Thoughts


I've been given to a fair bit of introspection lately; thinking about where I've been and where I'm going in my life. It's led to a few realizations.

For most of my life, I've vehemently denied being a nerd. Nowadays, I know better.

I walked very early. I can just picture little me, watching all the grown-ups walking around, trying like mad to figure it out and be able to walk just like they did. I won't say it didn't cost me; but that's just the way I am.

From my earliest memories of childhood, I always had a set of building blocks. I quickly learned the importance of interlocking the bricks; and how to do doors, windows, roofs. By age seven, I had constructed an (admittedly square, and brick-red) Apollo spaceship, complete with removable lander.

I first learned self-reliance in the early 1970s. Dad was a sailor, and frequently away for long periods. Our bike tires would regularly get flats; and Mom, bless her, was a brilliant homemaker and mother, but just wasn't mechanically inclined, and was of no help. So I learned how to fix flats. How to remount chains, adjust spokes, seat, handlebars. I was bloody proud that, at age seven, I didn't have to ask for an adult's help with my bicycle.

In my youth, I constantly obsessed over how alone I felt. Mostly rejected by my peers, I turned inward, found non-social ways to entertain myself (I realize that that sounds like a euphemism; not much I can do about that). I took long hikes in the woods and up nearby mountains. I spent endless time with dice, learning all about probabilities and trends. I was talented at track, and usually won my division. I competed in the Vancouver Islands, despite my short stature. I was into electronics by the age of thirteen, and soon had turned a walkie-talkie into a multiple-channel base station, complete with outboard microphone and half-wave antenna.

I spent endless time up late with an AM radio; built antennas; experimented with CB radio.I knew all the ins-and-outs of a complicated shortwave receiver by the age of 14 (and still have the receiver). I got into computers and within the first week was writing my first program, in Apple BASIC (shudder). And I spent countless hours behind the eyepiece of a very nice telescope. In high school, I was the only student accepted into the Accelerated Math program, and finished grade twelve math in grade 11. At age 15, I participated in the University of Waterloo mathematics competition. I put together my first Heathkit at about the same time; a pocket radio that lasted until just a few years ago.

In my late childhood, I got into running. Long-distance running, of course. There was a running club. Everybody trained at their own pace; and so I'd spend an hour or two (or three) out there alone, plodding alongside endless kilometres of highway tunnelled through the forest. It gave me time to think; about time and space; about particles and fields; about how bloody hungry and thirsty and tired I was (we never carried provisions, back in the day). That led to my running the Honolulu Marathon in 1979. Later, I added bicycling to the mix. I've always walked a lot. A lot. My average over the years has probably been five kilometres per day. That's over about the last forty years.

I studied French (merci, madame Brown), and won an award; and German (danke schoen, Frau Knight). To this day, I continue to advance my fluency in both. I love shocking German tourists by giving them directions in their own language. That trick doesn't work in french; I get polite indulgence for about then seconds, following which they switch to English. Ah, well; it's all in what you expect to hear, I figure.

I fell in love with astronomy in the early 1970s, ichthyology (the study of fishes) in 1974. 

I enrolled in the University of Victoria in the early eighties, met a girl, flunked out. Came east with my family. I swore that I wouldn't let my university failure affect my job prospects. I got into a training course, took an admin job with an addiction-treatment facility. That gave me access to a computer, and I resumed learning intensively about them during every spare minute. After a couple of years there, I got into the magazine-publishing business, as a proofreader/columnist/Production Coordinator. Soon I was managing a BBS for the operation, and programming a customer-tracking system.

Unfortunately, the magazine only lasted a few months; then I was picked up by a struggling computer company, as a data-entry operator, and later as a programmer. I prototyped three point-of-sale systems, and helped install a few. 

Then things took a left turn. I chickened out and returned to the addiction-treatment facility--where I remained for another 22 years. Woman, it was a pressure-cooker; the boss was mercurial; the Program Director maintained discipline like a warrior; and we had to run three weekly bingos, just to keep it all funded. Over the years, the organization and its needs grew. A computer turned into multiple computers; then a network; then dial-up Internet, with a virtual machine to share the connection. It kept growing. A server appeared in 2007, and I quickly mastered that and banished the high-priced consultant who'd done the installation.

