Wow, I finally made it. Where am I again?

Background (What's my Story)

So, I love the value of authenticity on Steemit, and to that goal I'll tell you a little about who I am and where I'm coming from. I currently live in the great Republic of Texas and work for a very large IT company (Let's call it the Umbrella Corp.) We are currently building cloud based AI that will surely eventually become Skynet and lead to the Robot Apocalypse that will doom mankind. But for right now it pays the bills and keeps the lights on. But I get ahead of myself. I did not start here my friends but had humble beginnings, so let's take a quick stroll down memory lane.

Early Years

I was born in Florida and adopted at 3 years of age, so I never really knew my background. Recently I got a gift of an Ancestry DNA kit and found out that I'm Irish, Scandivian, Iberian, and Mexican (Thus the Celtic, Viking, Astec-Warrior thing).

As the picture shows, I was very cool in my own head. I was interested in science and technology from an early age. Not sure what I wanted to be when I grew up ,tried various things on to see if they fit. I really liked myself as a Rock Star, except for the complete lack of any musical talent or the ability to sing or dance, it would have been a great career.

Education and Hobbies

Well, my interest in all things technology let me into a career in IT. I went to college for a couple years then started working at EDS when I was just 21. Got to travel, meet interesting people, and start laying the networking foundation for our future Robot overlords. I briefly got to ride the dot com bubble when my second company was acquired by Lucent Tech, and my pre-IPO stock options were worth half a million. But unfortunately I also got to ride the dot com burst, and stupid Lucent pulled an Enron and I ended up losing everything. So of course, I went back to school.

After getting an undergrad in business, I went on to get a masters and (still ABD) in a doctorate in philosophy. This was a great deal of fun, but I ended up broke and went back into big IT to pay the bills.

While I really like technology, I also enjoy other hobbies like shooting (remember I live in Texas), and long distance motorcycle riding. Here is me on one of my favorite bikes, a Yamaha FJR.

Family

One of the best things to come out of early adulthood was meeting the love of my life, my beautiful wife. Of course the next best things are our 2 children.

Journey to Steemit

They say that it is good to be fashionably late to a party. I guess this describes my somewhat late arrival here at Steemit. Let me tell you that story...

How did I get Here

Working in IT, I have been very uncomfortable for awhile at the growing privacy issues around social media, and how pervasive are the subtle and not so subtle factors of our high-tech world influence our decisions and our very lives. One thing that was really a wake up clarion for me was when MicroS dropped the pretense and came out and stated in their latest EULA that they will read your emails and do whatever they wish with the data. WHAT?

This made me rethink everywhere I was giving my information to big companies and just trusting them to "do no evil." I started to make conscious decisions to get off 'free' email platforms that everyone uses, and to look for other areas where my data could be used for unapproved purposes.

Then, just the other day, my friend Chris (not sure if he is here yet, will update with his userlink when he gets it) and I got to talking about the influence of big companies on filtering media content they did not like. AGAIN, WHAT? Then I saw the employees from twitter admitting to shadow bans and such. This made me think of how selection bias that is unwanted and unwarranted can influence how we think, how we feel, and how we live our lives. ENOUGH

Why I'm Here

Final Straw, I had had it. Thankfully, Chris mentioned Steemit and I was actually starting to think about lunch (I have ADD), but I caught the phrase "Blockchain Social Media" ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?? Well, Shut the Front Door! This blew my mind like I had not experienced for a long time. I had been so busy with the infrastructure for Skynet and all, that I had not paid recent attention to what was going on around me in the tech-world apparently. So, I had an unproductive afternoon, getting on dtube and starting to watch and learn.

Now, here I am starting out on this fantastic journey.

What I'm excited about doing here

Needless to say, I'm all in. The very idea of a block-chain secured platform that is not subject to the whims of big corporations and advertising blackmail sounds a lot like freedom. Which is after all, a big thing for me, being in Texas and all.

My goals are to help build Steemit, D-Tube, and getting everyone I know to come over and leave our current media overlords in the dust. De-monetize them I say.

My friends and I are also interested in seeing what we can do and build on Steemit. I want to start out perhaps making some videos about what I am learning, since I get the feeling many people are heading this way. Also, just writing and making videos about life, because that is the beauty of this place.

Finally, I want to explore projects that provide services around Steemit and the people who make this their digital home. So Howdy Steemit, I'm glad to be here, and looking forward to learning and hopefully contributing to the decentralized media freedom revolution. (You know, before the robots kill us all).