I can remember as if it was just yesterday... Watching Joe Belfiore and Terry Myerson's keynote... "This is a very early build!". Joined the program as soon as Microsoft announced it and was waiting eagerly to install the first official preview build... 9841 (Looked like 8.1 with the RT Start Menu patch...), was very stable and worked flawlessly on my PC (Phenom 8450 X3 with a minuscule-by-today's-standards 4GB of RAM)... My favorite build of all time was 9926 and it's beautiful default wallpaper (which would last all the way until 10130..) - Looking forward and excited for the next 5 years!
I know I'm not being paid for being a beta tester and all... But being an Insider has a deeper emotional meaning for me... It makes me remember my grandfather, which passed away in Dec. 2006, a few months before Longhorn was released to public. So I kind of swore I would test every single version of Windows that would ever be released, as a way of honoring him and of remembering the happier days of my childhood (I was just a kid when Vista was being developed.).