Hello, Steemit

I have no face

I will apologise for the shades and sign over my mouth. Sadly, in this age of near-universal surveillance, one must assume that any online photos will soon be scanned into various facial recognition databases. Facebook is quite open about this. I have done my best to see that no photos of me are online, and this is my attempt to compromise for Steemit. Like "see, I am a real person, but I don't want my face in any database". I do hope you will understand.

This is my first intro post, and my first post. I am not well-known in the cryptocurrency space, in social media, or really anywhere I can think of, other than a few gaming communities. Though I am brand new to Steemit, I have been on Steam well-nigh forever.

What am I doing here?

I found out about Steemit through a comment on a video at YouTube. I was intrigued, I came to look, and here I am.

As a long-time webhead going back to the dark days before Win95, I am thoroughly dismayed by how incredibly vicious the online discourse has become in the last few years. I hope to find in Steemit a community more cordial than the net at large, or at least somewhat less vitriolic.

Who am I?

I'm 50-something. I was born and raised in San Diego, California. I am currently an expat living in Argentina. I'm single, never been married, and well on my way to becoming a curmudgeonly old bachelor. I have also lived in the American Midwest, in London, and a few other places. I miss American barbecue, and going out for huevos rancheros on Sunday morning. Mmm, beans and rice and fresh corn tortillas. Sigh. The expat life is hard in unexpected ways, especially in a country where most people think breakfast consists of coffee and toast or these horrid little wannabe-croissants called medialunas. 

I love to cook, I love to eat, I have a weakness for red wine.

Favorites

I'm far too fond of online games for my own good. The ones I keep coming back to, in spite of their warts, are Star Trek Online and Star Wars The Old Republic. Both of which are but a faded shadow of their former glory, but I have an investment in long-time toons and years-long acquaintances.

Of single-player games, my two favorites are Kerbal Space Program and Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI. No, it's not a hentai game, it's a strategy game about the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China, beginning with the fall of the Han Dynasty and the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 AD.

In terms of books, I think the most influential book I have ever read was the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, by Niccolo Macchiavelli. I'm currently plodding through the Alexiad by Anna Komnene and something by Procopius, but it's heavy going, I admit. Lest you get the mistaken idea that I am some serious scholar, I confess I have also read all 5 published volumes of Game of Thrones, and watched all 7 seasons of the HBO series repeatedly, (WTF you mean we have to wait another year for Season 8?!?)

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis

I've done many different jobs in my life so far. I worked in the recycling industry for 9 years, when I was young and naive and thought I could make a difference. I worked landscape, both exterior and interior. I studied Ornamental Horticulture at Mesa Community College, that much-esteemed institution of higher education, (Lynn, my then-GF, commented perceptively, "it's like high school with cigarettes"). I was a bench tech and later a network administrator; upon a time I was a Novell CNA, in those long-gone days  when Novell Netware was the shiznitz and Microsoft NT 3.51 was still a clumsy wannabe challenger. I have waited tables for a living, mostly upscale Italian, but also in a coffee shop/pie shop called Baker's Square, now long gone and unlamented.

Conclusion

As you have no doubt noted by now, I have a certain tendency to be a bit long-winded. Basta! 

Thank you all for welcoming me to Steemit. I do sincerely hope to be a worthy member of the community.