Me.
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
- One of the 13 original founding states
- United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted here
- Second state to ratify the United States Constitution
- During the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg was fought here
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
This the world my family enters
Muzio
& Anna
Guiseppe
& Adelina
Northern Italy: Printer
Southern Italy: Mason
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.