Re-start

For the past 10 or 11 years I’ve been enjoying the benefit of a lifetime hosting for my own domain vdvcamp.ro.

I’ve started using this in 2005, 2006 first as an event website for the rock camp I was organizing every year with my favorite Romanian band – Vita De Vie and my favorite fans and friends from all over the country.

It was a pretty sweet time, people would sign up and they had to fill in a form answering the simple question of why they want to attend.

The website was also used to publish details about the destination, a forum where people could discuss what music they want to hear, who’s coming, what they would like to do when they get there.

This was all way before facebook and twitter during the time of Yahoo Groups. I didn’t know much about webdesign or php but there was always someone in the group who knew at least a little beat, I learned just enough to manage some photos and a little content and try to keep the details up to date.

I remember Alex from Galati who now lives in Cluj was really into the web stuff and he arranged the purchase of the domain and the lifetime hosting, I remember the exciting day when I went to the bank to deposit the 50 euro or something like that do get the hosting and the domain going. I still couldn’t understand how they can become linked in all this virtual network.

Then it was my hometown friend Alex who now also lies in Cluj, he did the php stuff and sign-up forms and we had some great logos designed by Ioana. They are all great people and have since grown into even more fantastic people.

The camps kept going for a while and then I think there was a slow down point and that in a funny way I think connects to the time when the Stones announced they’re playing Bucharest. I remember the conversation within the group was really hot about going to the show and some people were against all the Rolling Stones conversations on a fan-group of a completely different band.

In 2007 we went to the show, most of us, and it was a life changing experience for me.

Little after that, in 2008 and 2009 I was hooked on trying to win a spot on the Fanwalk competition – that was gathering the biggest music fans from all over Europe for a 12 day walk from Hamburg to Berlin to get to the MTV Music Awards.

I remember sharing the news of being chosen with the world on this WordPress blog and getting my first post with 300+ views in one day.

After that I had my first sort of daily blogging exercise during Fanwalk where I was posting photos and videos along with little stories every day on the Fanwalk blog. From the first ever internet phone, live sharing was looking so cool.

At the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010 I did a little touring with Vita de Vie selling t-shirts and I was also trying to share live content to the band Facebook page and Twitter account during a time when nobody thought it would matter. But I knew what was coming.

In 2010 I got a real job and started working at HP with Retailers in the UK, doing a job I was great at and meeting some fantastic people that would play a key role in the events that were to come. It was a truly exciting time and I was on top of the world. I remember sharing the story about this and about the amazing happenings that were full of awesomeness.

Then there was a time where I felt I couldn’t share all that I wanted and maybe a time when I was to focused on what I was doing and enjoying what I was doing. For a while I stopped sharing and would sometimes come back with another story of several other stories, just to make sure I mark the big things, in order to come back and read them if I forget.

The more time passes and the more you experience you are left with the feelings but tend to forget the details, that’s why I like to write.

All these experiences at their time felt like the greatest thing I had ever done, I’m sure that the more you try the better it gets 🙂

And what followed from here was beyond my wildest dreams!