Beginnings
I was born in the USA and, at age six, my family moved to Ireland. My father was a control systems engineer and introduced me to QBasic. I didn't have much interest to begin with, computers did not feature as a large part of family life at that time (circa 1985) and being able to draw rudimentary two dimentional shapes on a very small screen didn't exactly spark my imagination.
The Spark
The thing that sparked my interest was when, around 1991 I believe, my dad came home with a "modem". I was amazed that a computer could communicate with other computers on the other side of the world - and that is what got me hooked.
As an early teen, I cost my parents a small fortune in telephone bills. However, they were pleased to see me so interested. I tinkered with unix, shell scripting, html and javascript - eventually blundering my way to my first "website" (A single page hosted by our internet provider which featured what I deemed to be some very cool orcs from Blizzard's excellent original version of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans).
Next Steps
I decided to attend Dublin City University to do a batchelors degree in Applied Computing. After my first year, I got a job doing helpdesk support for the University (which mainly involved helping people with Windows 3.1, installing Novell network drivers and helping friends run late night Quake LAN parties in the back office of the help desk office due to its abundance of spare PCs and networking equipment).
Part of the pay for that job was that the University would waive the fee to continue my degree by night, however that excellent arrangement was not to be long lived: I met a girl and followed her to London.
The Big Smoke
In London, I continued my degree while also working to pay the bills: I was the eldest of four children and didn't want to ask my parents for money. After doing bar/restaurant work for a while, I got my first programming job at a small web design agency in North West London when a nice fellow called Jack gave me a chance. By that point, I had enough practical html, javascript and vbscript to be useful - but still obviously a far cry from being a professional.
I had broken into working in the area that I was interested in - by the age of 18. By the time I finished my degree, I had three years of full time web experience and had helped build websites for some decent sized clients too. I was young, I was in London and I was getting paid money to do something which I loved.
Crazed
Working in London provided an excellent source of employment. I was ambitious and thirsty for additional experience. As only a young, ambitious (and naive) person can, I moved from job to job, caring only about the experience which each provided and not much else: I was a black hole and the world of early 2000s web was my hunger.
Microsoft released the .NET Framework and I absorbed it greedily, nothing was too deep: reflection, method interception, message sinks, AOP.... it was magical.
HP, Dell, Microsoft, EMI, Sony, Time Warner - these were all client accounts I worked on, but it was never enough. The thirst for knowledge became an addiction, which I later realised was an attempt at compensating for failings in other parts of my life.
Crash
2007 and a promotion to run a team in Prague was the final straw for an eight year marriage (yes, I married the girl I followed to London). Heartbroken and depressed, I resigned from that excellent opportunity and returned to Ireland to see family... and attend my youngest sister's wedding. There, I met a Scottish girl - and you guessed it - followed her to Scotland.
Like a Phoenix (sort of)
I was, at first, rather surprised when it took more than two weeks to find a job in Scotland - but after adjusting to the change in pace of the job market, I decided that it would also be a good time for a change in pace for my career and applied for a job at the local University doing research support. That worked well, I had found new love and I had a job which I could balance with my new life. This time, I took my time and didn't marry until four years later.
I stayed in that post for ten years, it worked well for me: the work was varied and interesting, the people pleasant.
We started a family.
The Gentle Way
An improved work-life balance made for a happier me and I took up Judo at the tender age of 29 (most people retire from the sport around that age), eventually earning my black belt and even fighting at the Veteran World Championships.
"Veteran", in Judo terms, means you're over the age of 30. I suppose a Samurai would indeed have been deemed a veteran at 30, but I'm just getting warmed up!! Or so I thought... now, 13 years after finding Judo, I find myself barred from going within two meters of anyone other than my family due to the Pandemic. What cruel fate... or is it fate protecting me from myself? Perhaps.