Hi.

• Background stuff about me and where I live
• Stuff about my family
• Some extremely personal stuff
• Some things I am professionally proud of

I live here

I was born here
 

(a fractional pixel away)

Random stuff about where I am from...

Pennsylvania

PA is about ~1.42 the area of Ireland

PA in American History...

It's a weird and unique mix of people!

"Rust Belt" is an informal term for a region of the United States that has been experiencing industrial decline starting around 1980. It is made up largely of the Great Lakes Megalopolis, though definitions vary. Rust refers to the deindustrialization, or economic decline, population loss, and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once-powerful industrial sector.

"The point" - 3 major rivers meet in downtown pittsburgh!

Andrew Carnegie

Homestead Steel ~1910
US Steel

We have 446 bridges in the city of Pittsburgh, officially the city with the most bridges in the world

(... almost done with the random history of Pittsburgh)

Henry Clay Frick

The Johnstown Flood

... killed 2,209 people[10] and caused US$17 million of damage (about $450 million in 2015 dollars)

Homestead strike

This the world my family enters

Muzio
& Anna

Guiseppe

& Adelina

Northern Italy: Printer

Southern Italy: Mason

"Hell with the lid off"

Strong cultural heritage, unions, politics

Silvio (Sookie) & Genoveva (Jennie)

Muzio's son

Guiseppe's
Daughter

Mary Adele (My Mom)

Mary and Joseph

Anita, Diane and Nick.

Early 1970's...
Mom & Dad meet
 

It's a weird/transformative time in America.

Counter-culture, religion, politics

They're both part of a larger religious movement...

(this could be an hour long talk on its own, so mostly - ask me another time)

(this is the only thing they have in common)

(it will turn out later that this is actually the thing they have least in common)

My dad's family is super poor german/irish 

Richard + Elanor

Rick... My (biological) dad.

My room

My best friend

Ritchie's room

His dad had TANK!

He moved away when I was 5.

Most of my positive memories from our apartment at this  time in my life involve looking at pictures, by myself of great art and illustration

When my parents were together...

About a year later...

Jim Wyse (my stepdad)

Collette and Tom Wyse (my step grandparents)

carpenter

Josephine Eisel

My best friend's grandmother!?

What are the odds, right?

Wait, it gets better!  You'll see!

Only a few houses - less than 3 miles from downtown!

<new-family>

step dad is also a preacher, but a carpenter by trade

1983

Christmas

16k of RAM!

Age 12

Age 14

Highschool.

I used to love drawing until I was about 15.

I wasn't the best.

There were other things.

Is this important?

My world was pretty small.

I thought I knew what my life would be and... I was pretty ok with it.

My Cousin Vinny

P: In what way are you qualified?

M: Well, my father was a mechanic, his father was a mechanic, my mother’s father was a mechanic, my three brothers are mechanics, four uncles on my father’s side are mechanics–

carpenter, carpenter, carpenter, union carpenter, carpenter, carpenter, carpenter, mason, mason, contractor contractor, carpenter

Uncles, cousins, grandparents/great grandparents in my family are like...

carpenter, carpenter, heating and cooling, plumber, mason, concrete worker, landscaper, hardware, plasterer, house painter, roofer

family friends are like...

Even as a kid I was helping out on stuff like this...

"This is just how it is."

Reality for a lot of my friends was similar..

Most of us didn't even stick around to graduate high school

~19

her family were electricans :)

But then things started changing for me...

Maybe I don't want to do...

this.

Maybe I should go to college... For .... Something?  Teacher? Maybe?

21.

</former-life>

<unknown>

Now... as it so happens...

Mom and dad
"know an artist"...
They belong to the same church.

Michael Dudash

He's just really nice, and starts a polite conversation..

I'd love to see what you're doing...

You know... if you're ever in Vermont...

Brian visits Vermont studio

"come work for me"

school.pause()

Long story short-ish...

Most of my actual work as an apprentice was menial, time consuming, organizational, and not very fun

He had a brand new computer, still in a box doing nothing.

There isn't a lot to do in Moretown, VT

pop: ~1500

For the next year I did only 2 things.

I spent all my evenings drawing...

 ...or painting...

Learning the tricks...

Really just... all over the place...

But also spending nights in the studio devising a system to make my work easier

And hey, let's get him on this new "web" thing too...

At the end of a year...

Kthxbye

You should do this:

One of the kids I taught had a dad who was a great engineer, 

who was also friends with Michael

and he said...

come work with me.

My mom, dad, sisters move to Hawaii

Age ~25

I buy my first house!

DOT COM BUST

(I'm ok)

My mom and step dad divorce after ~15 years - eventually they both move back to Pittsbugh

Life...

Is art actually even important to me?

I fall in love..

Age 28

We move in together.... Me +4!  8, 7 and 2.

Age 28

Almost immediately the bust catches up with me and I am unemployed for months

I find a good job, but the situation in VT is worrisome.

We sell everything and move here for a minute

I move back to Vermont... for days.

Where to move?

Research!

And so we move to AZ

fast-forward years

I work with lots of smart people

I have so many thoughts that get shared only pretty locally...

"we should do x"...

"You just have to convince everyone else in the world..."

I move back to Vermont

Lots of chats, lots of emails,

a CG

I also got involved in W3C politics to change the nature of things...

It was effective.

(this has repeated a number of times and I have laughed at comments about this a number of times.)

...especially CSS

At first, the response to this was not enthusiastic.

"Impossible things just take longer"

a quick story...

Who are these Igalia guys?

a task force could work.

public-wtf@w3.org

I feel like W3C was still not taking me seriously...

But people showed up

Step 1: Bikeshed

2015 was quite a year

My company had layoff after layoff,

re-org after re-org.

So I went here.

My step-dad's aunt had moved in here

I bought my grandmother's house

My friend bought his grandmother's house

You might see a theme starting to develop...

If you start painting, you stop thinking about something else.

You can become engrossed in all kinds of different reasons to paint
create

A closing thought to wrap up...

We create, right?

I began to think: This is different.

wood print..

Rennovations

Trying to mimic other artists

Or just doing your own thing

Turns out: This is not unique to me...

In 2015 I was invited to a private party celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Web

Hiding with a small group of smokers...

"Can I join you?"

"Hey, I really like your paintings"

"I'm sure you all probably can't relate, but... whatever things I've accomplished that are probably way more important - they somehow don't give me the same kind of gratification as something physical..."

Guy to my left: Oh yeah.

Woman to my right: Definitely.

But... Tim?

I mean... Knighted.  Changed the world, for sure.  Olympic Opening Ceremonies... Must be different right?

Best Accomplishment?  Plumbing.

So... try creating something physical :)
I think it's good for you.

So that's me.

And that's where I come from, why I am who I am, and why I do what I do.