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Three. 1. Saw an ad in 1980 for a Radio Shack TRS-80 for $499. Suddenly understood that computers were more real than the spinning tape reels shown in movies.
by sowbug 4y ago
Three.
1. Saw an ad in 1980 for a Radio Shack TRS-80 for $499. Suddenly understood that computers were more real than the spinning tape reels shown in movies. Started learning BASIC at the local Radio Shack while my mom was grocery shopping next door. Got offered programming jobs at least twice during those sessions (or maybe they were child predators). I've been exchanging code for money for the 40+ years since.
2. Around the same time, age 10 or so, I was in a situation where I should have been killed or badly injured. Instead, a car suddenly appeared and instantly killed the thing that was trying to kill me. The car didn't stop; it kept driving, leaving me alone on a country road with bloody flesh (not mine) sprayed 20 feet around me. Since then, though I'm not religious or very spiritual, I've felt special, as if my life is meant to achieve some purpose on Earth. That memory motivates me when I'm feeling aimless or down.
3. The first time I attended Burning Man. The first time I experienced the kindness of strangers as the rule rather than the exception. That inversion in my default assumptions about other people has made an enormous difference (and undoubtedly has helped shrink the giant chip I have on my own shoulder).
- golly_ned 4y agoWhat was the thing that was trying to kill you?
- manthedudeguy 4y agoKind of cruel of them to leave that part out..
- jdpigeon 4y agoseriously
- throwaway_4ever 4y agoHopefully a bear or mountain lion and not a person...
- jareklupinski 4y agoself-doubt it's a metaphor :P
- sowbug 4y agoA German Shepherd dog. It had been trained to attack, and while I'd never witnessed this myself, supposedly the owner trained it on smaller live creatures. Obviously this was the neighborhood house that we avoided -- the owner was even surlier than the dog -- but it was on the way from my house to the local store, and where I lived there was basically one road, so I didn't always have a choice. That road's speed limit was 50 miles per hour, which also made it dangerous to walk. This will become relevant in a moment. One day I was walking back from the store, and I froze as I realized the dog's chain-link gate had been left open. The dog was in its yard, eyes locked on me. The road separated it and me. It began charging toward me. I was too afraid to take my eyes off it, let alone start running. It reached the road, still coming straight for me. As it approached the dotted yellow dividing line in the road, I remember hearing the dog's nails hitting the pavement, and sensing that it was changing its stride, as if it were preparing to leap. I remained petrified. Next thing I knew, the dog was nothing but entrails. A speeding car killed it. I remember seeing the back of the driver's head through the rear windshield. He didn't even look back. He just kept going. A moment before I was sure I'd be killed, but now there was just me, intact but scared, and a still-settling spray of animal parts in front of me. Sorry for leaving that out on the first post. I was trying to keep each part short.
- muttled 4y agoThat's crazy! If that happened in a movie I'd think the writers were being lazy.
- sowbug 4y agoI know just what you mean. It sounds like a dream or at least an exaggeration with deus ex machina overtones. When it first happened and I got over the initial shock, the part that freaked me out the most was the fact that the driver didn't pull over. That lent credence to my interpretation that it was some sort of supernatural intervention -- a guardian angel who appeared and then vanished. Over the years I've polyfilled a better explanation: the driver saw the scene unfolding and realized he/she could help, but didn't want to be bothered with (literally) cleaning up the mess. Also, assuming they were local, they probably also knew the dog's nasty owner and wisely fled the scene to avoid starting a feud.