When GMail launched on April 1, 2004 I did everything I could to get a precious invite to the service. A few days later, my wish came true and I signed up with skyhawkscience@gmail.com. I then decided to switch over to sharrelson@gmail.com in 2005.

That’s been my primary “personal email” for the last five years until I started moving everything “back home.”

Here’s the first email to that account (check out that sig quote):

Now I’m forwarding everything from there into the sam@samharrelson email (which I plan to use until my atoms move on).

It’s been a slow process of downloading everything from GMail (via POP) into a secured spot but I’m enjoying creating my “Memory Theater” system full of DIY text files.

Here’s to the next five yeas of emails (on my own system).