So what has happened in the last 8 years?

 What a devastating blog to read. Yikes. I don't know what brought me back here exactly, but I'm working on a Saturday and something triggered memories.

Let's hit the high notes I can remember from each year:

2015:

• I got my cat! I called him Caligo on the papers but he became "Beast" after Katy.
• I think I was still DJing a few times that year
• Still doing tech support of all kinds at MFA Oil
• Had my last real feeling of love with Rudi. I don't think I can really describe that time in my life anymore.
• Volunteered at Citizen Jane Film Festival
• Tried and mostly failed to learn C#, but I did learn a ton trying to reverse engineer and decompile code running on cell routers at work. These hardware experiments would lead to my curiosity 5 years later, and in turn lead to getting a job at EquipmentShare, starting my data career.

2016:

• In the summer, MFA moved me to their new truck shop in Moberly. I started doing all of the tech stuff for Bob Powell, the manager of the truck shop and an incredible man. During this time I was learning a lot about electronics and circuits on a basic level. Bought an oscilloscope and learned to solder (poorly).
• Trump was elected president. We all remember where we were and what we did that day. I remember feeling so resigned and posting something on Facebook like "fine, it's your turn. You all asked for this, so don't fuck it up. Good luck." My mom posted something insinuating that she agreed and I was being mature. Rudi said it broke her heart. I'll never forget those.

2017:

• At some point I accepted a job offer in the DevOps department at the MFA Oil home office back in Columbia. They wanted me to be a sys admin for the newer point-of-sale (DSI) and help do the testing since I was the one with the most knowledge about the truck system aside from Jennifer (my first boss there). 
• Justin Traub and I started working together and we built a cool example of a logging system for the trucks' PoS.
• I moved to a tiny old house in the middle of the city under the water tower. It was a wonky little place and my pipes froze twice and burst once. Sponge bathing with cold water sucks. It was 40F at the floor and 110F at the ceiling because of how bad the insulation was. 
• I think I started dating Katy late this year.
• I bought my first board games aside from Elder Sign in 2012. I got Arkham Horror The Card Game and Dragonfire. They were OK, but I definitely realized there was more to uncover.
• Bought a 2007 Pontiac Grand Prix from Phillip for $2k.
• At this point I think was making $59,000 a year.
• I turned 30 and started to really feel my body falling apart. I remember starting to get psoriasis on the back of my head, in my ears, on my eyelids, and on my left hand. It manifested mostly as dandruff and really dry skin in general. Between my left hand's middle and ring finger will peel, my ears will itch and bleed on the inside, and the back of head will itch and flake. 

2018:

• I moved to a duplex on the far south side of town that Katy found for me.
• I broke up with Katy
• Jeff and Jane got a divorce after she had some "episodes". I don't know exactly what happened but Jeff stayed with me for a few days.
• I began my obsession with board games after I bought Zombicide. I distinctly remember the adrenaline I felt while playing it solo.
• I brought 2-3 new games to work every week and we played them during lunch.
• At work I moved into a Business Analyst role and started writing specs for new ERP modifications. I started learning a little about project management and software development practices.
• $67,000? I can't remember. 

2019:

• Justin started preaching to me about data strategy and governance. I remember thinking he was way too conservative and rigid in this thoughts, but eventually we agreed on more than we disagreed.
• This is when I first got access to their ODS and started playing around in the databases I could weasel my way into. I realized that I didn't want to go much further into just pure business analysis because it seemed like way too much organization and meetings. I wanted to design the solution AND write the code instead of having to design it and then translate it to a developer.
• My board game collection skyrockets.
• I sold the Pontiac back to Phillip and bought my mom's 2014 Ford Focus.
• In the fall I get sent to Indianapolis for training on the new PoS system they're going to implement. It's incredibly old and I was shocked at how ramshackle the whole thing was.
• I was tasked with making the existing truck system work with the new PoS (Energy Force, née Propane Magic), and poking around in the hardware with my oscilloscope and logic analyzer was fascinating. I decided to try programming again and "settled" on Python. In December, it stuck. I think I was hypomanic because I worked 12 hours a day every day learning everything I could and trying to fit Python into my job. I started learning basic SQL as well. My first Python project was to split up a text file of 150k SQL statements into chunks that could be executed separately.
• Got in a fender-bender for the first time in October and nearly totaled the car.
• I dated Heather for about 6 months, and Mandy for maybe 2.  

2020:

• I bought some cheap microcontrollers and did some fun tests with running Python on them and connecting various sensors.
• Python took over everything for me in January and I was writing code all day every day for months. I hated my job because nothing was interesting there and everything was holding me back. I hadn't felt that energized in a long time. Likely hypomania again.
• In March, I joined a game jam (https://itch.io/jam/mini-jam-50-islands/rate/592551) to further force myself into programming. I did this at the end of a nearly 2 week vacation and when I was supposed to return to the office, they said to stay home until further notice. Something about a pandemic? No clue.
• I worked from home every day until July when they started making us come back in a couple of times a week. 
• I found and fell in love with a browser game/community called Blaseball. I became a community manager for them Discord and had the best time online I'd had in probably 15 years.
• I built a huge Django project that automated testing in our ERP. It was a massive beast and no one ever used it aside from a couple of times, but it showed me what I was capable of with enough mania.
• I joined Keith (Keyleth now) Cameron's (friend from high school) Discord server and played a lot of online games with their friends. I met Virginia Siegel there and she's been an excellent friend ever since. 
• I applied for a business analyst position at EquipmentShare and was offered the job on 11/11/2020, 3 years ago to the day of this writing! I started on 12/2/2020 and would be there until 8/28/2023. I think I started at $69,000. I met some of the best coworkers I've ever had and we partied sooo hard over the next couple years.

2021:

• I noticed that some friends younger than me were buying houses. So I bought a house!
• At EquipmentShare I learned an incredible amount of SQL and learned how to not manage extreme growth. Everything was mired in technical debt and it led to a ton of frustration over the next 2 years, but it gave me an incredible platform to jump off of.
• For some reason I decided to try dating again. I matched with Brea and we dated for 6 months before she moved to Chicago to go back to school. We were laying in bed and she told me she loved me. I physically recoiled. That's when I knew I would continue to hurt others due to my own inability to connect. At the time of this writing it has been 2 years since I last saw her and I haven't seen anyone since. I last saw her in August. She tried her best to keep up the relationship but I did what I always do and I ignored it until I had to say something and end it.
• My medication ran out in July or August and the psychiatrist's office didn't return my calls or fill my medication requests. I started getting depressed and couldn't get my medication refilled so I just languished. Got so depressed I was looking up exit bags and trying to figure out what it would take to buy a gun. There were multiple days where I would be so depressed that I'd fall out of my chair and lay on the floor until my body hurt too much. I was so slow that I could feel my eyes move when looking around. I'd just moan and sob in bed for days. It really scared me because I felt like that was the first time since 2015 that I felt affected by my fucked up brain. I started feel my mortality creep in again and it was horrifying. It's 3 years later and I'm still not right after this episode. I thought I had beat it. This just reminded me of the destiny I first had visions of in 2010. It was like the end of a horror movie when the protagonist defeats the villain only for them to get back up again and the credits roll.

...
I'll try to come back and fill in the next 2 years in another post tomorrow if I remember.