So five years ago this month, I packed up a handful of things and moved to Philadelphia.

I found a horrible, filthy apartment on Craigslist in West Philadelphia. I only had one day to visit Philly before moving here and as crazy as this sounds, the apartment that had crack needles littering the stoop and a third roommate sleeping on a bare mattress in the living room was the best choice. It was a toss up between that one and living in a house in South Philly that regularly got raided by the FBI, as a past inhabitant was on some sort of wanted list. The tenants once had a raid happen in the middle of a party. They thought this was hilarious. I did not.

I didn’t have much. My entire life fit quite comfortably into the backseat of a 2006 Ford Focus. I had to sell two guitars, my entire DVD collection, all my video games, my soprano sax, and my beloved vintage tenor saxophone to afford to move here and have some funds to live off of until I found a job. I bought a futon on Craigslist the day I showed up, and thought I was going to get stabbed in a Chinese restaurant when a man demanded I give him a hug. One of my best friends, who had driven me to Philly in my parents’ car, was hesitant to leave me here.

I told him I’d be alright.

And five years later, I’m doing just fine.

However, these past five years wouldn’t have been nearly as successful and fulfilling without certain people. Whether they were pushing me forward career wise, encouraging me to be a better writer, or educating me culturally, these are the folks that, without them, I probably wouldn’t have gotten this far.

Five awesome people. Five awesome years.

Tim Quirino: I was trying to limit this list to solely people I’d met in Philly, but creating this sort of VIP list is impossible without mentioning Tim.

I’ve known Tim for nearly a decade, but we only became close friends these past five years. He did design work for bands, I took their pictures, and we ended up working together on some stuff. Fast forward to me moving to Philly, and he was living in a house in University City while wrapping up his undergrad at Drexel. I was attending grad school and knew no one in the city.

Let’s forget for a moment he’s one of my dearest friends and that he moved me from apartment to apartment over the course of several poor living choices. We launched Geekadelphia together, a site that, much to our surprise, changed our lives quite a bit. A majority of the people I spend my time with, I met directly and indirectly through the website. They came to our events, were friends of friends, local writers, etc.

Tim and I inadvertently helped build our own social circle together. Quite sure that my social life is the direct result of our friendship and the project we built.

He designed the cover of my book, built almost every iteration of this personal blog, and also, he pressured me to get the Master Chief suit built. And we all saw what happened as a result of that.

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Brennen Lucas: When I moved to Philly, I had zero job prospects. I dished out my resume to dozens of retail shops, publications, etc. I was turned away constantly. On a whim, I applied for a blogging job on Craigslist. Despite the fact that I’d only been in Philadelphia for two months, Brennen gave me a chance, hiring me at my first “real” job at a non-profit called GPTMC. Philly folks know them better as the Visit Philly people.

I was working in Philly tourism, and at that point, I’d yet to go the Liberty Bell. [click to continue…]

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