Fathers Day 2006
I was thinking about this photograph yesterday and what my dad said about the situation that the photograph was taken in. I was thinking about it while I was making new nectar for my "pets" which are hummingbirds who by their own choice come from their own world to eat there and are free to go back to their own world. Today is about dad though....
"I feel bad for these birds" he said about my brothers pet doves. "Just open the window and let them go." Except that you can't just do that either. They might not belong in world that is outside that window and will die in the environment -- or, they might flourish in the environment and tip it the wrong way. Thoughtlessly released pets are just as bad as pets you probably should not have had to begin with....
Most of my problems living in this land where people made fortunes early on in the evolution of computers goes back to this man, my dad, and the simple knowledge he passed on to me. I am stuck here, in many ways, not unlike the dove in that photograph. A cruel situation and one of the reasons I do not belong here is that I know where I came from and I know who my dad is. Not a perfect man, but a really good teacher. Here is the reason I really do not want to write a resume so that you will consider hiring me for a job with computers....
In 1972, I was 10 years old and the Homebrew Computer Club had not even met for the first time. I built a computer. My dad loved the idea of these computers and passed that love on to me. He had taught me how to count in binary and he had taught me how to determine the name of the resistor by the color code painted on them. He provided access to the instructions (Popular Mechanics) and the materials (a cigar box, some of those paper securers that look like nails, wire and a light bulb). It did not work, but I understood how it should have worked. I found those instructions and followed them myself. Dad was the kind of dad who did not do the homework for his kids; he was available to answer questions though. My mom did not teach me to do these things -- my dad did.
Sometimes I wonder about the children whose parents do their homework for them. They look better on paper, but how do they feel?
In 1975 or 1976, dad built a KIM from a kit. I got to download programs from a cassette tape and run them on that funny little computer. I played Hunt the Wumpus on it and toyed with it for the better part of a weekend. I went to visit him; by then my parents were divorced and my house was horribly divided.
For all of the problems my family had, both from internal pressures and external pressures, it is a simple fact that I honestly think that people should be submitting their resumes to me and not me trying to write one that is acceptable to them. I know who my dad was and what he was able to teach me.
All of my life, and mostly because of what my dad taught me, the only way you can keep me down is to deny access and money. It is pathetic.
Happy Fathers Day dad! I am just like you now, I guess. Lesser people make a lot more money than I do and little small brains make me buy my own products. Sometimes I wonder how much my brains were in and are in the big brain pool. The compliment is that they can only keep you down with imaginary things like money and barriers and for me, my own lines in the sands of morality. But compliments like this only go so far.
And look at me! I can totally justify shoving my resume up their HRses without the even mentioning how much me and the gimp developers stirred this world up!
Learning how to make graphics with GIMP is not unlike learning about computers from/with my dad. The education will always be with you, even if the application itself makes you take some of those step yourself.
[category:family|Fathers-Day-2006]
posted at Sun, 18 Jun 2006, 18:30