[hinkley]

I think I would have been a mechanical engineer if I were born 20 years earlier or 20 years later. Software was just new and shiny enough and it let me build things with my mind, at a time when I believed I was clumsy (I actually have always had excellent fine motor skills, it's macro motor control I lagged behind in). One of my better friends in college was an ME. Learned all sorts of things about metal fatigue and oddly enough picosecond lasers from him.

I don't know if I found Lego or Lego found me, but I definitely think in terms of shapes. I was past my midlife crisis before I realized that I don't have a large working memory (smaller than average in fact) it's just that I've been doing mind palaces without pictures since I was very small. When I'm thinking of large computer systems I'm essentially thinking of them as physics problems.

I really should figure out space to have a bike again. I never rode when I lived in Seattle (Seattle drivers are nuts) but I don't live there anymore and I need to catch up on 20 years of tech.