Rambling Psychobabble

I decided to use today’s day to offload to just randomly type stuff as it came to my brain for about 10-15 minutes.

I used to do this when I was in high school sitting in typing class (or maybe in every class while not paying attention). I’d literally just let stream of consciousness take over and type weird stories. Very creative flex of the brain muscle for sure.

I’ve felt the creativity waning in the past I don’t know how many years. I always tell myself I want to draw more so I can get back that skill. Or that I need to jot down the random thoughts and ideas that come to my mind rather than let them disappear zum den Himmel.

I often wonder how my life would have been different if I’d taken a different path. I used to want to be an architect and originally went to school with that in mind. Unfortunately I was a doofus and applied to a school in Northern California without an architecture program. So I did the next best thing and signed up for industrial engineering. That way I could learn technical drawing and stuff. That lasted about a year before I became a Math major. Then a Physics major. Before finally settling on a Computer Science major. Before finally dropping out of college (and going back several years later to complete the degree).

I remember taking a 3D computer design class that was tons o’ fun though. The assignments were to essentially go out on campus and find an object to digitally render. Creating the shapes, textures, lighting, etc.

I took a job at a travel agency after I’d dropped out of school. I was their computer and graphics guy. It was a pretty good gig. The travel agency had a front that focused on the day-to-day travel arrangements for customers and a back that created and sold river cruise packages around the world. I got to create their brochures on the computer and then we’d prep and send to the printer. I felt like a legit graphic designer! The previous person who had the job would come in periodically to chat with her old co-workers. She had moved on to an advertising agency and needed some help with a couple projects because she was swamped. So she asked me to help!

They were putting together an ad for the newspapers for a Shania Twain concert. So that was my first, and only, real piece of graphic design was creating an advertisement for the newspapers for the concert. It was pretty cool though.

So I just wonder how different, and more creative, my life would have been if I’d stuck with that route and that job … instead of then moving on to a programming job for a real sketchy domain name squatter. I wrote an application for him to be able to auction his domain names off. He was a real piece of work … but paid very well.

I didn’t stay there long and ended up getting a job programming for a startup in the Bay Area. And thus my computer life blossomed.

Not that I regret any of it. I have a great life, have met a lot of great people, learned a lot of great skills, and will never run out of things to learn about (I’m a voracious learner). I just think about how things would have been different sometimes … that’s all.

OK wow, not at all how I expected that to go. But that was a fun little exercise anyway. I’ll have to do that again sometime.


Day 8 of #100DaysToOffload