Holidailies Post 19 - In Which Our Hero Has No Idea What He's Talking About
There are times that I really wish that I had a degree. In what, you may ask. To which I wouldn't have the faintest idea what my answer would be.
Growing up, there were a few things that I wanted to be. Most of them, I believe are common to all children, at least common to children that had seen certain movies, or grew up in a certain era. I'm pretty sure the first thing that I wanted to be was a scientist. No police man, fireman, or teacher for me, I wanted to be a scientist. They study everything. They do experiments. They got to use all those cool tools of their trade.
After 1981, this had been refined slightly, to wanting to be an archaeologist. Why 1981? Raiders of the Lost Ark, of course. Throw in a healthy respect for dinosaurs from an even earlier age, and it made perfect sense. (I don't think paleontology was a commonly known field at that time, and I felt I could study dinosaurs as well as other antiquities if I were an archaeologist.) Besides, what eight-year-old didn't like dinosaurs, or didn't want to be like Indiana Jones?
Somewhere along the way, it changed again. And again. From special effects artist (specifically latex prosthesis, and masks, or stop motion models), to the broader movie director. From the more general musician to drummer for Jethro Tull (even though to this day I can't really use a drum set worth squat). Always, though, the scientist was there, as was the writer.
I have written many things through the course of my life, the majority of them never finished. I've always been good at beginnings, and endings, but the middles always gave me fits. So when we were given an old PC from Ma's dad, and I finally convinced Ma to let me set up an AOL account, I discovered a new thing I wanted to be when I grew up.
The Internet was taking its first steps toward being more than just text-based research sites. There were pictures, there were animations, just about anything you could imagine, you could find. I had to give it a try. Finally, after giving up hope of ever being the next George Lucas, I found a place that I could incorporate my writing, my artistry, my visions ever in motion a place to be seen. I just had to figure out how to do it.
I still haven't figured that one out, unfortunately. Around 1995, I began looking behind the curtain of the 'Net to see how it worked. Discovered a new language called HyperText Markup Language, or HTML, and taught myself how to read it and manipulate it. Soon enough, I had a website of my own. Not just a rinky-dink web page, but a full-blown site. It was dedicated to all things White Wolf, a role-playing game system that my friends and I had been enjoying for a while now. (That's where my cybernym comes from, actually. Glass Walkers)
I thought I had found my calling. I had got my foot in the door to the field of Information Technology by helping out the lone computer guy at my workplace by fixing printers, doing minor troubleshooting, etc. so that people wouldn't be constantly bothering him when he was having to fix the company's database when it blew up. I was moved from one company to another where I did basically monkey work for a year on the graveyard shift. (About an hour and a half's worth of work over the course of eight hours.) This provided me with the chance to teach myself how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Pagemaker, UltraDev (which became Dreamweaver), and on and on.
With all these tools, I thought I could finally have a way to express my creativity. I was moved to days so that I could help design the company's web site, which was tons of fun. To avoid any drama, I'll skip ahead a bit. While I was being creative at work all the time, by the time I got home, I didn't really want to do anything having to do with computers, creative or not. Oh, and I was outsourced.
So now in the present I find myself frustrated. Plenty of time on my hands. Plenty of resources. My drive is no longer there, though. Technically, I feel like the design of this blog should be of my own, not using someone else's template. Heck, it shouldn't even be on LiveJournal at all, I've got my own website, everything should be over there.
But it's not.
Every once in a while, I'll get excited about something that will lead me from one topic to the next. I'll get plenty of ideas, but never do anything with them. In fact, this entire post began when talking to my brother about a show on Nova that we both had seen pieces of (the episode on the Race for Absolute Zero). The discovery that someone had created a material that slows down light. Created a fifth state of matter. All these wonderful things that really get my juices flowing, but ultimately depress me.
I honestly think that the depression comes mainly from the time of year. Another factor is that I don't have the scientific background that I wish I had. Sure I had Physical Science in high school. Sure I had Physics. Never had a lick of Biology. Never had the option of Astronomy, or Astrophysics. Heck, I couldn't take the language that I wanted because it was only offered during sixth period. Sixth period was the only time that band was offered since we commonly had practice directly after school, and Latin was only offered at that time because there was only one teacher for Latin, and the rest of the day she was teaching German (which I did take).
So all these ideas are shooting around... We can slow light down, does that mean that time travel is theoretically possible now? No it can't because if light is slowed down due to the medium through which it is passing, the only way to move faster would be to moving outside of said medium. So while it's all relative, it's still not possible... Or is it. Quantum computers are not the same thing as nanocomputers, or are they? Didn't we already have a trinary system in place for fuzzy logic, or is that something entirely different? Is that a CSS element, or is it just a carefully disguised table? How did they get that input box to use Arial instead of Courier?
I just don't know anymore. I don't know what I want to do, but feel like I should be doing something. Anything. Yes, there are physical factors that are currently preventing me, but to that eight-old-year who wanted to be a scientist, that's no excuse.
That's one thing that I'm thankful for to the Holidailies project. While all my posts haven't been about the holidays, at least I've been writing on an (almost) daily basis. Thirty days to set a habit, right?
So, I've rambled on long enough now, and have lost the train of thought that may or may not have been involved from the start. Besides, we have some company over now, and we need to be cordial. It's fun to have friends over anyways. It happens all too infrequently this time of year.
