KnowProSE.com No Longer KnowProSE LLC

If this sounds a bit like a life story, it is - but it's a great explanation for the change of KnowProSE.com.

Back in the 1980s,  I would visit an Uncle of mine who was allegedly studying for his ENT specialty. He had an Apple II, a few girlfriends, a hamster and a fairly well stocked refrigerator. Since the hamster was rather dull for me and the girlfriends out of the league of any 11 year old, I sat with the Apple II for hours - it had more RAM than my Vic-20 and he had a larger budget for games. Aside from some games I typed in from magazines and some code I actually wrote myself, he had a few games that I spent hours on while my Uncle played with his girlfriends. A decade later I was a professional computer programmer and he was an ENT surgeon and married. True story.

Nostalgia struck some years ago for the simplicity of Galactic Adventures - a turn based strategy game that let me explore a seemingly endless universe of aliens attempting to kill my digital posse in all manner of grids. So I Google'd it and ended up finding this page which was either written by Paul Murray or Tom Reamy. From there, a quote:

...To me, the most amazing thing about doing these games (and I'm about to date myself) is that I did virtually everything myself. I designed the games, programmed them, drew the graphics (quite primitive), wrote the rule book I did get help from friends and people at SSI in testing and making suggestions. Compare that with today where new games are developed with a million dollar budget and use teams of 30 or more people, programmers, artists, tests, story consultants, etc, etc. And you know what -- the games of today are better (Gee, why is that a surprise?)...

That is almost exactly why KnowProSE LLC is, for all intents and purposes, neatly pressed and hung up in plastic in the back of the closet. I realized that I couldn't do everything myself despite how much I can do and do well.

I've been through the era of the lone disconnected hackers of the 1980s and early 1990s, where I did a lot of things that simply don't seem so impressive in this 'modern world'. Then from the mid-90s til 2000, I did some really cool stuff and began working the web. In 1999/2000, I started blogging. In 2003, I started using Drupal. In 2005, I ended up running some projects for SSC that were happening even while Tux Magazine was getting prepped for launch. I ended up hacking Drupal code, and before you knew it I was a Drupal developer working on things that rarely (unfortunately) made it back to the Drupal code base because of the nature of the work. And so this year - 2011 - I started KnowProSE LLC as a one man shop after many adventures and misadventures which included a one month Directorship of a paper company that was to be a continuance of my paternal grandfather's business.

Things this year would be best described as rocky - and educational.I reaffirmed that I was kind of tired of coding for profit but really wanted to write - programming in English, as it were. Personal growth.

I cast my eyes around. I found a Communications Manager position open at the groovy Treehouse Agency, where I'd met some folks at the Drupal 7 release party in New York City. I applied even as I was extricating myself from the family business situation. There were two interviews and instead of sweating the details I simply was me.

And I got it.

Since I'm starting on Monday, 26th September 2011, I'm closing off business for KnowProSE LLC and going to do what I love: Writing, playing with English and working with smart and creative people.

So what happens with KnowProSE.com? Back to being a personal blog, though to maintain a distance from OpenDepth.com (my free writing/personal personal blog) this blog will be more about writing, reading, the Intertoobz and technology.

I'm happy. Be happy. :-)