Grendel working in the lumberyard. (click for full size)
Inexplicably I found it difficult to find work. This was the age of computers and employers were crying out for programmers... but not for Grendel... I was loyal. I was hard-working. I was idealistic! A programmer without equal! I had invented path-trees and a universal editor in my final year as a side project. I refused to swallow corruption and was fired again.
I tutored 1st years for money and ended up working in a timber yard. 4.5 years of elite study and high tech expertise and I'm measuring and cutting lumber. Unloading trucks by hand, writing receipts and counting change for customers. Fifty minus 35.75 equals fourteen twenty five. "We can give you that in 18mm MDF or 12mm ply will give you a similar bending moment..."
It's fine. I can build my strength and ride my bicycle. At least I don't have to swallow corruption!
Grendel reaching another the summit. (click for full size)
I hiked alone through the wilderness of the High Country. 10 days without support, far from civilisation. Multiple times! No GPS in those days... Just a map, a watch and a compass. Now there's a forgotten art! Many times I lost the track. Many times I plunged into the untracked scrub with no more than a compass bearing to keep me safe. Every time I emerged triumphant, albeit stressed and scratched... I climbed the mountains and cooked my pancakes over shellite flame. Self reliance! A monster in the wild with naught but his courage, strength and brains. The true test!
Last chance! I scored a C programming job doing vibration analysis. Woot! Now THAT'S my bag! I wrote the user interface, graphical routines, database interface and fast Fourier transforms. A hundred thousand lines of code, bug-free under Windows 3.0. Beat that all you pretenders!
But it was not to last. The hardware interface under Windows, programmed by my workmate, would never work properly and the project was still-born. I quit in disgust! Thanks Macroshaft!
Not for the last time was my computer career sabotaged by the incompetence of that organisation...
I tried to go back to academia and do a PhD but despite the interest of the Unis they never actually got it started.
See there! A man stands at the start of his career.
He holds in his hands his life and surveys the horizon.
Logic and data, properly employed, must lead to the light.
Refusing all false roads, what remains must be the way.
He sees his path and hopeful for now, he breaks with all he has.
Never looking back he brings his soul to somewhere brand new.
City of corruption: Begone! Your cancer I rebuke!
Sometimes in life, when all is said, a man must stand alone.