life

It was 1997 and I was just 15 years old when I had my first encounter with a Macintosh. My regular hang out was Blitz Records, a local Michigan record store. The owner of Blitz Records, Mike Fiscus also produced a music and culture magazine; Anti-Matter. I could be found at Blitz almost daily and built a great relationship with the Mike.

I was there when he entered the store carrying his new baby, a new Mac SE. It was a day that changed many things for me.

I remember being overwhelmed and inspired by the Mac, I would actually say I was afraid of it. Mike took time to explain desktop publishing and even demonstrate the features to me. His intention was to change Anti-Matter, to make it into a really creative endeavor with more control at our hands.

Within a year I was working part-time at the store and was asked to begin writing a few reviews for the magazine. I gained a lot of exposure to the Mac and desktop publishing and thus began my affinity with the Mac platform. Mike was instrumental in all of this, from showing me how layout was processed, letting me enter my own reviews and interviews into the magazine and just being a great mentor. I'll never forget the day he took me and a pile of floppy disks to a professional design studio to finish the layout. They and dozens of Macs, printers and even a scanner. The scanner felt like Star Trek to me, I just couldn't wrap my head around it. It was science fiction come to life.

From there I was set loose, I began renting time on Macs around town to do creative work, mostly designing flyers for my band.

It was a few years before I had daily access and eventually my own Mac, but I've never regretted my crush and eventual love for all things Mac and Apple.

Last week I began posting obscure messages about change and opportunities for change using a lemons to lemonade theme.

One post that resonated with me is this

I'm ready to be better than some perceive. Forget my worth and I will forget you.

It sums up my feelings to a T.

I readily admit that I'm human and require others to value my contributions.

As such I am seeking just that, I am seeking a value from those around me. My life has followed a steady theme, move around often enough to keep fresh and make changes when things are not in my favor, remain as long as I have value and receive value in turn. I have no allusions about what I can and do contribute to my field. I am a very strong personality, I have a solid and comprehensive base set of skills and expertise and I am as loyal as you deserve.

I thrive in community environs, I like interaction, give and take and respect foreach individual's role in the entire process. No one person should ever be the sole source of credit for a team's accomplishments, just the same for failures.

In order to make a team work, each member from the top to the bottom needs to understand and work with the other members specific abilities. When you forget the value of an individual, you forget the value of a team.

All this said, I am seeking a recipe for the lemons I see ripening on my trees.

Ten years ago tonight, as we all prepared for the new millennium, many events were taking place. I'll leave aside all the nutjobs storing food and gold, the y2k fears and just focus on the parties.
There were more parties that New Years Eve than I've ever know of, one of which was America’s Millennium Gala, the official presidential party. Living in DC it was the event to attend, IT took place at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, and had limited VIP seating. The overflow stretched the entire length of the reflecting pool nearly to the Washington Monument. We somehow got VIP tickets, row 10 or 12. The Clintons were a few rows ahead.
The event was simply a once in a lifetime opportunity. The host for the night was Will Smith, produced by Quincy Jones and had more performers than I could have imagined. I'm posting the official program here, but my highlight was when none other than Slash, the once awesome guitarist from Guns and Roses. I got to shake his hand, which has lead to an entire decade of me making references to my good pal Slash.
No matter, it was amazing, the performances were nothing spectacular on their own, but in that setting, on that night and in that location, I will never forget where I was at midnight on January 1st 2000.
It was a great decade for me, I think they keep getting better. * Happy New Year and Happy New Decade.