On the Edge

Without a doubt today has to be one of the best days that I have ever had at work. I was able to participate in a high level meeting this afternoon that will decide what my job will be like in the coming year. They believed enough in me to ask my opinion. They showed that they cared about me.

If we do go with this new product I will definitely stay with the company for another year. I'll be on the ground floor of something so new and exciting that it'll be worth my time. This is the reason that I joined this company in the first place. They are new and take chances.

My company is only two and half years old and I have been with them for the past year. During that time I have seen them grow and shared some of their growing pains. At least half of the current staff was hired after me. Now I should continue to rise in responsibility over the next year.

I like to romanticize my company as a renegade company. These are a group of people who left another company to form their own better company. The American Dream, my friends. Capitalism love it or leave it.

At this time I think that I should also mention that I am not a very traditional nine to five person. The business world has been a real struggle for me ever since I got out of college. Part of me still sees myself as an artist with a day job. Unfortunately most of the art has disappeared from my life lately.

Another benefit is that this company lets me be me, which I appreciate. They laugh as I eat chicken patty sandwiches in our morning meetings. They wonder how I can eat that kind of food so early in the morning.

No formal uniform (read shirt and tie) is required.

People know one another and seem to care at times about what happens with the company.

Now on the otherhand this deal could fall through and next year might be a living hell for me, but I am hoping for the best.

Today was also a pig out day at work. I guess you could consider it an early Christmas party. The real work Christmas party is on January 3, 1998 for some reason.

Each person was supposed to bring some food item into work with him or her. Since I don't cook for other people, I brought pickles and olives. Hey, they're edible and I like them.

Before the meeting I was getting pretty depressed at work. I had just read another issue of Wired. Here are all of these articles about people doing so much more in the field than I am. The worst part is that some of them are younger than me.

You see when I was fourteen I would spend hours on my old Texas Instruments computer typing in code just to play a game. Then I changed the code to make the game better. This was long before Apple or Microsoft. Then I got older and abandoned it for other interests. For most of my high school career what I saw did not impress me. Then when I was in college I was too busy being an artist to really care anymore. Now I do care again. I am savvy enough to see where the future is going.

What I am saying is that I missed out on a few things, but I was there in the early years. I missed out on the BBS thing and the early community, because I was into other things at the time. People change as they grow and I had outgrown computers at the time. Computer games still bore the hell out of me. I have better things to do with my time.

I read an article in Wired about a twenty-four year old guy who is making millions by running one of the biggest online porn companies in existence. He's a high school drop out. In some ways that could have been me.

I don't regret what I did in college. I went to college, because I believed in the experience. I bought into the old concept of higher education and being more of a well rounded person. I wanted to read the classics. I wanted to learn to paint and draw in the traditional style. That is what I got when I went there. The experience was enough for me. It also gave me time to develop as a person. I knew that I wanted to be more than a blue collar slob. A life of six packs and television was not for me. Besides I needed an escape from the farming community that my parents had moved me to when I was fourteen.

When I was in college I met some highly motivated people who still mean a great deal to me. These were my roommates.

I'll be the first to say that higher education is not for everyone. If I had to go back now I would not be able to stand it. All of the politics would drive me insane, but I also think that there is just as much politics in the world of business. It all depends on where you want to suck up to someone.

Besides if you want a job in computers you are better off learning in the field or by going to a two year technical college.

So is my ambition in life to run an online porn service? No. I just want a job that challenges me. Art was a challenge, because there are so many possibilities. Computers also have that trait.

I very seldom mix the two of them though.

I do think of this journal as art on some levels. Some of it is crap. Some of it is drivel, but every so often something real comes through what I do here. Maybe not a grand epiphany, but something makes it all worthwhile.

This site is not about showing my prowess in html or even my somewhat faulty knowledge of it. Its about me and what goes through my mind on a daily basis.

This means that I don't mess with java or onmouseover, because its not me. Not that I don't know how to do it. I am aiming for simplicity here. Less is more people. Besides I thought that it was the words that mattered in an online journal, not the graphics or special effects.

Everything else is bullshit as far as I am concerned and I do not want to be bullshit.

If I am bullshit then leave.

Um, the biography photos will be back on Sunday. I just want to revamp the format a little.

I bet you thought that I would never shut up today. Hunh? I do want to thank my small audience that comes here on a daily basis. I appreciate it. Thank you for reading. I have no idea why you read, but you do. Thank you once again.