Epiphany
Happy 50th Birthday Apple
Apple was founded 50 years ago today which has me thinking about my relationship with technology and specifically Apple. My first personal computer was a Macintosh IIfx with 80MB of storage. I remember wondering what I was going to do with ALL THAT SPACE! There’s no way I would ever use it all. I also remember surfing the Internet (via AOL, IRC, Usenet, etc.) with a book to read while things loaded. How far we have come! That IIfx sparked a curiosity and passion in me that I had only experienced a few times before. I had used a Mac Classic in high school and college and was fascinated by what they could do, what they meant for me and for society even then. I had also used old PCs before that, but the Mac was approachable and friendly; it was nowhere near as intimidating to use and explore. I have always loved to push the limits of what technology can do and explore every nook and cranny of each device and piece of software I encounter. Apple made it fun to create and connect with others; I met some pretty great people in IRC channels back in the day some of whom I’m still in touch with! Computers made it much easier to find your tribe, especially for the shy introvert that I was back then.
That’s part of the inspiration for the name of my website, Something Out of Nothing. I love the idea that you can sit down at a blank screen and just start creating, whether it’s a journal entry, a book, a website for your new business, a piece of music, or a whole album. Computers offer so much potential to impact humanity in so many positive ways and Apple capitalized on that in the best possible way. I still love to explore technology and its capabilities and I love to be able to share that experience with others in ways that they can understand. This is a huge part of why I do what I do; both the love of technological exploration and the pull to help others use it to improve their lives, workflows, creativity, and connections to the world. Apple’s introduction of the Macintosh and all the life changing, society changing products and services released since helped me to discover who I was: the explorer, the builder, the connector. Years later, I’m still all three. Happy birthday Apple and thank you for the inspiration.
Starting Something New: Two Bit Consulting
Today I launched a website. Wait, that sentence feels smaller than it should, let me try again.
A couple of months ago, after twenty years of working in technology at KCAI, most recently eight years as Director of Campus Technology, I found myself without a full-time job for the first time in a long time. While I’ve been helping folks with IT stuff outside of KCAI for many years, it hasn’t been an official business with its own identity. After taking a couple of weeks to come to terms with what happened, I decided I needed a project to sink my teeth into; that’s how Two Bit Consulting came to exist.
What nobody tells you about losing a job you loved is how much of yourself goes with it. Not just the work, but the identity. The morning routine. The sense of being needed, of having a place where your particular set of skills and experience actually matters. I didn’t realize how much of who I was had been wrapped up in what I did until it was gone. Getting that back, or building a new version of it, has been the real work of the last several weeks.
What I missed most was the actual work. Digging into a problem. Figuring out why something wasn’t working and making it right. Helping someone understand their technology instead of just fighting it. That feeling when a project comes together and the person on the other end of it is genuinely better off than they were before. I missed that more than I expected to.
Two Bit Consulting is, in part, my answer to that. It’s real work, IT support, fractional IT leadership, web design that Maura and I have been doing in pieces for years. Making it official felt like taking back some ownership over who I am and what I do, independent of whoever is signing my paycheck.
I want to be clear about what this is and isn’t. It’s not a pivot. I’m still actively looking for the right full-time opportunity in technology leadership. The job search is ongoing. Some days it’s harder than others. But having something concrete to build and point to has made the in-between feel less like waiting and more like working.
If you know of a technology leadership role that might be a good fit, I’m genuinely grateful for the introduction. And if you or someone you know needs their technology to actually work, or a website that looks like it was made on purpose, that’s what Two Bit is here for.
twobit-consulting.com - I had fun building it. Poke around, there are a few easter eggs to be found. One hint: Konami code.
What Was Missing
It’s been a couple of months since leaving my last job. I’d been keeping busy - learning things I hadn’t had time for, helping a few people out with tech issues - and I knew my routines had changed. What I hadn’t consciously registered was what was actually missing.
Yesterday I looked up from what I was working on and realized several hours had passed without me noticing.
That’s when it hit me.
I miss problem solving. I miss helping people figure out their technology. I miss losing time to something that makes a difference. I miss having an issue gnaw at my brain for days and then - seemingly out of nowhere - the solution arriving almost fully formed, like it had been working on itself the whole time.
I needed the break; I don’t regret it. But that moment yesterday reminded me who I am and what I’m built for - and while I’m still looking for the right full-time role, I’m not waiting around to scratch that itch.
More soon.
Today
Years ago, when we were kids, my brother and I bought my mom a plaque for Mother’s Day that read “Today is the first day of the rest of your life!” We thought it was incredibly clever and meaningful but we really had no idea what it meant at the time; we were kids! That phrase stuck in my head and of course as I got older, I realized that it was meant to be a kind of call to action, a reminder to carpe the heck of of the diem. It’s also pretty cheesy and so appropriate for the time when we bought it (the 70’s).Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I no longer work where I’ve been for the last twenty years. That phrase is very present in my head right now and It feels especially true. I’m excited about the world of possibilities, a little nervous about all the unknowns, ready to have a little time off to disconnect. I’m looking forward to having some time for professional and creative renewal; time to explore interests and hobbies that I haven’t had the time or energy for. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to redefine myself, to figure out who I am without a work identity and who I even want to be. It’s exhilarating and frightening.
I’m also wondering how long it will take for me to let go of all the projects I had been managing or changes I’d been considering, both large and small. I had short and long term plans and they have all been living in my head. Not to mention the constant cybersecurity concerns and day to day issues and worries. It’s a little trickier for me too, because I still have a lot of connections to my former employer, family and friends that still work there. I suspect that It’s going to be hard to purge some of that from my brain, but I know I’ll get there. It was a lot of weight to carry and I’m ready for some time to rest. Today is the first day of the rest of my life!
