I can't recall the specific time-frame that social networks such as MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook started noticeably growing in popularity...when they started really taking off, making headlines, etc. I could easily look that up, I know, but to say that I don't know when it happened illustrates a point I want to make about these sites and services...and about me.
I don't know when it started happening because, when it did (and for a couple of years afterwards), I didn't care.
I mean, I was IN the technology biz by then, and had been for quite some time. So, of course, I was aware of them. I was aware that they existed and, based on my preferred reading material at the time, I probably knew a little more about them than maybe as much as 90% of the active users did (i.e. underlying technologies, how they worked, etc.). But, apart from a mild interest in the technological advancements and innovations derived from the explosive popularity growth of these sites and services, they held very little personal interest for me, back then. I never really saw them as significant or meaningful…and even as the popularity of all this grew, I pretty much held firm to the idea that engaging in activities of that sort were simply not something I would ever care to do.
But over the years, having lost touch completely with almost all the people I had known and loved back in High School and points beyond, you do occasionally wonder what ever became of this person, that one, or the other. I remember looking for a few old friends back in the day (before MySpace and Facebook became such a phenomenon)...and having very little success at it. Of the two or three I managed to find (or who found me), I almost immediately lost contact with them again, soon after. (It was a weird time in my life. Nuff said. ) One in particular I had looked for was Steve Smith. It didn't take long to realize that finding a "Steve Smith" (or any "Smith") in the vastness of the world was simply not a goal with any realistic chances of success.
After separating with my wife of twenty years, I started taking a "fresh" and "new" look at social networking sites, I guess you'd say… largely from a "meeting new people" and "dating" perspective. I joined a couple local ones, a couple that were specific to dating, but only MySpace held any real interest for me as far as (true) social networking sites went. It was fun, at first, but I grew to hate MySpace after awhile...just too over-the-top, most of the time… too "busy" …and on an old and slow computer...GWAGH!...it could be a mind-numbing and painful experience.
A broken friendship (in real life...long story...personal, and not interesting) as well as a desire for something a little more "subdued" in style ("grown-up," if you prefer), led me to part ways with MySpace and move to Facebook.
And an interesting thing happened, almost immediately. Within...I kid you not...five or ten minutes of joining Facebook, the long-lost friend mentioned above, Steve Smith, found (and contacted) me. I was dumbfounded.
He was the first of many that I would reconnect with in the following months, and though I participate far less than most (it seems), I do check it every day (or almost so), and I admit that I have come to enjoy it very, very much.
Many of my the people in my friends list, I haven't seen in years. Decades, really…
And as thrilled as I am to have reconnected with so many of them, I'm always so busy, it seems. My life has been like that for a long time, now, really...just not enough time to do all the things I'd like to, or as well as I'd like to. So, my life…it seems to me…just isn't really conducive to writing lots of (probably lengthy) messages explaining things like "what I've been doing for the last 20+ years of my life."
And yet, without that...without taking the time to catch up...without disclosing something about at least some of the "life changes" that I've been through in the years past, since last we met ...reconnecting loses something it might have otherwise had: a sense of renewing the once-important friendship we shared. The sense of picking up where we left off...even if only a little. To have that, we need to share what has happened to us, where we've been, what we done, and what impact all of it has had on us. These stories provide the context we need to make a simple reconnection into something a little more meaningful to both of us...a renewed and active relationship, perhaps (even if it is a long-distance or almost exclusively online relationship).
How and why I got into IT (Information Technology), for instance…
I can imagine the questions that some of my oldest friends might ask, remembering only the person I was back in high school or the military. Why didn't I go into a creative field? Why didn't I become a comic book artist, an actor, a psychologist or a teacher (or whatever else we all once thought I might be great at)? What is it that I actually do in IT? Have I been successful at it? Am I any good at it?
Knowing the answers to those questions might go a long way towards explaining why, of all the blog "types" I could have chosen, I have created a so-called "Tech" blog. It might explain, too, why I think some of the people I know (or knew, once upon a time) might actually care about what I have to say here.
So, let me try to tell that story...answer some of those questions...as briefly and concisely as I can (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahah…..heh).
From High School onward, I suppose:
I joined the Air Force because I really, really wanted to leave Va. Beach at the time (reasons that felt painful and personal then, but seem naïve and a little silly to me, now), and I really wanted to go to college, but had no other way to pay for it (that I knew of). The Air Force satisfied both of those needs, to one degree or another. I left for the Air Force at 20 years of age, a mere thirteen days away from my 21st birthday (turned 21 in Basic Training, in fact). A few months in Texas for training (Basic and Security Police Technical Training were both in San Antonio). Home for a month afterwards...and from there, I went to Berlin, Germany as a member of the 6912th Electronic Security Group, where I remained for the next four years. I saved as much money as I could with the program the USAF set up for that purpose, and at the end of my four year term, the decision I had to make was very different than when I had started...the decision was whether to stay in the USAF (I mean, it was a great job, with a million different opportunities I could have pursued), or to get out and go to college as originally planned.
