IntroduceYourself - The Story of Jack (Part 1)

Hi Steemit,

My name is Jack and this is my story. Like most people I’d heard about Bitcoin before, but I never made it through the technobabble to actually getting involved. My interest was renewed thanks to a couple of friends - @patrickm and @starkerz.

As soon as I started to learn more about steem, I realised how well it aligned with many of the projects I'm working on. I feel I have a lot to contribute to the community in terms of content, but before we get to that (look out for future posts), let me tell you a little bit about me.

This is me, at my apartment in Limassol, Cyprus:

I was born in Johannesburg in South Africa and I lived there for most of my life.

I lived in the northern suburbs of the city so it looks a lot more like the photo below. It may look like the countryside, but underneath all those beautiful trees in the photo are thousands of houses and townhouse complexes.

I spent most of my career working in the creative industry, starting with web design (in the days when HTML was written in a text editor) and then eventually ending up as the texture and lighting artist at a 3D Animation company. I worked with some incredibly talented people and I really loved my job. The girl I was dating at the time called me a "job snob" - I didn't even know that was a thing.

Mostly we worked on TV commercials and in a small production house there are often very tight deadlines. Working on weekends and even all through the night was very common. It was immensely stressful at times but being able to watch a commercial that you had a part in creating is a truly rewarding experience. Here is one of the commercials we made, back in 2007:
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The commercials were only to pay the bills though. My goal was to direct a full length animated feature film so I asked my bosses if I could start up a short film department. We had some interns working for us at the time so I got them working on it but soon all the experienced animators at the company got involved as well (giving up the very small amount of free time they had). We completed two short films and this is the second "Tankz", which I co-wrote and directed:

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The animation industry was booming but out of nowhere the economy took a dive. Within a few months, the company where I worked many other small production houses were forced to close down. Our amazing team of animators was split up forever, some went to work for larger companies and some left the animation industry altogether. We are now spread out all over the world, from Ireland to Canada, though it was a special time for all of us and we remain friends to this day.

My dreams of directing an animated feature film were shattered but I soldiered on and over the next few years I worked on a number of interesting projects:

An Ipad App:

A Trading Card game:

It took a long time for me to realise it, but I needed to get out of there. It was time to leave the city and explore the world. I had lived most of my life in the city, two thousand metres above sea level and yet I have always loved the ocean. I planned out my course of action and got started.

First I went to Cape Town to learn about boats, starting with a powerboat course:

I was taking it seriously though and to work on a boat you need to do a few more courses, like a firefighting course:

You also have to do a first aid course, along with live action scenarios:

Then one last bit of training, the toughest course of all - Divemaster. This is the only photo I have from my final week of training. I qualified at Aliwal Shoal, near Durban and I had many unbelievable dives, often with the ragged tooth sharks that used to be very common in the area.

On new years day, in 2014, I qualified as a divemaster. As prepared as I could be, I packed my bags and got on the plane to Thailand...

In Part 2 of The Story of Jack we'll visit Thailand, Cambodia and the Seychelles on a sailing and SCUBA diving adventure.

If you enjoyed my story, please upvote and subscribe @deimus.