._._.
Growing up, there were a few things that I wanted to be. Most of them, I believe are common to all children, at least common to children that had seen certain movies, or grew up in a certain era. I'm pretty sure the first thing that I wanted to be was a scientist. No police man, fireman, or teacher for me, I wanted to be a scientist. They study everything. They do experiments. They got to use all those cool tools of their trade.
After 1981, this had been refined slightly, to wanting to be an archaeologist. Why 1981? Raiders of the Lost Ark, of course. Throw in a healthy respect for dinosaurs from an even earlier age, and it made perfect sense. (I don't think paleontology was a commonly known field at that time, and I felt I could study dinosaurs as well as other antiquities if I were an archaeologist.) Besides, what eight-year-old didn't like dinosaurs, or didn't want to be like Indiana Jones?
Somewhere along the way, it changed again. And again. From special effects artist (specifically latex prosthesis, and masks, or stop motion models), to the broader movie director. From the more general musician to drummer for Jethro Tull (even though to this day I can't really use a drum set worth squat). Always, though, the scientist was there, as was the writer.
I have written many things through the course of my life, the majority of them never finished. I've always been good at beginnings, and endings, but the middles always gave me fits. So when we were given an old PC from Ma's dad, and I finally convinced Ma to let me set up an AOL account, I discovered a new thing I wanted to be when I grew up.
The Internet was taking its first steps toward being more than just text-based research sites. There were pictures, there were animations, just about anything you could imagine, you could find. I had to give it a try. Finally, after giving up hope of ever being the next George Lucas, I found a place that I could incorporate my writing, my artistry, my visions ever in motion a place to be seen. I just had to figure out how to do it.
I still haven't figured that one out, unfortunately. Around 1995, I began looking behind the curtain of the 'Net to see how it worked. Discovered a new language called HyperText Markup Language, or HTML, and taught myself how to read it and manipulate it. Soon enough, I had a website of my own. Not just a rinky-dink web page, but a full-blown site. It was dedicated to all things White Wolf, a role-playing game system that my friends and I had been enjoying for a while now. (That's where my cybernym comes from, actually. Glass Walkers)
I thought I had found my calling. I had got my foot in the door to the field of Information Technology by helping out the lone computer guy at my workplace by fixing printers, doing minor troubleshooting, etc. so that people wouldn't be constantly bothering him when he was having to fix the company's database when it blew up. I was moved from one company to another where I did basically monkey work for a year on the graveyard shift. (About an hour and a half's worth of work over the course of eight hours.) This provided me with the chance to teach myself how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Pagemaker, UltraDev (which became Dreamweaver), and on and on.
With all these tools, I thought I could finally have a way to express my creativity. I was moved to days so that I could help design the company's web site, which was tons of fun. To avoid any drama, I'll skip ahead a bit. While I was being creative at work all the time, by the time I got home, I didn't really want to do anything having to do with computers, creative or not. Oh, and I was outsourced.
So now in the present I find myself frustrated. Plenty of time on my hands. Plenty of resources. My drive is no longer there, though. Technically, I feel like the design of this blog should be of my own, not using someone else's template. Heck, it shouldn't even be on LiveJournal at all, I've got my own website, everything should be over there.
But it's not.
Every once in a while, I'll get excited about something that will lead me from one topic to the next. I'll get plenty of ideas, but never do anything with them. In fact, this entire post began when talking to my brother about a show on Nova that we both had seen pieces of (the episode on the Race for Absolute Zero). The discovery that someone had created a material that slows down light. Created a fifth state of matter. All these wonderful things that really get my juices flowing, but ultimately depress me.
I honestly think that the depression comes mainly from the time of year. Another factor is that I don't have the scientific background that I wish I had. Sure I had Physical Science in high school. Sure I had Physics. Never had a lick of Biology. Never had the option of Astronomy, or Astrophysics. Heck, I couldn't take the language that I wanted because it was only offered during sixth period. Sixth period was the only time that band was offered since we commonly had practice directly after school, and Latin was only offered at that time because there was only one teacher for Latin, and the rest of the day she was teaching German (which I did take).
So all these ideas are shooting around... We can slow light down, does that mean that time travel is theoretically possible now? No it can't because if light is slowed down due to the medium through which it is passing, the only way to move faster would be to moving outside of said medium. So while it's all relative, it's still not possible... Or is it. Quantum computers are not the same thing as nanocomputers, or are they? Didn't we already have a trinary system in place for fuzzy logic, or is that something entirely different? Is that a CSS element, or is it just a carefully disguised table? How did they get that input box to use Arial instead of Courier?
I just don't know anymore. I don't know what I want to do, but feel like I should be doing something. Anything. Yes, there are physical factors that are currently preventing me, but to that eight-old-year who wanted to be a scientist, that's no excuse.
That's one thing that I'm thankful for to the Holidailies project. While all my posts haven't been about the holidays, at least I've been writing on an (almost) daily basis. Thirty days to set a habit, right?
So, I've rambled on long enough now, and have lost the train of thought that may or may not have been involved from the start. Besides, we have some company over now, and we need to be cordial. It's fun to have friends over anyways. It happens all too infrequently this time of year.
._._.