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Taking The Hard Path

The next steps from here though became a bit murky. I love to build. I also love creating art. The Commodore 64 wasn't going to be around forever. It was my time as a student of Engineering that I realized my passion was not performing the experiments but doing the computer work to create the reports of the experiment's results. Throwing extra charts and graphics in to add pops of color and break up boring text blocks was fun for me. That lead me to my calling of Computer Science. I enjoy the build and watching the software come to life.

Freshly armed with knowledge of C++ it was time to build in the real world. Back ends at first seemed boring, and troublesome to work with or architect right. At the same time though, this is where the coolest of the cool factors lived. I still continued to evolve at front ends and implement new layouts and designs. For a while this satisfied my enjoyment of creating visual arts. Integrated compilers began to be packaged as a "Studio". Whoa, I'm creating visual arts in a studio (so to speak)? Cool!

For a Generation X person with undiagnosed ADHD, I found every three years my goals, my tastes and the technology I want to learn shifts. I had a need to keep learning to get to the next step, then the next. With a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science with a side focus on Human Computer Interaction, I headed back to DePaul University for the Masters of Science degree in Distributed Systems. Socket level programming just offers levels of pleasure to write. My brief passing interest in amateur short story and poem writing is blamed for my infatuation with Distributed Applications protocols. Pieces of software code across devices in collaboration to form a system. This was the puzzle piece to kick my career in Cybersecurity to new heights. A free and open Internet will still require a bit of privacy. My visions hit a dead end with "The Corporation."  Corporate development managers aren't interested in passion, only yes-people.

Thankfully close to home I have found people who those who celebrate passion, encourage growth and back colleges who have drive. My love for creativity lead me to the format of Podcast. Still loving the concept of a Studio, I upgraded my tech to meet or exceed podcast quality. Armed with new toys it was time to experiment with content creation. The motivation to never give up came when, despite my early sub pair work a student studying content creation came to me without option: "I see what you are trying to do, I'm your editor now."

"You know you identify as a wolf, right?" Uhm... no. What Rabbit hole of a conversation am I about to embark?
"You go by Wolffy, you have that in print in the magazine articles you write, it is on your website, your YouTube channel, every forum about your hobbies..." Seriously Dude, it is just a nick name that I was given in High School from the art I drew.

But this conversation, as I replayed it in my head later because it felt that odd, made me realize that of all the names I've come up with for software prototypes, art projects and branding ideas, Wolffy was one I never gave the same amount of attention. I tried with Wollfysoft way back in the developer days, but the domain always just sat dark. The last idea it saw was if I needed to advertise merch I could create an ad with the caption "Wear Wolffy". Ha, get it? That is a fun play on Werewolf. It was a split second later I must have sounded like a crazy person who needed to sleep off intoxication as I'm sure I said out loud "OMG I'm so stupid". Not "wear", "WARE"! I can take this and run with. Where it ends up... meh... I'm enjoying this journey.