Steve.Kanter.me

Today is my 21st birthday. Now, I know you’re probably thinking – “why the hell are you writing a blog post on your 21st birthday??!?! Go drink!” My lovely girlfriend is throwing me a party tonight,I will.  Relax.  With that said, I currently have some free time and have decided something important – it’s my 21st birthday, and i’m throwing away all old grudges and grievances. Anyone who may have wronged me in the past, or wronged me in proxy of others, i’m giving another chance.  You see, in the ~7,665 days that i’ve been alive thus far, i’ve made many friends, and some enemies.  I’ve found people I don’t like, or simply can’t stand.  I’ve intentionally and unintentionally hurt people.  I’ve pushed people away.  And that’s done with.  You see, we only have an extremely finite time on this earth, why waste any moment of it with bad thoughts towards others?  I’m not perfect, and neither are you.  It’s our perfect imperfections that make us who we are.  Today, I let all of my old grievances go.  Today, everyone who’s formerly been low down in my book starts over.

Hello my name is Steven Kanter.  I’m a 21 year old programmer from New York, and I’m happy to meet you.  Tell me your life story – I’m listening.

I encourage every one of you 3 readers to do the same – pick a day, and make a change in your life.  Let any old hate go.  Rekindle old friendships gone by.  Say hello to someone you haven’t talked to in a few years.  Why waste time being unhappy?

Tomorrow is my 21st birthday. I’m here today to tell everyone what I would like as a present. It’d be dumb and shortsighted to ask for world peace. Although that is the ultimate goal, it’s something that, practically speaking, may never happen. What I want is much smaller and easily accomplished. As my good personal friend Ellen would say, “be kind to one another,” that’s all I want. Every one of us has a very definite amount of time on this earth. Some of us more than others. Do you honestly want to be wasting even a moment of your time hating someone or holding grudges? Is that how you want to live? All too often I see people living their lives unlike how they want to be living, simply because they don’t take control of their own direction. Grab your life by the balls and steer it where you want it to go! (pardon the language, but it was an important point to get across.). Be kind to one another and forgiving of their mistakes. Be respectful and generous. Those of you who know me know that I much rather give than receive. I don’t say that cause I’m a conceded ass on a soapbox, but rather because it’s the truth. There’s an absolute euphoria that you get from giving. If you have the means, try it. Your be surprised. So much as far as thanking your waitstaff at a restaurant or holding the door for someone – they’ll appreciate it and it’ll make everyone’s day just a tad bit better.

For my birthday this year I only ask that the world tries to be nicer to each other. Time is short, don’t waste a moment unhappy. Love those around you and appreciate them. My name is Steven Kanter and I’m just a regular 21 year old. I’m not here to start a following. I’m here to change the world – 1 unhappy soul at a time.

Give be the best 21st birthday present ever – enjoy and be kind to the world around you. Have a fantastic day!

Because Optimum Online sucks. A few weeks ago, I was experiencing intermediate horrible speeds. So I contacted optimum, they ran a few tests and found nothing. They sent a tech, but of course it couldn’t be until the next day, and sometime between 10am and 8pm. The tech also ran tests, found nothing, but gave me a new modem to attempt to fix the problems.

It didn’t.

The next day, I contacted Optimium again and told them what was happening, and they said “ok, sure. we’ll send another tech. tomorrow between 10am and 8pm?”. First of all, if I’m talking to you at 9am, you should *NOT* be scheduling me for TOMORROW when clearly something with YOUR service is awry.  Regardless, they sent a “SR. Tech” who basically said “well, if you didn’t have so many splits in your cable it wouldn’t be such an issue, however, i’m not seeing any problems.  First, there are a lot of splits because i’m in an apartment building and that’s how they wired the building.  Second, i’ve been here for 4 months with the exact same service and the exact same wiring job, what would cause this to happen now but not then?

Regardless, he pretty much just removed a split wire and said “good luck”.  That brings us to yesterday, January 12th.  It’s been fine for a few weeks now, and then all of a sudden starting a few days ago, it starts to happen again.  My feeling was, OK, perhaps my router is starting to die.  Because i’ve had that happen before.  So I bought a new router and installed it last night.  I installed it, restarted everything, and my speeds were the same 0.77 mbps.  So I said, crap now I have to deal with OOL again.  Which brings me to today.  About half an hour ago, I go on OOL’s tech support.  I’m talking to a guy explaining what happened the first 2 times I contacted them about this, and even asked him if perhaps my account was limited for any reason, and he was less than helpful.  Oh, but wait – he suggested I do a service call.  To which I basically said, i’m tired of you guys having issues and expecting me to be around from 10am-8pm.  So he offered 11am-2pm.  Which I thought was better than the 10 hour gap i’d been given before.  Guaranteed, tomorrow’s service call will do nothing for me.

