Forty Years as a Certified Programmer?

Flash back Friday blog post edition.

I found this certificate, dated February 18, 1983, in a box while I was going through all my memorabilia that I kept over the years.

It's crazy to think that forty years ago I took a computer programming class. I completely forgot about that.

This is my brother and I playing Mystery House in my bedroom around the same time I to took that class. I don't remember ever finishing that game though. I think my brother did?

A year later I started playing guitar and my interest in computers slowly faded. I ended up trading that computer for an Ampeg VT-40 guitar amp that I still own.

I got back into computers around 17 years later when I got a job at an interactive video game production company with a goal to write music for games.

I still have some of those die cast cars to this day but I wish I still owned the New York Yankee mirror!

I've Retired from Game Development

On September 20th, 2002, about 24 hours before my daughter Sophia was born, I was laid off from my then current job.

I was devastated, scared, and most of all angry. I didn't know what to do. How do I tell my wife I lost my job when she's ready to pop?

On Sept 22nd, during a sunset that cannot be described in words in any human language, I held my new born daughter and told myself I'd never work for anyone else as long as I can. I put my future in my own hands.

I don't remember what happened between 2002 and 2008. I do however remember I was focused on raising my daughter. For work I think I took on miscellaneous contract gigs here and there.

I did had a brief contract gig at Disney in 2007. It was the month Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. After I was the presentation I instantly knew what I was going to do. In 2008 I started making games for iOS and as luck would have it I did very well.

That lasted for about 8 years. I stopped making games for iOS around 2016.

In 2019 I started making games for KaiOS with some limited success. It's a very small platform but fits in my wheelhouse just perfectly. I loved making my games in TypeScript and Phaser!

I tried releasing games again this year but it's just not the same anymore. I'm awful at marketing and my analytics show it.

It has finally happened. I have burnt out completely.

Jim B., an old friend, boss, and co-worker once said to me "one day I'm going to stop working in the tech and film industry and become an avocado farmer". I'm paraphrasing of course but it was sort of a foreshowing. I now understand what he meant. Becoming an avocado farmer sounds like heaven to me.

I've been polishing off my work this past September and archiving it on a private github and my personal backup NAS. Since the day I've decided to retire my github looks like this. It's pale in comparison to many but for me it was kind of a one last hurrah.

I'm going to leave my iOS apps up for little while longer. I'll be un-publishing them by the end of the year.

❤️ 🤘🏽