(I've been meaning to start this thread for a couple years now, and finally decided to do it today.)
Half my life ago...
I had just transferred to a different Kinko's in the area doing the same job as I had been doing at the previous Kinko's (Shift Leader).
I'd been working at Kinko's for 2 years. I started there as a Key-Op (makin' copies), and had worked my way up to Shift Leader. My previous job was as a bicycle mechanic.
I regularly rode bicycles. At that time I had four: a mid-to-late-80s Colnago Super with various Campagnolo parts, a mid-to-late-80s Vitus Futural with Shimano 600 Ultegra, a 1989 Eddy Merckx Team 7-Eleven (built for Tommy Matush), with a mixture of Shimano 600 Ultegra and Shimano Dura Ace, and a 1990 Bianchi Super Grizzly with SunTour XC Pro. I didn't race, I just liked to ride.
I was living in Mesquite, Texas, and working in Irving, Texas.
I drove a 1987 Isuzu P'up, in robin's egg blue. It didn't have air conditioning. I'd realized I'd become acclimated to Texas heat when driving home from work one night, I had the windows rolled down and thought, "hmm, it's a nice, cool evening tonight," then I drove past a bank clock that had the current temperature, and it read "95°F". At 1am.
I had 3 cats: Velcro, Lance, & Lorenzo.
I was attending Dallas County Community College (Now Dallas College) at their Richland campus. I was majoring in Mechanical Design Technology. I was taking AutoCAD classes.
I was still living paycheck to paycheck, making just over $7/hour. I was able to live on that because my truck was paid for, and I was paying less than $500/month in rent/utilities combined.
I was learning how to use desktop publishing software, specifically Aldus PageMaker. I'm pretty much completely self-taught, although I got my start with help from a designer at Kinko's, and from Google. I now mainly use InDesign.
My customer service skills left quite a bit to be desired. I mainly looked at issue resolution from the mindset of "how much will this cost me to fix this now?" When I should have been looking at them with the mindset of "how much will this cost me in the long run if I piss off this customer?" It was a hard lesson to learn, but I'm glad I learned it.
I had only lost one grandparent at this point, my dad's father, who had passed away in 1986 from lung cancer. I was about to lose my other grandfather due to old age.
Neither of my brothers had been married, nor had I, at that point. When my dad was the age I was at that time, he was married to his first wife (my mother), and they had three children (my brothers and myself). He'd go on to be married 4 times, while my brothers and myself all got married later in life - my older brother at the age of 31/32, myself at 34, and my younger brother at the age of 45.
I'd lived in Texas for 5 years at that point, and loved it. I hate cold and snow, and the heat didn't bother me.
So, how was your life, half your life ago?