In a sense, my teacher was Steve Jobs himself, and all the other wizards at Apple. Since the world wide web hadn’t yet been invented, all I had to go on were the disks that came with my computer. (Although I do remember CompuServe<\/a>, and before that,\u00a0The Source<\/a>. I have, in fact, a very clear memory talking to a chap in Australia via my 300 baud dial-up modem, eight years before America Online.)<\/p>\n I practically memorized the code to Lemonade Stand<\/a>, and spent my afternoons playing Adventure<\/a>. When I later wrote my own<\/em> text adventure game, (which, incidentally, filled an entire floppy disk), and showed it to my high school guidance counselor, I could almost see his jaw drop. To this day I remain convinced that it put me over the top before the Vanderbilt admissions committee. (It also, earlier, scored me a summer apprenticeship teaching computer programming at the University of North Florida.)<\/p>\n Alas, my budding career as a programmer was cut short by a brutal comp sci course my freshman year. I realized only later that I programmed then<\/em> like I write now<\/em>\u2014by telling a story. Simply put, the cold logic of modern programming had left me utterly bewildered. Qu\u00e9 ser\u00e1.<\/p>\n ****<\/p>\n I’ve followed Steve Jobs, I think, since the very beginning, when I imagined I could actually be that guy, that cool kid out to change the world. Of course that was years ago.<\/p>\n The news of his passing has hit me especially hard, more so than I would have thought. It feels, oddly enough, like a piece of my own childhood passing. I imagine a lot of people feel this way.<\/p>\n It’s easy to be cynical when confronted with greatness, or to mock achievement, and belittle accomplishment. Steve Jobs’ life was testament to the contrary.<\/p>\n We live in an age of wonder, always.<\/p>\n Rest in peace, Steve.<\/p>\n
![\"Steve](\"http:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/steve.gif\" "\\"Steve")
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