Who knows what all might have been different had I chosen differently, but I ultimately decided it was best for me to leave the military and do what I had said I was going to do: go to college, earn my degree. I would pursue a Master's degree, my major would be Psychology, and working with children was what I felt certain I would ultimately do. A fine plan...a good plan.
My mom had lived alone in Va. Beach the last two years before I returned home. She wanted to move back to Louisville (where I and my siblings were born...where most of the rest of her family lived), and I guess I didn't feel a strong sense of...home? Kinship? Whatever the word\feeling is...I guess I just didn't feel it towards Va. Beach any longer. My mom, on the other hand...her, I loved a great deal. Being able to take her back to Louisville was, I felt, a fine thing, a good thing...and if it meant I would never live in Virginia again, so be it (though, honestly... I had intended to return, eventually).
.
I hit Kentucky running. A new job, a new place, outstanding SAT scores and enrollment in college (University of Louisville) within a year of landing there. And I pursued that educational goal religiously for the next nine and a half years (a mix of full-time and part-time coursework). During that time, I worked at a lot of different places, doing a lot of customer service, manual labor and/or management work. I met...and within a year, moved in with...the woman who would one day become my wife...we raised our daughter...and we lived our life together. In short...I had a life, I lived my life, and for the most part, I loved my life.
In the ninth year of school, something…happened.
Probably part nervous breakdown, part awakening...I became completely disillusioned with Psychology. I felt it lacked the qualities that the hard sciences had...the fact-based, verifiable truth that all other scientific fields of study had. I felt that choosing a preferred sub-field or emphasis was asking me to make a choice between "hoodoo," "magic," and "utter bullshit." These are things I no longer believe at all, mind you...I have profound respect for the work psychologists do, and credit them with salvaging my life, even...but at the time, I believed quite strongly that Psychology was false, and I honestly felt I could no longer continue to pursue an education, much less a career, in something I didn't believe in.
I left school that year, intending only to take a single semester off, maybe two. I would give myself some time, I thought...time to think about what I wanted to do…what I could do…if it wasn't going to be Psychology. It was harder...making that decision...than I had ever anticipated. For the next six months or so, I felt genuinely lost...adrift...and deeply depressed. (Irony: giving up on and writing off as a useless waste of time the one thing I probably really needed at the time: psychological therapy. Fred works in mysterious ways...hmmmm?)
We used our tax refund that year to buy a computer. I remembered how much easier it made school-work such as writing papers, for instance (though I had only used one once or twice before). I remembered how much easier it made budgeting and other spreadsheet-based work. Though a hefty expense at the time, we found it relatively easy to justify. Whatever...lots of reasons...and so, we bought one. And my life changed...fundamentally...and forever.
I found I had not only a immense fascination with technology but also a natural affinity for it. As with anything that really fascinates me, I learn fast and remember what I've learned exceptionally well. I credit fascination for this, exclusively...the idea of software as tools that can improve or make more efficient all the things I do; tools that get me things I want and/or me want to do more...it tends to feed on itself. Within a year I knew I had found the career interest, the career field that would replace Psychology.
So...I make my living now in IT (Information Technology). My first job that could be called computer-related was little more than unboxing thousands of new computers for a local manufacturing firm; carting them out to the hundreds of offices, and plugging them in. Within two years, I was the manager of four teams of people, having been promoted five times in that two years. Everything in business and in IT's support of business is essentially one puzzle\challenge after another and, as it turned out, I was exceptionally gifted at solving puzzles and figuring out solutions.
Throughout a wide and varied career, the fascination never really waned. I learn some cool new thing almost every day, and of late, I have really wanted to share what I find. I also developed an intense desire to write lately...I guess I just feel an urge to contribute more than I ordinarily do...than I have done. I don't feel my personal life is very interesting, very often (I also worry about potentially\accidentally sharing too much about the important people in my life, hurting them or embarrassing them).
Those are the reasons, then, why this blog came to be...and why it is a "Tech" blog. It's something that I know and know well...it's something I am fascinated with and enthusiastic about. It is also something I can write about, safely...harming none and, if I'm lucky, helping some others.
I'm genuinely looking forward to it.
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