Re: Thanks, Supportive Spices & SOs

[Dan BRINEGAR <vr2link -at- VR2LINK -dot- COM>]

Pat Gantt said:

><grumbling> I still think my SO supporting
>tech. writers thread was better than what
>this [degrees] is turning into!
>

Did I miss it? Was it quashed? What was I doing that day? (Oh, ranting,
sending out 30 electronic resumes, getting groceries <blush>)

Since a couple of my latest rants started off really ticked, and ended up
with me feeling all warm and joyful inside once I'd realised how cool the
world really is (to the point of writing Beatles's songs), sure, I'll
celbrate some significant people... and this is all about
how-I-became-a-techwriter: You don't hafta read it, but I think it's
on-topic.

>I got some hints of spouses and significant others
>that supported your efforts to build your careers.
>I think this would be an interesting topic--if--
>it passes our fearless leader's selective eye.
>

Since I wrote my "Significance" essay in 1993 about a war-hero and a
3-year-old (the one who's now 7 and may someday walk on Mars or be a great
multimedia storyteller...), I've been blessed to have two very supportive,
enthusiastically encouraging, and not-gonna-let-me-feel-sorry-for-myself
people in my life.

Here's to Dad and Cathleen!

While I was flailing about, working on cars and tanks and traveling the
world seeking adventure and excitement and the other really wild things
which a Jedi does not crave, you could say that my Dad and I didn't always
get along that well (and it would be an understatement)...  then one day, I
came home with five "F's" in Freshman English: Dad picked up on my
frustration and despair, and said "Come to an STC meeting and see how
professionals *really* communicate."  With that, I found a whole new
direction for my passion.... A couple of years later, I had an opportunity
to work with him on the same project, and for the first time, we were on
the same side on all the issues in my life -- whatta difference! Working my
first grown-up techwhirling job with him made it feel as if I'd already
been working there 26 years....

He's a pretty cool guy, y'know? You could not have convinced me a few years
earlier that someone at a conference would say to me "I'm so glad I met
your Father and heard his presentation today: he's a true Visionary." Y
'know what? I was astonishingly proud at that moment.

Dad took time off from work, and then retired a little early when he needed
to take care of my terminally ill mother: he devoted every bit of himself
to her, and when she passed a week before their 36th Wedding Anniversary,
he was a rock when Jim and I needed him. Now he takes care of *his* Mother,
still helps me out in ways both mea$urable and immeasurable, and stands as
an example of those retired active middle-aged people who would have been
old 30 years ago but are jumping out of airplanes and mentoring new
generations today.

Cathleen is my Bestest Good Friend and the Most Powerful Woman in the
Universe: over the course of six years, we've been thru several boyfriends
and girlfriends, one wife, two fiancee's and near-financial ruin and we're
still available when one of us needs to share our deepest, darkest secrets.
Still there to encourage the other.  Cathleen is the person for whom I'd
gladly spend the rest of my life sitting at the foot of her bed talking
about Carl Sagan and the significance of helices from DNA to the Bubbles in
the Universe or nothing at all.

She was the first stranger in years to walk up and tell me how smart I was
(on the very day "oh-God-I'm-not-a-soldier-anymore" was htting me the
hardest), to encourage me to follow my passions,  explore my horizons,
stretch my comfort zones; and introduced me to spiritual depths I'd only
read about before. She let me spill my guts with perfect comfort, complete
honesty, without fear of judgement. She went from being someone who was
convinced she'd never produce anything more technical than a shopping list
and being just-a-mommy to teaching up-to-six computer graphics courses a
semester and reinforcing my belief that mommies are just really neat.

She's there to help me celebrate a new job by dancing around the house
singing Peter Gabriel's
 _Big Time_; the one who most strongly encourages me to finish those books
I've been meaning to write; the only person I know of who could walk up to
a publisher and say "Danny's writing a book, and we'd like you to publish
it," and actually keep the publisher in the same room and talking to us.
The one who tells everyone we meet what a genius I am <double-blush>.

Thank God Friends are Forever.

I may never be able to pay them back for all the money, help, and
encouragement they've given me, so I guess I'll have to keep working,
evangelising, celebrating, and sharing the fruits of the blessings I've
recieved.

Without Dad and Cathleen, my life would be unrecognizable as my own, and I
can't imagine it being any other way. So here's to 'em, again.


>Even though I pay my own way in this household
>in the main, .... I can never repay
>my husband enough for the emotional and sometimes
>technical expertise.
>Mostly he just let me do my 'thing.'
>
>So if you have any supportive others in your
>lives. Let's give 'em credit for helping us.
>
>Again, thanks to all. Great bunch.

Speaking of Great Bunches; in the last six years I've also got to tip my
hat to TECHWR-L: without it, I wouldnt have been around to hear about new
trends, wouldn't have followed some techwriter/tools-weenie's advice about
HTML and the Web,  or gotten attaboys and constructive criticisms from
more-experienced TCs, and I wouldn't have had a place to vent, rant, and
celebrate life in this context of what it means to be a techwriter...
thanks everybody!

dan'l

-------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Brinegar   Information Developer/Research Droid/Mac Guy
http://www.vr2link.com

Who was it that said:
"I believe the only way to get the scale of change we really need is
to focus on educating citizens so they have the principles,
the framework and the tools necessary to effect change on their own."

vr2link -at- vr2link -dot- com     -- CCDB Vr2Link
                                         Performance S u p p o r t Svcs.

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