Without further ado, here’s a nice little segue into my life and why this site has been taking up valuable Internet space since 1996.

If you’re bored with reading my rants, poke around the other sections a little bit! There is a metric ton of random material on here, and you might enjoy the Photo Gallery.

Who?: Daryl (hence this site’s clever domain name!)

What?: An M.B.A. in Competitive & Organizational Strategy, International Management, and Business Environment & Public Policy, and a B.A. in Economics

Where?: Born and raised in the Boston area, hence the undying allegiance to the Red Sox when it’s warm and the N.E. Patriots when it’s cold. Currently live and work about 6,800 miles (10,900 kilometers) west of there in Tokyo, Japan.

When?: Now. Right now.

Why?: Join me on LinkedIn or Twitter to find out more

History of This Site

You must be really, really bored to want to sit here and learn about the history of this site. But, if I have your attention, I might as well try and make this story interesting!

Upbeat and Downstairs launched on September 21, 1996, back before there were color TVs and the internet was small and rather nerd-like. I had joined a start-up internet community called GeoCities and published the very first version of this site as a collection of funny links and stupid e-mail forwards. (As a matter of fact, the very first URL of this site was http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2686/.) A couple of years later, I started posting random musings and thoughts to what would eventually become termed a blog. Believe it or not, an archived version of my old site still exists!

Come to think of it, I have no idea where the term ‘Upbeat and Downstairs’ originated, except that it sounded cool and allowed me to make some pretty funky header graphics.

After moving the site between several free hosting services, I decided to buy a domain and really invest some time and energy in developing the content. The original versions of the site were – ummm – ugly, to say the least. Honestly, the site still remains kinda ugly, and I have come to terms with my lack of design skill. But, the site has grown to more pages than I care to count and has been listed on search engines for years and years. Now the site is actually getting some national attention as it has been featured in a few e-mail based newsletters for parody and satire. For me, it just remains a casual hobby and a nice way to keep people entertained.

I decided to retire all of the blog postings before 2006 as they were rather boring, and I moved the rest of them to the main page. So thanks for reading and come back soon!

Cheers,