Me, Myself, and Mormonism (Pt. 2)
And that was really where it all started. I kept at it,
learned more PHP (since I now had the general underpinnings of programming knowledge), and still dabbled in Pascal for fun. My first job was when I was a junior, and worked for a local
dry cleaning company writing software for them every day after school for a couple hours. I got a whopping $10/hr to write some custom software that kept track of inventory for them. I
learned ASP classic after realizing that syncing up 6 remote stores with VB6 and flat files was a crazy idea. And in learning that, I made my first real professional connections that would
later prove invaluable. By far though, my favorite part was hearing the store clerks ask, “HOW old are you again??” when I was setting their stores up with the new software.
Looking back, it was the beginning of the internet generation really. The search engine junkies that we were, knowledge at our fingertips. I guess I can see now why it was so amazing to meet someone largely self taught.
The years flew by. I got my next programming job from a promotion at a local call center, teaching myself .NET/C# overnight and teaching two of my friends and my brother the same so they could pass the test and get into the job with me. One of said friends is still programming today, and my brother squeaked by and flirted enough to become our main UI guy. I still keep in touch with three out of six or seven guys I worked with in that group.
Soon after I became an agnostic, deciding that the spiritual equations of the Pentecostal church of my upbringing weren’t quite right to me.
Sadly, I got suckered into Mormonism and was a devout believer for nearly two years, complete with nearly going on a mission and falling hard for a girl in the church. It all abruptly ended when I read about DNA evidence against the book of mormon, and very
quickly realized I was deluding myself yet again. Jaded, beaten, and miserable with the choices I’d made, I called my twin brother to give me some backup on the ride home from BYU-Idaho with my then ex-girlfriend
and her brother, both unaware of my doubts. The drive was 40 hours long, including one part where we wiped out from the snow piling up on the side of the highway.
I was sure I was going to hell, and that the devil was going to cause a wreck so I’d die that night, but luckily my brother kept my head on straight.
Looking back, my Dad’s words ring in my ears:
“You can really mess things up if you’re not careful, Son”. Lesson learned.
I moved to Dallas soon after, hooking up with some movers and shakers and rubbing elbows with the right people long enough to land me a job making much, much more than I’d made before. Except that I hated it. And then I learned about Rails, and bee-lined for a job doing it.
My brother landed a job working for a Rails shop first, and hooked me up. They weren’t looking for anyone right then, but I walked in and started coding for them and helped them out during an all-nighter to get my foot in the door.
I later would work there under the creator of DataMapper, switch from Rails to run on edge Merb, and lead a team of freaking amazing developers while pulling all nighters to complete deadlines set by the New York Times Syndicate.
And here I am today, Big Love because of an HBO show, my gnarly scars, and a pretty fun boss. For me, Big Love wraps up some of the most important things in my life:
- The first time I realized I could create stuff with computers
(cheesily, there’s a lotta love there) - The reminder to never delude myself into ignoring my own rationale
- My first foray into Ruby and all the camaraderie and learning that resulted
So as much as I moaned about it before, Sam Smoot, thanks for the nickname. Lots of great memories and hopefully more to come under this particular handle.
