Growing up, I knew money was always a struggle for our family. I never had the latest computer, nor could my family afford a laptop. I always had a game boy though. The original, the color, the advanced and DS. That really was my portable computer that I took around. I mainly stayed loyal to the Pokémon franchise and have played just about every version of the main game. I started with blue, then yellow, then silver, then crystal, then sapphire and took a break around then for a long time. Later in life, I played Black 2 on an emulator, ultra moon on the 3DS, then finally violet on a Switch. I bought the 3DS and Switch specifically to play Pokémon.
When we got our first family computer, one of my favorite things to do besides play with Paint and figure out what everything you could possibly click to was- design Pokémon cards that I printed out on paper with perforated sides and holes that you tear off. I actually lived down the street from my current partner of 7 years. She was just 3 years behind, likely not doing anything on a computer.
I hogged and begged and pleaded until I got a computer of my own in my bedroom. At first it was just the same messing around with Paint, browsing the internet, and listening to music using the same software my dad used to play it while he would DJ (Winamp). I became interested in Linux because of one of my dad’s friends. My dad was never that knowledgeable about the stuff in that sphere. His knowledge seemed to end at installing windows from a CD. I believe I was distro-hopping before I hit puberty.
My parents did get me a nice upgrade from what I had at the time one that unfortunately was plagued with issues getting setup. It wasn’t their fault, and I felt bad at the time that it didn’t just work like it was supposed to. But this was a key piece of equipment that if I didn’t get, I probably would have lost interest for something else. I had a few more desktop tower upgrades since then and lost the desktop I had. During this period is where I spent most of my summers in my room at the computer instead of out playing with other kids. My friends would literally come to the house and beg me to leave to go out, and I would make something up saying I can’t right now. I didn’t start getting out of the house more until high school, marching band and band camp.
I wasn’t able to afford my first laptop until my 20’s. A Lenovo gaming laptop that I spent my entire income tax refund on. I got another desktop somewhere during this period that I can’t quite recall right now what happened to it. After working my way from the factory floor into the office at my last job I bought myself my first measured desktop build that I could afford. I decided to go AMD because it was cheaper, and I ended up regretting it. It will still have use for me in the future, but at the time I was blocked out of some things developmentally because they were locked to Intel processors.
There was a critical point while working at my last job where my grandpa paid my court fines. He offered, and it came up in natural conversation. It saved me at a time where there was so much on my plate, and my finances were stretched so thin, I was at risk of having a warrant put out for my arrest due to non-payment. He set an example for me that I will never forget. This happened while we were eating lunch together every day in the cafeteria at work. My grandpa can also be credited for not letting me walk out the door early on.
Now at 32 I have what I would have considered a dream growing up. I have a traditional laptop, an ARM laptop and a nice desktop computer and nice monitors that I have to keep locked in a storage unit. I only carry my laptop(s) with me depending on the day. I am sincerely waiting for the police to catch the criminals who did this to me so I can continue my passion on my devices without fear of the house being broken into and having them stolen.