Now that I have the first post out of the way, I suppose I need to start putting the other bits together that typically make up a "blog site". One area that I always dread is the "About" page, so I guess I might as well tackle that one first.

I am far from what anyone would consider "young", and yet I still struggle with the notion of what I want to be when I grow up. I totally understand Alice's response to the caterpillar when she replies "...I hardly know..." to his question of "who are you?". 

While I'd rather just avoid the whole thing, I also realize that it's better to say something. The irony isn't lost on me that I tend to find other people's "About" pages and introductory posts interesting. But all those people actually understand themselves. Right?

Back when I was in college, my primary focus was chemistry (which is what I ended up getting my degree in ... eventually). I went to a smallish school that was really more of a "teaching university" that seemed to attract folks who were themselves a bit off the beaten path. That suited me just fine then, and still holds true today.

Anyway, there was a fella ... we'll call him Ritchie (because that was his name). I think he technically was a graduate student, and had been a "fixture" of the Chemistry department for an extremely long time. He happened to live in a little house that was right next door to a friend of mine, who we'll call Smedley (because that was his preferred nickname, Smed for short) who had started a local dial-up ISP. 

(quick aside for the youts)

In the early days of the Internet, there was a thing called dial-up service. That meant you used your existing phone lines (phones had wires back then) with a device called a dial-up modem that used audio frequency modulation to transmit data. In order to keep costs down, Smed had leased a house right next door to the local telephone company's switching station, which was downtown across the street from a pawn shop. At the time, raw feed lines were billed based on distance, and you can't get much shorter than the length of a small parking lot. 

But back to the story at hand. 

One day I was strolling by, and saw Ritchie sitting on his front porch, which was a bit out of the ordinary. Outside and sun really wasn't his thing. He did, however, have an amazing collection of hats, and was rarely seen without one. I waved. He waved back, and I wandered up to the porch to say "hey". 

As it turned out, it was his 40th birthday, and he was avoiding the people inside that were intent on reminding him of that fact. It certainly explained why he was outside. I think I congratulated him, and then he said something that I've never forgotten.

"You know, I still like the same things. Music. Books. Figuring things out. Everyone thinks that stuff changes when you get old. But it doesn't."

With that he flicked away the stub of his Camel filterless, gave a sarcastic chuckle, bid me adieu, and went back inside. 

At the time, I didn't understand what he was talking about. I was just a twenty-something college kid, and "old" was still something that just happened to other people. But there was something about the way he had said it that caused the little collector who lives in my brain to file that memory away for safe keeping. I don't have any control over that little collector, by the way. I'm quite certain it's really just a gremlin that got bored doing gremlin things, and decided to take up residence in my noggin and, well, collect things. 

Anyway, now I'm older than Ritchie was at the time, and finally understand what he meant. I suppose that kind of sums up my "About" page. I still like the same things I've always liked. Books, comics, music, movies, TV shows, electronics (which later expanded to computers and "tech"), and being pleasantly surprised on occasion by discovering something that my collector gremlin decided to stash away for safe keeping.

It's not much of an introduction, but I suppose it will have to do for now. 

Hi, I'm Sean. I like stuff, and there's a gremlin in my head that randomly collects things. Wait, where are you all going? Well, drat!