Hey all! I didn't see one of these yet, so figured I'd start one! Feel free to share as much or as little about yourself as you want / feel comfortable sharing.
I'm Andy, but I go by "kamp" round these parts! I just joined recently at the reminder of a friend here (I say reminder because he told me about it before and I never got around to actually joining up ). I live around the Twin Cities in Minnesota with my partner and some kitties. I play video games, lift weights, and build electric guitars in my spare time. Nice to meet you all!
I like gardening a lot, and I'm pretty sure I'm lactose intolerant. If you're here from the YouTube stuff, I'd assume you know that I have overcome some super cool mental health issues, and I'm a huge advocate for being open with that so that people know they're not alone! I play the piano and accordion, and I like playing Zelda on the switch (I am not the gamer of the household). My fiance (she said yes!) and I have a heckin pupper, Galaxy, who is a menace, but she is oh so good. I like comics (Spider-Man, Gwenpool), Star Wars (clone wars was so good omg), and plants. My proudest plant dad moment has been either growing a monstera from seed, OR, picking up tree seeds from around the neighborhood and growing those. Or maybe it was the pineapple plant... The watermelons are also really cool, so are the pumpkins... I have a lot of plant pride. I don't have a lot of gardening space (thanks, renting), but I'm hopeful that someday we can buy a small house with a big old yard so I can grow lots of food and feed folks in the local community with stuff I grew
ANYWAYS that's me. I won't talk about where I live because I have a YouTube channel and that just historically hasn't been a good idea.
I currently live in France, but I've lived in the US for close to a decade. I'm creative to a fault, so I've made and posted music, and have a Youtube channel, where I (try) to publish videos... I'm passionate about journalism, and more specifically about politics.
This is a hard exercise ! I did not expect to have so little to say. Like @rejectconvenience, I play the piano, but do not practice nearly as much as I should. My girlfriend being gone for 2 months, I also recently developped a MTG and Pokemon cards addiction... If anyone plays MTG arena or Pokemon TCG, I'm down !
That's it for the basics !
EDIT:@kamp I also LOVE your profile picture. Did you draw it yourself?
Nice to meet you, @Linkard ! I did draw it myself, although I have to give credit to one of my 4th grade students who drew the original version back when I was teaching in Korea. It was so cute and simple, and I always really liked it, so I figured it’d make the perfect avatar
(TL;DR: Live in the American Southwest, tech industry professionally though disgruntled with it, enjoy programming, reading, video games, various art/music tinkering, and whip cracking (still a novice on that last one).)
I'm Seasnails, and I was excited to find out that Reject Convenience has a forum. I miss forums, so I'm always happy when I see one pop up in our modern era that's so cluttered by ephemeral stream of consciousness platforms like Discord or microblogs.
I've lived the majority of my life in the American Southwest and have a love for its geography, from the coasts to the mountains to the deserts, though I have a particular soft spot for deserts. (It was the coast and oceans in my youth, hence the nickname "Seasnails".) I've also done a couple brief stints in a foreign "third-world" country which was both fulfilling and eye-opening. It felt like the people and life in general were so much more real there, without the countless layers of artificiality that we're buried under here in the US. I'd love to go back again if the opportunity ever presented itself, and maybe even stay if possible. Maybe once the kids are all grown up and moved out - if that ends up being achievable in this increasingly dystopian late-stage capitalist- annd moving on!
My professional life has been in the tech industry from the moment I graduated high school: My high school teacher convinced the district to hire me as an assistant for the tech department. Unfortunately, I've become increasingly disgruntled in that space to the point that I'm currently in a sort of mid-life crisis and wanting to become more of a tech minimalist/luddite, and still figuring out how to reconcile that with keeping a decent career to support my family with. If I were single, I'd give it all up and become a wandering hobo.
I have a hard time settling on interests for too long for the most part, but I've managed to get into a sort of groove where I at least have a few consistently in the rotation so that I can try to get into them with a little more depth over time, even if it's often only a bit at time with longs breaks in between. Some of those more consistent interests of mine which I'd say are favorites include:
- Programming, with Python being my preferred language. It's so empowering to be able to have an idea and be able to make it a reality.
- Reading (more recently, listening to audiobooks) mostly in the genres of fantasy, sci-fi, and environmental.
- Video games, typically with a more casual approach though I occasionally do some deeper dives (or as my wife would likely say, "obsessions")
- Bouncing around to various artistic pursuits, mostly drawing on the computer and music, whether that be composition (less frequent), singing in whatever local choirs are willing to take in singers off the street (usually ends up being churches), or tinkering with various instruments like piano, harmonica, jaw-harp (boing, doing, dwang, dwong), and kalimba. What I'm most proud of in this area is that I finally started learning the Appalachian dulcimer my dad got me back when I was 15! Took a few decades, but I finally got around to learning how to play it recently and can plink out a few tunes! I'm hoping to one day be able to sing and play at the same time.
- Whip cracking! It's a fun niche hobby (and great icebreaker to mention) inspired by my dad when he was on one of his own random interest-of-the-month dives way back in the day with bullwhips. Combine that with a love for the classic Indiana Jones movies and it was inevitable that I'd try to pick up a whip myself eventually. This isn't to say I'm any good at it, but I have fun and it presents some interesting goals to aspire to like target cracking or learning the various types of cracks. And of course, the ultimate goal is to be able to Indy Swing from a tree branch or something. One day!
I'm also prone to ramble, so in an attempt to be self-aware I'll stop myself here and call this post done.
seasnails wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2024 1:00 am
My professional life has been in the tech industry from the moment I graduated high school: My high school teacher convinced the district to hire me as an assistant for the tech department.
It's amazing how many folks (myself included) I've met now that have been through this IT pipeline haha. I worked at a school district for 7ish years right out of high school. I ended up getting hired at a software company that our district used a lot, which I've been doing for a few years now.
). I live around the Twin Cities in Minnesota with my partner and some kitties. I play video games, lift weights, and build electric guitars in my spare time. Nice to meet you all!
If anyone plays MTG arena or Pokemon TCG, I'm down !