My speeds at the time of writing this

So that’s what I currently have.  But just wait…

My speeds exactly 10 minutes ago.

This is absolutely ridiculous.  I’m absolutely disgusted at Cablevision right now and I just *WISH* Verizon FiOS was offered in this building!

So, I guess this is it.  We’re about to enter the year that the world supposedly is going to end.  See, I find it funny when people think that the world is over in 2012 because of the Mayan calendar.  Did anyone ever stop to think maybe it went something like this?:

“Hey george.” – “Yeah man, what’s up?” – “We’ve got a problem with our calendar – the tablet’s too small!” – “What do you mean?  I hired that dude from the rock shop to carve me out a nice slab from that boulder over there” – “I know, but I can only fit up to 2012.  We’re gonna give those future schmucks the wrong idea!” – *silence* – “On second thought… yeah, let’s do that!  The world is going to end… December 21st, 2012.  I bet you those idiots are gonna fall for it and create a movie and everything about it!” – “Sweet!”

See, I think it went JUST LIKE THAT.  Those jerks.

And yet, 2011 will be over [at least in my timezone] in just over 14 hours.  And i’m embracing 2012 headlong.  You see, here’s a brief snippet of my timeline:

2009 – graduated high school, went to UNH for a semester and a half

2010 – left UNH in April, worked full time doing Facebook work.  Got a new job doing iOS work in October.  Met Rachel in December.

2011 – continued dating Rachel and eventually got our own apartment.  Continued doing iOS work, subsequently releasing a total of 3 iOS titles thus far with Arctic Empire.

2012 – take over the world, shortly before the world is destroyed.

So, as you can see from above, my personal timeline has changed drastically from 2009 until now.  In just under 2 years, things completely changed the way I wanted them to.  And who knows what’s gonna happen in 2012.

See, I don’t know IF the world is going to end in December.  I don’t CARE if it’s going to end.  I’m just going to LIVE my LIFE as if it’s not going to end.

On behalf of myself, my girlfriend Rachel, our two cats, Artie and Lily, and both of our family and friends, I wish you and your family a safe and healthy new year!

Party like it’s 1492 – except with electricity.

My name is Steve Kanter, and I support this message.

You woke up every morning and all you remembered was the day previous? Think about it.

Live. Life. Happy.

Every year, regardless if I share it with the world or not, I go through and think about the past 365 days. That time, like the majority of the rest of the word, is at Thanksgiving. “Why Thanksgiving time?”, you may say. “The rest of the world is reflecting – wouldn’t you want it to be special?” To that person, I say yes and no. Typically, as is my nature, i’d pride myself in picking a random day of the year, perhaps pi day, March 14th, or something totally random, such that as June 27th. But no. For this, I need to have a nationwide event.

Typically, i’m not a conceited person. Albeit that statement in itself was a bit conceited, but I digress. I try very hard not to think overly of myself. I am a 20 year old, slightly balding [sad times ], computer programmer who’s just about average in brainpower and life. And i’m totally 100% cool with that. While I may be smarter than average in certain areas, such technology, I also lack the skills, as many of you know, in things such as… foreign language. Meanwhile i’ve got a friend who can speak 3 languages fluently but is always contacting me for computer help. You know who you are . Anyway, my point is, I don’t find myself to be anything special. But this year, i’m completely honored and humbled. I’ve been shown so much love and caring this year, it’s completely absurd.

This year, i’ve had my choice of 3 households to spend this Thursday at for Thanksgiving. Not only that, but i’m actually going to be driving, in the span of 5 days from point A to B to C to D on Wednesday, D to E to D on Friday, and back to A on Sunday. I’ve had so many family members and friends attempt to get me to spend time with them this weekend, that i’m overwhelmed. Again, understand that I’m not trying to brag or anything of the sort. But these details are important to my point. I’m going to be driving all around NY State this week, not because I have to – but because these people mean something extremely special to me. I’m hauling ass all over the place to spend time with people who are crazy enough to want to hang out with an average shlub like myself.