Over the years, the organization changed its name, changed its management, and moved out to Merrickville. A union was pushed down our throats (paradoxically) by management. At that point, I had 'come with the place' and was long past taken for granted. I don't think they ever understood how much I saved them in professional fees. I computerized forms generation and record-keeping, programmed them an application to keep track of clients; and then rekeyed endless pages of program documentation. Push came to shove eventually, and I left; and after a year applying for any job I could find--and being rejected for 99% of them--and basically going from a high to feeling worthless, I went to work for a local high-tech services company, as a junior developer. I was working in a new language--Java--and learning furiously. After several projects, I was laid off for lack of work.

A couple of years later, I was called back, for various reasons, and spent two years as a part-time developer/documentation manger/software tester. Then I was promoted to full developer, with a new two-man project. That's where I am today.

On the non-professional side, in the late 1990s I began to work as a bookkeeper for private clients. In 2002, I was introduced to the Ottawa Fringe Festival, and did a few years' work for them as a technician.

In the mid-nineties I began to acquire web-design skills, to the point where today I am a private website designer. I also provide installation and technical services to private clients.

In 2005, I was introduced to Remote Planet, a sketch-comedy radio show on a local community station. At first, I was just a (talented, naturally) voice actor; but within my first season I was writing scripts. In my third season, the producer left for other undertakings. I took over the show, and spent the next 11 seasons writing scripts, organizing recording sessions to get them produced, editing down the raw audio, adding sound effects, and generating the final tracks; and each week I would select an appropriate set of skits and interludes, within the half-hour time allocation for the show; add in the opening and closing themes, and put them together into tracks; and transfer the tracks to the host via DropBox. I had it all down to a science; even had the website generation semi-automated. Occasionally, I had to host the show myself; in fact, spent about two years doing it solo, or with Tonia. 

In 13 years, I wrote well over 300 skits, produced and edited them all, and produced approximately 575 shows, without fail (save for twice). I learned how to do all of that on-the-fly, with no margin for error. It is my proudest accomplishment; one of the reasons that I have archived the show's website at the Centretown Observatory site.

I'm very proud of my voice-acting abilities. I can do a passing impression of hundreds of personalities and cartoon characters. I used to like to stun them, live, with my rock-jockey voice, or just some invented thing I'd pull out of my... hat. I can interrupt myself in another voice. Try it sometime.

I cannot sing. My vocal range is about three notes. I'm also ugly as sin; so a career in television was never to be.

About eight years ago, I began to automate my collection of weather data. Eventually, it ballooned to an empire of programs and web pages. I've got data-capture programs, data-extraction programs; a program to merge in backup data; another to capture the sky condition; and a server program to track it all. The whole operation spans three computers, and at this point I have almost eight years of near-continuous data, with a resolution of five minutes.

Several years ago, my left knee started to go bad. It has confounded people ever since that I haven't had it looked at. That's because they haven't looked at it from my point of view; my legs have carried me multiple tens of thousands of kilometres in my life; they have a right to be a little cranky by now. Point is I limp; it hasn't otherwise slowed me down much. I've earned it, so leave me alone!

What was my point? Only that my very nerdy life path to date has forced me to become extremely self-reliant. It's forced me to continue learning new skills throughout my life, and to retain what I've learned. These days, I seldom have to look up a constant, or a conversion formula. I still remember my algebra, trigonometry, and quadratics from high school--and still use them. I know computers inside-out, to the point where I have even designed and programmed virtual computers. I have a good general understanding of physics, and a near-university-level understanding of astronomy. I am an excellent writer, and expect to be published again within the next couple of years. And anything I don't know, I can look up and of which have a good general understanding within a couple of minutes. You put a tool into my hand, and point to an artifact, and I'll know what to do with it. Give me a challenge, and I'll solve it. Just like my incredible, multi-talented father: can do.

To sum it up: I like where I'm at. And I realize that I damned happier with whom I am, than I'd be had I taken the easy route. A nerd--and proud of it!

'Nuff.

-Bill