My career path looks less like a plan and more like a series of escalating dares.
It started in the Marine Corps, where the solution to any problem is either overwhelming force or eating the problem until it goes away. After I got tired of the taste of Crayola, I became a wildland firefighter—a fancy title for a guy who got paid to critique society's largest bonfires. I wasn't fighting them; I was judging them. "Needs more chaos, a little less containment on the western flank."
After years of embracing raw, primal energy, some HR department looked at a resume that must have been a scorched piece of paper with a drawing of a screaming eagle on it and said, "This is the man we want for a job requiring patience, precision, and a delicate touch."
They call me a Controls Engineer, which is the universe's most hilarious joke. I don't "control" electrons. I glare at a motherboard until the electricity gets terrified and does what I want. My code is just a series of IF/THEN statements that all end with "...OR ELSE."
But that old urge came back. So I built a forge.
This isn't a hobby; it's a relapse. This is me, reconnecting with the only two things I truly understand: extreme heat and hitting things with a hammer until they submit. I'm not an engineer. I'm a barely-domesticated force of nature they distract with a keyboard.
Here in the forge, I don't need a keyboard. I just need fire, steel, and a bigger hammer.