What am I thankful for this year?

That I had to choose between 3 houses to spend Thanksgiving at. If that’s your way of showing that you love me, I love you too, you crazy misguided people. Crazy.

Happy Turkey Day, America. Enjoy your food coma. I’ll be enjoying mine!

Everything stated here is my opinion only and does not reflect that of my current employer. [I don't REALLY have to say that, i've just always wanted to!]

Everybody in this world thinks i’m an Apple fanboy.  OK, well that’s a fair point.  I’m writing this on my iMac, with my iPhone in front of me, my iPad and 2 iPod Touches on my desk.  Now, having this many Apple devices on one’s desk, or in one’s life, is typically considered insane.  To be fair, my job IS to write iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad apps all day long, so my excuse for this Apple overload is my job.  Albeit a bit of a lame excuse, but it’s the one I choose.  I use iCloud to sync my contacts, calendars, and bookmarks between my 2 computers [did I mention that I also have a MacBook Pro?  Again, to be fair, that was my main/only computer until I bought my iMac this past summer], my iPhone, and my iPad.  I follow numerous Apple employees on Twitter.  Yes, I do follow one or two of the Apple execs that tweet every 8 months, but I also follow a couple of the engineers – one of the guys behind the Foundation framework [I know chances are you don't know what that means - let's just say, I use his work EVERY DAY of my life], and a few other hugely important engineers at Apple.  I’m constantly reading rumors and musings on Apple’s current and future products.  But i’m not JUST an Apple fanboy.

Understand, yes, i’m an Apple fanboy.  However, not without reason.  Do I like to hack around?  Sure.  Do I like to use a phone that I don’t have to worry about tweaking it and modifying it just to my personality, or using a task manager to close out of apps i’m not using?  Absolutely.  Backstory on that last point – a few months ago, my girlfriend’s Blackberry was getting horrible battery life.  Whatever the cause of said battery life, it’s not important.  We went to the Sprint store to talk to them – [funny anecdote:  in the mall we went to, there was a Sprint store.  Fairly average size mall store, maybe a bit larger.  We go in and ask to speak to someone to look at the phone.  They tell us they don't do that here but to go up one floor and go to the tiny little Sprint kiosk in the middle of the floor.  Is it just me, or is that BEYOND stupid?]  ANYWAY, the point is, the guy told her/us that the cause of her slow down was the theme of her phone.  The fact that she was using a custom background and custom graphics for the buttons, that was causing slow downs.  Whether this is true or not, I have absolutely no idea, but it’s something that you physically are forced to worry about from these devices.  On my iPhone, I don’t even have the slightest worries that the background of my phone [a lovely scenic view] is draining my battery.  I don’t care about having multiple screens of widgets that suck down battery.  I just want to get in, do what I have to do, send the email, play the game, and be done with it.  Android, and other systems like it simply aren’t like that.

Now, I know i’m poo pooing other mobile OSs.  Typically, yes, I find other phones to be, well… crap.  However, and this is a big one for those of you who think I hate Microsoft – I’m not totally and completely against Windows Phone 7.  Albeit, I think it’s a horrible way to name your system, but the concept is… very unique.  I give them mongo credit for ditching that horrible terrible piece of crap Windows Mobile that they had previously.  Seriously – a start menu on a phone – SERIOUSLY?

I know you’re sitting here watching a 20 year old geek rant about stuff and looking for the point.  Here it is.  Besides being an Apple user,  I am also a heavy Google.  http://google.com/ig is my homepage.  I use a Google Apps account to manage my email on http://kanter.me [i'm {MY_FIRST_NAME_WITHOUT_THE_N}@{MY_LAST_NAME}.me, by the way - gotta love email bots.]  I use Google Reader like it’s my job.  And, like every other person in this world, Google search is a vital part of my working and non-working life.  I use Google Maps, Google Docs, i’m on Google+, etc.  Yesterday, Google announced that their Music offerings, previously invite only, were now going out of beta and open to everyone in the US.  So, I setup my Google Music account months and months ago when it was first launched.  Tried it out, never used it.  Wasn’t for me.   Yesterday they announced not only were they going to start selling music, they were tightly integrating it with Google+.  Here is the point to my whole blog post.  Google, who just launched their music store last night, is doing a better job at selling music than Apple and iTunes.  Now, I know that’s a very hefty statement coming from ME – especially those who know me – but I believe it to be true.  Now, let me justify it.  First, Apple has a HUGE collection of music in iTunes.  I still buy my music from iTunes and have no plans of switching over.  However, Google is doing it better.

