Psychotic Shut-in

(After two weeks at home with three children in various stages of fevers and pink-eye, I’m starting to look like a psychotic shut-in. But, that isn’t what this post is about.)

The words were really never used as such, it was merely implied.

“So, I mean, why DO you blog?”

“I enjoy it. I enjoy the writing, and I have friends now.”

“I just don’t get it. You are so active in the community. You have so many real friends (did she use that word, ‘real’?). I guess I always thought it was something people did who couldn’t connect otherwise.”

Right. Well, that may explain why I have been blogging for seven months and hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s why I hadn’t mentioned it.

I have been told that people have never told their colleagues about their blog, because they just wouldn’t understand. No, more specifically, they would belly laugh (lol, right?).

I also had someone recommend I “put it on my resume.”

My reaction to that recommendation was similar to my reaction the day I was asked to bring a 15-inch reel-to-reel tape of data to a client on my bicycle.

“You’re kidding, right?”

We all know how fast everything changes.

I vividly remember writing my first computer program. My older brother taught me how to do it on our Apple II in 1980. After I finished my code, I could type in

RUN LINE

. . . . and my gray line would appear. I made other programs from there, and even had the number codes for most of the colors memorized.

It was SO cool. Not terribly useful, but definitely cool.

It was no less cool when I wrote my first e-mail and even niftier when soon after we were able to send e-mails off-campus.

In my first job, I had to submit a written request to be given an e-mail account that could send messages outside our corporate network. Only a few of us had the capability. (My manager considered it a fun toy for the new grad, not so much useful for work.)

I didn’t even mention it to my second manager, who had never even been on the corporate network. I found out from his really nice secretary who printed everything out for him.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Maybe it was because of that little gray line that I taught myself C++ one summer, because I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t already know it. (I heard that little birdie on my shoulder saying ‘You’re kidding, right?’)

So, no, I’m not a psychotic shut-in. And, although I do not have my resume updated, in many ways this blog, in the future, may BE my resume. What else could anyone know, except for a static list of reasons of what I achieved. I achieved many things, mind you, but no one knew about all of the friends I made while doing it, all the personal lessons I learned. My resume looked just like everyone else’s, maybe less impressive (?), until you interviewed me, asked the right question, and found out that what makes a person truly successful is HOW they achieved all of those wonderful bullet-points. The company survivies on the end product, yes, but those who get to that end product the correct way can achieve repeatedly. Those who don't, well, they have a bullet point to take to their next interview. I am proud of my days leading up to those bullet points.

I am proud of this blog too.

In many ways, this blog is like that gray line I saved on a cassette recorder “drive” when I was in elementary school. This is a part of my journey.

But, now it’s not just my brother and I in the basement – learning a few things that didn’t seem useful – it is all my brothers and sisters out there enjoying this journey with me.

And, yes, we are doing a LOT of kidding . . . tee hee hee. Do you think that is all we are doing?

You're kidding, right?