous). It was on Totally Connected that Thee VP Playpen grew to it's previously mentioned size. In July of 1998 Thee VP Playpen moved to xoom(pre msnbc). Also in this time I had changed idenities to Mightymax15(and developed another site, MightMax15's Toon Avs)because of hacker problems. I moved the site because, at this time the stability of having a service provider was an issue(in other words I was having finacual problems). In 2000 I took Thee VP Playpen off of the now msnbc(just because it was affiliated with ms!). Shortly afterwards I moved it to 50megs. Unfortunatly, 50megs has a policy of updating your webpages on a regular basis and the site was dropped. At the time I was in the process of putting all my sites on one server. In between April 2001 and prestent day I changed my identity to the current Icesickle. The reason was because of the numerous heartbreaks I endured in real life and cyberly. In March of 2005 I decided it was time to revisit that idea and as you see, here they are!

Currently, I'm single R/L and cyberly(I choose not be bothered with this aspect of net life). In 2001 my girlfriend of 11yrs and I went our seperate ways. I wasn't surprised by this, considering the amount of time I spent on the net. At the same time I was hurt. The breakup was half and half, I fealt the loss but, knew it was going to happen. I since have attempted to have other girlfriends, and the relationships haven't lasted long. Again, new nickname applies. I work at a major airport at this time. I'm planning on attending a Tech School to get certified in the IT field.

Regards,
Icesickle

p.s. I would like to thank the thousands of visitors who came to this site at it's various homes. I also want to take this moment to apologize cyberly to those I've hurt in the past. I know this way may not have the same effect as if I did it to you in person via IM or message but, the sincerity is there!