One really fantastic thing Google is doing with Music is that when you purchase a track, you can share the track with you Google+ friends and every one of them get ONE ENTIRE FREE LISTEN of the song!  What the hell – that’s freaking BRILLIANT!  What better way to get users to purchase more music and expand their music selection by allowing their friends to listen to a free track RIGHT THERE in Google+.  Amazing.  Truly brilliant.

If that weren’t enough, Google is letting indie musicians sell their music through Google Music *ON THEIR OWN*!  OK, I may be a n00b when it comes to some things, but correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a big deal. That’s a big, never-before-heard-of, deal.  I have a lot of friends who record their own music in hopes of eventually making it.  I can’t wait to see if some of them start selling their music.

iTunes, I love you.  Despite how much you’re in need of a rewrite, I love you anyway.  However, get you s$%t together, Google is coming for you.

If, after this entire post, anyone honestly thinks i’m not fair to Google, or RIM or any other products, please let me know.

Sorry for the uber longness of this post.  I tend to get carried away.

Lately i’ve been thinking about writing a new blog post.  Many different topics came to mind, so clearly, I wrote about none of them.  I think tonight will be a bit of a “Kitchen Sink” post for me.  First let me start with my professional life:

As you know I currently work for Arctic Empire [http://arcticempire.ca/].  Our 2 current products that our team has done, Forest Frenzy and Galaxy Express – both of which I feel a great games, are doing less than spectacularly in the App Store.  Amazingly, it’s hard as hell to find an audience when there are 350,000+ apps in the store.  That brings me to my first topic – if: 1) You’re a friend of mine 2) You own an iOS Device [iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad] and you haven’t downloaded one or both of these games, you suck.  Forest Frenzy is just $0.99, with Galaxy Express being FREE with an upgrade for the full version.  Even if you just grab Galaxy Express and DON’T upgrade, it’d help me!  Hey – if you could solve a few levels and post them on Facebook and Twitter, that’d be golden as well

Speaking of Facebook and Twitter, most recently i’ve reconnected with a kid I went to high school with.  He and I weren’t really friends back then – more acquaintances.  Then again, my graduating class from high school was only about 200, so I knew everyone in my grades’ name and face. But that’s neither here nor there.  He and I recently reconnected via Facebook.  Turns out he’s doing some developing of his own with a group of guys to develop a site.  Interesting stuff.  Who knew a no-name high school in the uber-white suburbs would produce people that actually MAKE things.  Color me happily surprised.  Anyway, he and I started talking, and while I can’t currently work with him, it’s interesting to see what people I knew of 2 years ago are doing now.  And, as of this evening, I was talking to a guy on Twitter who’s creating this business to GIVE to his mother as a thank you for everything she’s done for him.  Very interesting stuff.  It’s nice to start networking with other developers.

Another random topic of conversation – if you 1) have an HDTV that supports HDMI and 2) have a Netflix account and 3) have any sort of content [movies/TV shows] on your computer, specifically in iTunes, I HIGHLY recommend the Apple TV [ http://www.apple.com/appletv/ ].  It’s $99 and I absolutely love it.  I’m currently streaming Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets from my Mac where I sit here typing this blog post to my Apple TV that’s connected to my 25″ 1080p TV sitting 3 feet from me.  It’s fantastic and allows me to easily watch my content on my TV without having to deal with my computer playing the media.  And it’s portable enough that I simply have a power cable and an HDMI cable connected to both TVs in my house and I move it back and forth as necessary.  Seriously – consider it.

Hmm – what else…  oh, recently i’ve gotten addicted to Words with Friends.  If you want to play, feel free to start a game with me.  It’s connected through my Facebook account.

Anything else for this post….?  Hmmmmm….  well, as I was writing this, I was texting my girlfriend Rachel.  I asked her if she could think of any more topics for me to write about in this post.  And her response was “Hmmmm me?? ”.  OK, Rachel – as you wish.  I shall blog about you.  So Rach and I have been going through the past couple of weeks and watching the entire series of Grey’s Anatomy, because i’ve never seen it before.  Today we finished the Season 6 season finale.  So we’re almost caught up.  What an insane show, I gotta tell ya.  Previously to that, I brought her up to speed on The Big Bang Theory because it’s a show that I love, and that she hadn’t seen in entirely.  Next we plan on watching How I Met Your Mother.  Interestingly, the Apple TV has played a large part in these series-watching events.  What else can I say about Rachel – oh!  She started me reading this book called “Darkfever” [part of the "Fever" series].  At first, I found it boring and hard to get into – now i’m obsessed.  I don’t really read, unless I get sucked in.  I’m going to end up reading the whole series.  Thanks for that .

