School Daze

Only by looking at my credit card bill can I truely believe I'm back in school! My last time as a full-time student was twenty two years ago. As a temporal yardstick realize President Reagan was early in his first term as President. (You remember Reagan right?)

I'm somewhere in the second week or so of classes. It's a bit hard to tell since I'm so confused and disoriented. My schedule is a combination of daytime and evening classes. My memory is so poor I need to look at my Palm Pilot several times a day to remember where I need to be and when I need to be there.

If I were 20 years old again I might be able to walk to school from home. It's up a very steep hill, fortunately only in one direction. The school maps are helpful, but the large amount of construction allows for only a few direct routes. If I were 20 I wouldn't have needed to invest in a wheeled luggage backpack. I feel kind of foolish noisily rolling around on the pebbled sidewalks. Yet if I had to wear clown makeup everyday to make my back feel better I do it. :)

I've enrolled in six classes, ~16 semister units, at the College of San Mateo. Since I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up I've found myself studying three different disciplines:

The first is Computer Forensics. For those who aren't familiar with the term, I wasn't until just a few months ago, this is the work required by law enforcement to retrieve evidence from seized computer systems. It shares a lot of technical aspect with Data Recovery, but with emphasis on the careful handling of evidence and following the requirements of the legal system. These skills are also in use within corporations who monitor internal usage. This "1984" type of activity does make me a bit ill at ease. Yet it's technically challenging and a growth industry (for good or ill). At the risk of sounding presumptuous, it might be good to have another person involved who's concerned with protecting our basic civil and privacy rights. Be aware of the kinds of possible abuses is helpful.

The second area is largely following up an interest from my mid-teen years. In the late 1970's I was experimenting with both digital hardware and software programming. I was writing both BASIC and simple Assembly Language programs back on a TRS-80 model I. I was using TTL chips to build logic circuits, my final plan was to interface the computer and my own circuit designs.

It's a long story; in brief, due to a faulty power supply virtually all my digital chips were fried. The total loss was probably something like $150. But for a 16 yo in 1978 that was a lot of money. I couldn't afford to replace all the lost parts. Thus I stopped working with the hardware directly and spent my time learning software. Looking back it's amazing how such a simple thing can change your life.

I'm taking two classes to renew this aborted study. One is on DC circuits and one on the basic mathematics used in electronics. While I was a teenager I tried several times to get the hang of building analog circuits using Op Amps (Operational Amplifiers). Sadly my math skills weren't up to the task.

Now we're just getting started and I'm rediscovering the joy of the hardware work. It's going to be a slow process, but I hope I can relearn what I once understood and get a grasp of some ideas that were beyond me all those year ago.

The third area is Graphic Design. I've been working with Graphic/Web Designers, Illustrators, etc. for a long time. I got involved with the web very early, 1994. In the early days the division between the engineering and the content creation barely existed.

My first position as a "webmaster" was at Sybase. There was a small team involved; yet the content was handled by one guy and I handled most of the engineering, systems admin and networking support. There were no Design Teams or endless Marketing Meetings. We just got as much useful material up and viewable as best we could.

While I consider photography a hobby and I've more than dabbled with 3D computer generated images I've had no official training. A number of web designer friends you've tried to point me in the correct direction. But one look at my website and you can see none of it "took". :)

Now I'm enrolled in a Graphic Application and a Typography I class. They are a great change from my usual nerdly studies. I could rave about how the Typography instructor's passion for the artform of the typeface is infectious. I'm just beginning to see the wonderful details and subtlety of the art.

Sadly the introduction of computerized page layout and typesetting has "devalued" the artform. Most people think you just get some free fonts with your computer software and that's it.... I'll rave more about this later. It has been a wonderful discovery.

The Graphic Application class is by far the most demanding of my classes. I'd say it's eating up about 85% of my mental energy and time. The instructor has been very encouraging and helpful. I think she understands the difficulty of an "engineer" mindset moving into something like Graphic Design.

Oh, and I have to give thanks to two friend, Mitch and Jo, I can't thank either of them enough for both their moral support and their excellent advice. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Need to go I have homework to do.