Blaugust Introduction – Blaugust 1

659 words.

This is my back yard and the raucous neighbors who frequently visit.

Today is the first day of Blaugust. I thought I would start by introducing myself, something I probably should have done a long time ago.

Hi! I’m a middle-aged guy who lives alone in a somewhat rural-ish house with a dog and a cat. I’m “in my 40s,” though in truth I’m now a lot closer to 50 than I would care to admit. I was married for a time, but now I’m divorced. I don’t have any kids. I’m an INTP and/or an INFP depending on my mood when I take that test.

I always list my occupation as “software developer.” .NET application and web development has been my specialty over the last ten years, but before that I wrote Amiga software, and my knowledge base actually goes all the way back to around 1985 and 6809 assembly language programming on a TRS-80 Color Computer.

I’m currently unemployed, because I quit my last job in 2017. I’m taking a sabbatical while I figure out how to make a living for the rest of my life (I can’t “retire” for eighteen more years). I don’t particularly want to go back to working for someone else. If anyone has any great business ideas, let me know. :)

This is my dog Bella on the couch which is now basically entirely hers, and the stray cat who wouldn't leave, Gracie.

I have a wide variety of hobbies and interests, including reading, writing, music, and art (ie. most everything). I consider myself a “creative person” before anything else, which if I can get on a soap box for a moment, makes life difficult because modern society is not built for creative people.

I’ve had issues with social anxiety since my 20s. It’s an ongoing problem that comes and goes. I was taking antidepressants for a long time but I stopped last year for various reasons. Currently I think I’m managing okay but every day is different.

I’ve been playing computer games pretty much since computer games were invented. I started “gaming” when my older brothers introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons around 1979. I graduated to an Atari 2600, then a TRS-80 Color Computer, then an Amiga. I moved to DOS/Windows/PC Gaming when Doom and Quake made all other computer platforms obsolete.

I can trace my origins in writing “blog posts” back to around 1997, when I posted “match summaries” on a Quake clan web site. I’ve maintained one or more of my own web sites since 1998. My first semi-regular blogging, in the format that we know today, began around 2003 on my real name web site, using a PHP blog platform that I wrote myself. I wrote about politics and current events until around 2010 when I got bored with that.

I launched Endgame Viable in October 2013 because I wanted to put game-related content on its own site, and I wanted to switch to WordPress and stop maintaining my dumb PHP thing. (Actually I started in 2012 but I renamed the site in 2013.)

I write here under the name “UltrViolet” because it was the only name I could think of when I started. It’s the name I used in Quake, playing in the Crayola Clan. I’ve been trying to think of a different name to use for years now, a subject that itself could probably fill several more blog posts.

That’s enough for now. It’s hard to fit a lot of information into a short post! I have also learned that writing about myself in a blog post makes me very anxious hehe. That’s probably why I don’t do it very much.

P. S. The followup visit to the doctor this morning confirmed I have high blood pressure, so I will be starting some meds for that. Of more interest to the topic of gaming, I got a referral to see a hand specialist as well.

Related

This page is a static archival copy of what was originally a WordPress post. It was converted from HTML to Markdown format before being built by Hugo. There may be formatting problems that I haven't addressed yet. There may be problems with missing or mangled images that I haven't fixed yet. There may have been comments on the original post, which I have archived, but I haven't quite worked out how to show them on the new site.

Archived Comments

Syl 2018-08-02T19:40:43Z

This was an interesting read! After following your blog for quite some time now, I feel like saying “nice to meet you”! :D

Now, I overheard you can sing too? :)

UltrViolet 2018-08-02T20:12:09Z I have been known to sing but I’m a bit rusty now. Not that I was ever great at it or anything. I will probably expand more on music and some of these other topics over the course of Bluagust, unless I think of something better to write heh.

OceanMariee 2018-08-04T15:31:03Z

Hi wave Welcome to Blaugust! The picture on the top is very familiar, since I live in a smaller city in Iowa and we frequently see deer. They literally live in the middle of town.

I also have anxiety issues. But I find that gaming and interacting with others online helps. I think it’s because it’s easier to control online interaction than it is to control in-person interaction. Online you can just stop chatting with someone or block them if you need to. There is no block button in the real world, so real life interaction has a scary element to it that I’m NOT EMOTIONALLY PREPARED FOR.

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