You are not the weight you carry
You are not the weight you carry
Clip the strings and float away
Live inside a sanctuary
Lose yourself to find your way
This is from the Tune Yards’ latest album, Better Dreaming from a song called Sanctuary. I’ve been listening to the album a lot, it’s so good! But this song hits me hard in the feels, especially right now. It’s exactly what I need to hear right now.
We saw them live in St. Louis several weeks ago at a small venue, Off Broadway - it was a fantastic show, so cool to see them and be so close to the stage! Music has always been important to me, but it feels especially healing right now.
What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?
I read this quote the other day and added to my ever-growing list of favorite quotes:
If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward.
- Oscar Wilde
I can relate to this so much. I remember when I was growing up, the thought of adulthood, independence, responsibility, all of it was so overwhelming. It is overwhelming sometimes, even at my age now but we learn to cope with it somehow. I chose Philosophy as a major in college because I had no idea what I wanted to do or who I even was. I still can’t say that I’ve figured it all out, even though i’ve been in my current job for almost twenty years. This qute flips the expectation of knowing on it’s head. It makes it okay and even desireable to not know. I’ve always thought of myself as constantly “becoming” me. I am constantly evolving; learning new things, skills, talents and dropping old ineffective ways of doing things. This is a good thing. I have always thought that life may as well be over once we stop growing and learning.
Existentialism in made for TV movies in the 70’s and 80’s
I finally watched the Mysterious Stranger movie that I rediscovered the other day. I don’t know why I was hesitant to see it again; finding it felt like the last piece of a puzzle and I guess I didn’t want to place it and be done. I remember so much of the movie so clearly. Some parts of it were even ideas I thought I had come up with myself, I had forgotten that they were part of the story. I remember watching The Miracle Worker on TV and empathizing so strongly with Helen Keller that I had a bit of an existential crisis. I was eight years old and I had my first glimpse of mortality and human limitations, but also rising above those limitations. The Mysterious Stranger had an existential message as well, but it was more subtle, it didn’t cause the same type of crisis in me anyway; maybe because I’d already confronted that reality a few years earlier.
Mark Twain’s tale has an interesting story itself. He had written three different versions, but never published them. After he died, the person that held Twain’s unpublished manuscripts, Albert Bigelow Paine, combined bits and pieces from all three versions into a book and published it as the story that Twain had intended. In 1963, scholars discovered what Paine had done and that he had heavily edited and added his own writing into the mix. In fact, the movie talks a little bit about this in the opening. The movie is based on the most complete version that Twain has written.
In it, Number 44, New Series 864,962, (also known as Satan, nephew of the fallen angel Satan in some version of the story) comes to an Austrian medieval print shop in the form of a ball of light before manifesting into a human form. He proceeds to befriend an apprentice named August and shares with him the true nature of reality all while causing hijinks at the castle. There’s a manipulative alchemist, a greedy wife, the good-hearted master, an out of shape abbot, and the print shop crew, one of which is played by a young Christoph Waltz!
Twain, through Number 44, talks about the folly of religion, the nature of good and evil and reality itself. He talks about the idea that there are two selves, a dream self and a working self. We have the ability to choose which one to focus on, or to be.
I can see why the movie had such a profound impact on me and why I’ve been fascinated by existentialism for most of my life. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’m sure it’s part of why I choose philosophy as my major in college. I have always spent a lot of time thinking. It can sometimes get me into trouble, but most of the time it serves me well.
If you’re interested, there has been quite a bit written about the stories and what Mark Twain was trying to communicate through them. Here’s an article I plan to spend more time with.
Two Movies
There are many movies that had a significant impact on me when I was a kid. My dad would often let my brother and I watch movies that we were in no way appropriate for our age - The Exorcist) gave me so many nightmares. Two movies however, have a special, weird place in my mind. I’ve searched for years to find the names of the movies, I’ve had distinct memories from both, but I couldn’t find anything about them. Though the internet and social media can be pretty toxic these days, they can also drop little bits of joy as well. Several years ago, I decided to make a concerted effort to figure out what these movies were. After a lot of digging, I finally found one, a post-apocalyptic survival movie Damnation Alley. I’m fairly certainly a scene in this movie is the source of my aversion to cockroaches. I distinctly remember someone getting eated alive in an old car by giant cockroaches. It was released in 1977, so I would have been six at the time. I remember my dad picked up my brother and I for one of our first post-divorce outings with him. He took us to see Damnation Alley in the theater. Shortly after I rediscovered it, my wife and I streamed it; it was pretty bad but so entertaining and gratifying to fill that memory gap.
The other movie has eluded me for years, until today. I was doomscrolling Instagram Reels and came across a clip from an old movie with a young Tom Hanks about D&D, Mazes and Monters when I recognized one of the other actors, Chris Makepeace. I looked up Mazes and Monsters on IMDB and found Chris’ profile, then searched for his other early movies and found the movie that I’ve been searching for as long as I can remember! It’s a made for TV movie, released in 1982, when I was eleven. It had a huge impact on me; I remember feeling excited by the concept of romantic love and true friendship. I’m sure it impacted my psyche; part of why I’m such a hopeless romantic. Life is supposed to mean something, even if it’s self-defined. Watching bits of it now takes me back - I remember the characters like it was yesterday! It was based, very loosely on a Mark Twain Novella of the same name, The Mysterious Stranger.
It’s so strange and cool that both movies are available in full out there on the internet. I’ve been searching for the Mysterious Stranger for so long, I’m a little blown away that I came across it so randomly today! It’s like the last puzzle piece fitting into place. Now I need to find a new mystery to obsess about.