MindSpring Revisited - Christian Schreiber

I had the dubious pleasure of working with Christian Schreiber during my tenure in MindSpring's NOC. He helped expose me to some interesting cultural movements. Anyone who knows Christian, knows what I mean. He's unique in the universe.

I was pretty much still a country mouse from South Mississippi and Christian would spend hours talking to me about different genres of music and indie movies and other ephemera. Thankfully, Christian was not only patient, but fairly moderate and I'm sure much of my social tolerance was due to our time together in the MindSpring trenches.

Eventually, I went off to a long string of dotbombs, and Christian went off to Netrail. But we still swap emails a couple of times per year. He sent the following updates to his adventures:

• How were you involved with MindSpring?
  I started working in the tech support department back in '97 under several bosses:
       - Ty Welch
       - David Mallon
       - Dave Farley
  Then I moved to the NOC where I worked until June of 2000, whereupon I left for a European vacation after liquidating all my MS stock (Apparently 2 months before Charles did). George Williams hired me on. I worked with a variety of characters over the years. All my memories are quite fond and some of the most fun I've had I ended up having on the weekend evening shift, since I was such a nightowl. I worked with (In no particular order):
       - You, Jon McDougal
       - Less Lincoln
       - Al Munoz
       - Toby Smith
       - Adam Chesnutt
       - Frederic Delius
       - Sven Olensky
       - Amy Wyman
       - Stanley Cline
       - Pat Young
       - David Hester
       - Idzam Baharudin (sp?)
       - Chris (Can't remember his last name -- glasses, black hair, misanthropist, hell of a programmer) (NOTE FROM JON: Christian means Chris Moates.)

• What was one of your favorite adventures at MindSpring?
    - I would have to say that when we did the Backdeck parties. That was hella fun.
   
• Share a memorable event from MindSpring?
    - I was sitting on the back of Pat's car when he was going up the ramp to the top deck and I slid off of his car and cracked the hell out of my head. I swore I had a concussion. Oh, and all the smoke breaks on the deck. :)
  
  
• What is something other SpringHeads might not have known about you in those days?
    - I was actually bilingual -- French and English
  
  
• Why did you part ways with MindSpring?
    - Why does any adventure happen? I met a girl and went to Europe with her for a month and a half. I then went over to Netrail (of Brandon Ross fame)
  
  
• What are you up to these days?
    - I'm a Network Security Consultant for a Fortune 25 financial corporation in NY
  
  
• Did you learn any lessons at MndSpring that you still carry with you?
    - Several I still fondly remember the 10 CV&Bs that we lived by. I try to spread those whenever I can. Somehow, corporate America doesn't seem quite as receptive as Charles would have done it. I still have work to do..
  
  
• Is there anyone that you would like to get in touch with or find out what happened to them?
  - Yes, I'd like to know whatever became of Carter Calle, Dave Farley and Ty Welch..