Well, I think I should conclude this blog post before it gets any more lame and ridiculous.  Clearly I talked about absolutely nothing this evening and wasted a good 5-10 minutes of your time – for which I do apologize.  To quote the great Mr. Spock, live long and prosper.

As is my nature, i’m writing this post with a simple idea in mind and no clear plan.  Recently I met this girl.  Her name is Rachel.  We started talking, and very quickly decided to start dating.  She is now my girlfriend.  At the same time, my first iPhone game, Forest Frenzy was released in the iTunes App Store.  Many other wonderful things have happened to me lately.  I’ve been experiencing some of the best days of my life.  All in the span of about 2 weeks.  Which I’m finding really odd because it feels like it’s been at least a few months.  Every once and a while, I need to stop and realize just how little time it’s been since things started to simply “work out” for me.  I’m going to start getting towards my point now, because I feel like thus far i’ve basically just been bragging about my own life.  What is my point for this post?  Learn to untangle those panties.  Or, for you guys, loosen the boxers and/or tighty whities.  Try and relax.  Given, this is something very odd for me, of all people, to be saying.  I’ve basically lived my life over analyzing things; over-thinking what should be fairly simple decisions.  And simply reading too far into things.  Lately, i’ve tried to loosen up a bit.  And, be it a coincidence or not, some amazing stuff has happened.  As many most of you know by now, I left school back in April to pursue working full-time.  I’ve basically been working contract jobs… until recently.  Recently, the company that hired me on to create Forest Frenzy brought me on full-time to create further iOS based games.  As such, i’ll be traveling to and from Canada for a few weeks, starting next year.  Before I get too long winded, here is my point.  I let go.  I stopped over-analyzing my life so much and started riding the wave.  Quite often people ask me about my plans.  Whether I plan to return to school, where i’ll go, and when I plan on going.  The majority of the time, I provide the same answer:  I do plan on obtaining my degree eventually.  Everything else is known for now.  I’m simply riding the wave.  So here is my message to you, Mr/Mrs/Miss/Sir/Madam/Dude.  Learn to let loose.  Given, don’t go out and get your nether regions pierced.  However, once and a while, try and not analyze every bit of your life.  It’s worked out nicely for me – i’ve got a full-time job, a game in iTunes, with many more on the way, and a fantastic girl to kiss on new years.  Who could ask for more?

Maybe next time i’ll ask for world peace….

Hey.  It could happen.

Meh – not likely.

Believe it or not, more often than not, people who don’t know me very well have no clue what I do and how I started doing it.  I think i’ve told and retold parts of this story so many times, it’s sort-of become second nature.  What most people who know my story don’t know is, there are parts to it that they probably don’t know.  This post has been a long time in the making – required a bit of research for a timeline – and required a lot of memory digging.

Sunday May 27th, 2007.  Facebook launches their new Platform to the public.  However, platform existed before then.  It was in a “beta” state, and only really to get the developers ready for the launch.  I got started a little before the launch – probably sometime in April.  However, I didn’t really start doing anything on Facebook platform until well into the summer.  In August I launched my first product… ever.  The game was called “Lyric Challenge”, and was actually based on a game my friend and I used to often play.  We’d each name a few lines of lyrics from a song, and we’d have to guess the name of the song.   Simple.  I figured I could learn to program and make this a game at the same time.  So I did.  Lyric Challenge launched on Facebook Platform sometime in August.  Of course, back then, I had absolutely positively no clue what I was doing.  However, it was around for a few months before I decided to get rid of it.  I sold it to some guy, I don’t even remember his name, for like… $200 I think.  Mind you, this product was months and months in the making.  If anyone is interested, you can view the About page of the app here.  Unfortunately, it appears the game is no longer active.  For a very very long time, it’s been running.  Albeit, the guy who owned it didn’t make a single change to it since I handed it over – it still had my same “welcome” messaged signed by me and everything.  Regardless, i’ve often checked it out over the past few years to see if anything came of it.  It didn’t.  By the way, at our high, we had just over 3,000 users – and I was astonished.

