Open a Can

So when you are young, and full of the notion that you are going to make your own path and do what you want to…everything seems clear as day.  For instance at the young age of 7, I wanted to be a chemist so I could create Spider-man’s synthetic webbing (the original Spider-man not your organic webbing one).  This of course brought no ends of pain to my parents…especially when they noticed any household chemical missing.  Sad to say I never found the formula…and that career path kind of vanished.  The dream was replaced by a bright shiny IBM Clone or PC Compatible from TGE my first 286 computer, complete with a monochrome monitor and an UI which was only useful for navigating to the Space Wars, Wheel of Fortune and MS-DOS.  This computer and an errant Apple which my dad found at a flea market made up my sophisticated playroom.  Once my knack and addiction to computing was discovered he was more than happy to indulge in this hobby that didn’t involve me creating a noxious gas from borax, windex, and pine-sol.  Later on it was an Acer 386 with a modem, and subsequent calls to nodes in California, Washington, and other West Coast locations from the East Coast that caused more pains to my parents…once the phone bill came.  After my dad let me get back on the computer I knew that this was my future career.  Regretfully it seems as though that path has been diluted.  Working as a consultant or contractor is definitely not what I saw myself doing as a kid….I imagine being like the people who created Google, Windows, ID Software, etc.  I get a little upset with myself for taking the comfortable way out, and I think its time I step out of my comfort zone and try to live up to my dreams.