15th Anniversary Series #12 - SysCon Traditional Cache
15th Anniversary Series #12 - SysCon
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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There is parking available nearby. Stealth is required.
In 2013, 6wiggies and I will have been married for 15 years. 6wiggies suggested hiding a series of 15 caches in places significant to our relationship, and I thought that was a great idea. This is the twelfth hide of the series.
In the summer of 1995, I was a poor college student and my girlfriend 6wiggies was a newly minted high school graduate. I was in the Computer-Based Honors Program at the University of Alabama, and I checked with the CBHP director - Dr. Cathy Randall - to see if there were any businesses looking for part-time summer workers. Sure enough, the company -- SysCon Computers (just down the access road from the cache) -- was looking to hire a student to answer the phone and handle some light point of sale duties. SysCon was (and I believe still is) owned by two men -- one a former member of CBHP and and the other a former instructor for the program. I went on my first ever job interview there, and I was hired.
This seemingly unimportant decision changed the direction of my life. The company soon switched from re-selling HP computers to producing its own "whitebox" PCs, which gave me an opportunity to assemble and build computers from the ground up -- chassis, power supply, CPU, RAM, hard drive, etc. Also, Microsoft Windows 95 came out that summer, and the world wide web, which was still in its infancy, all made this an exciting field for me. I changed my major from aerospace engineering and started focusing on IT. Before long, I was skipping classes to go to work. Once I graduated, I started working full time at SysCon as a technical rep.
So where does 6wiggies fit into all this you may wonder? Well, between the money I was making part time, and then as a full time employee, we had a little scratch to go on dates and do fun things together. She spent many hours hanging out with me at work, some of which were probably ill-advised. Anyway, SysCon helped me get my career started, but once I decided to marry 6wiggies, I didn't feel I was making enough money there to support both of us, so I had to move on to another place. Still, I have a lot of fond memories of my first real job and the part it played in our relationship.
Congratulations to Mia 87 and Papa Bear 204 for FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Chyy naq pngpu