How did I get into "tech"?

I came across an unsent draft, from December 22nd 2013, and decided instead of discarding it, I would go ahead and post it to my blog so it could come up in a search result sometime later.



My younger brother Max and I were having a conversation about how we grew up on a farm, and how he "always knew" that he wanted to work outside, and how I "always knew" that I wanted to work inside; both from our experiences of working on the farm.

Since we didn't really grow up "with computers", Max asked me "How did I get into computers"? And I believe this is what happened.

So in this town of 800 people in the Texas panhandle, even with access to a car; it was put into my mind that because of the costs of gas, but more importantly, the time it would take to travel; you did not just leave and go somewhere else. If you wanted to visit someone, you could if they were in town; if they weren't, you would have to wait until the weekend, or if they lived really far away, once a year like to see relatives for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

So when I'm about 14 or so, one of my really good friends moves away; probably less than a 2 hour drive away, and I told him "Well it was good knowing you". I had no allusions to the fact that we would never talk to each other again. And I knew that because I knew I was terrible at writing letters to other friends that had moved away.

And this was also back when long distance phone calls weren't free, so at 14 how do you justify spending $5 on a conversation with another 14 year old? It would have been impossible. Let's say I spent my entire allowance on that, it would have meant very few calls to very few people, and then nothing to spend on anything else.

Why did letter writing fail for me? I think because it took so long and took so much effort to get those few paragraphs of information to that other person, and took so long to get a reply, as to forget what questions you even asked in the first place.

It seemed so wasteful. And I've always hated waste

So when I first heard of email, it became a passion of mine to contact people that weren't local to me anymore, I was so attracted to the efficiency of it.

So attracted to those few paragraphs.

So now that I'm even more of a "techie" or "interested in technology", I feel like I should be finding "those few paragraphs" and finding ways for technology to get them to each other; without having to go through so much waste, so much trouble.

Waste: Shipping, travel
Those few paragraph examples: Text, Pictures, Video, Music, Conversations