So, Lyric Challenge was a “hit” [or so I thought?].  What next?  Sometime in October of that same year, I met Brad.  To this day, we can’t seem to remember exactly how we came to meet, but we did.  I believe it was on the Facebook Platform developers forum.  Regardless, he asked me to make an uber simple app named, something along the lines of “Toronto Maple Leafs Suck.”  The premise was simple – users could go on and post pictures and videos about how the Maple Leafs were a terrible hockey team.  I believe, all in all, this drop dead simple app took more than a month to create.  Amazingly, then still hired me.  We then proceeded to start to create a game, formerly known as “McNopoly”, but henceforth known as Peel a Meal.  The idea was based on the game where you go into McDonalds and on your food containers was a little piece from a Monopoly board that you tried and win sets of.  So, around November or so of 07 we began that game.  It launched May 10th, 2008.  We’re still running the game.  All this time later, many many things have changed, but the game is still kicking – amazingly.  Since meeting Brad, and then George in 2007, a few things changed.  First, they established a company focussed solely on socially driven games during the summer of 2009 called SlightlySocial.  Since the creation of the company, we’ve launched 2 games – Kung Fu Cookie and Save Canada.  However, due to numerous different reasons, these games didn’t perform quite as we’d hoped.  Still, the company chugs on.

So, what am I currently doing?  I’ve since taken a step back from SlightlySocial.  I’m pursuing iOS development with another Canadian based company, called Arctic*Empire.  Together, we’re working towards both mine and their first iOS project.  All I will say for now is that it’s a game.  A few close friends and family have seen it, and I kindly request they keep it quiet until launch.  Regardless, we hope to have it out very, very soon.

So, that’s what i’ve done/am doing.  How have I come to do these things?  Well, first off, i’m currently 19 years old.  In 2007 when I launched Lyric Challenge, it was right before 11th grade.  So, how did I come to learn to do this stuff.  Honestly, it’s really quite as simple as – I learned.  I went to a very small high school.  Obviously not small compared to other regions of the country, but for my area of the woods, having a graduating class of just over 200 is small.  My high school had just about 0 tech classes.  The “Computer Service Tech” class was a complete and utter joke.  I pretty much helped my teacher teach the class – and that’s not a conceited remark but a fact.  I would help him help the other kids in the class learn the stuff that I already knew – namely how to run commands, such as editing files, in DOS.  Mind you, this was in 2007/2008 – so, yeah.  As I said, a total joke.  That was the real extent of technology classes.  Whatever other tech classes the school offered – such as learning to draw in auto-cad, woodworking, even a class on transportation systems, I took.  I was involved in the AV club.  My senior year, a fellow senior and myself ran the musical of the year – Anything Goes.  We did, as people pointed out, a great job.  We stayed hours after school and manually adjusted our terribly designed and 20+ year old lighting system.  We searched the entire stage for an output for a damn monitor for the conductor [we never found one].  We even went so far as to re-aim the lights on the trees on the sides of the auditorium – something i’m sure the adults wouldn’t have been keen about, had they known.  And, why did we go through so much effort for a high school musical production?  Because we wanted to make it great.  We actually cared about the technology behind the production.  And, when it came time for the show, Bobby ran the sound flawlessly, and I ran the lights to the best of my ability.  Now, why did I go off on a tangent on this hugely unrelated topic?  I need to nail home the point that I learned next to nothing about computers in high school.  So where did I learn it?  The internet.   Just about everything I know about computers and programming I learned from trial and error and from the internet.  I didn’t have any real formal training until freshman year of college, and even that was stuff I already knew.

People sometimes ask me how they can learn to program as I do.  I’m hard-pressed to give an answer because I don’t really know how I learned.  I just did.  I just kept trying and trying until it worked.  My first, and only “full” semester of college, I took an “Intro to C” class.  Yet, i’ve pretty much learned Objective-c, a superset of C, and the primary programming language of Apple products, on my own.  Given I have learned from others, but still – without college, i’ve learned one of the most convoluted languages i’ve seen thus-far.

I know i’ve been long winded.  And that’s just part of my nature, but I also wanted to try and have people understand some of the decisions i’ve made and how i’ve gotten where I am.  What was planned to be a short blog post has turned into sort-of a mini-autobiography.  Such is life.