Something Out of Nothing

I love building with Lego. I have for most of my life. But I have a somewhat complicated relationship with Lego.

Growing up, my favorite set was the Lego Expert Builder Power Truck (set 8848 — thank you internet!) with a working steering wheel and truck bed which you could lift with a lever inside the cab. I would build it over and over, carefully following the instructions. I would also frequently take it apart to make things from my imagination. I remember well the flying ships with jets and lasers — sadly, I have no photos of these.

The strongest memory I have, sadly, is the time my dad came into my room, raging about something my brother and I did — I don’t remember what, just kids being kids — and threw me and the Legos I was playing with across the room, they scattered all over the room and the well designed box with compartments for each type of part was destroyed. I was shocked and hurt — both physically and emotionally. I was heartbroken and horrified for what had happened to my latest creation and for the box.

Jump forward a few years to just after my first marriage ended. I went a little crazy with the Lego Bionicles sets that had just been released. I probably should have been focusing on putting my life back together, but maybe that’s exactly what I was doing. I had lost myself in that marriage — I became someone who I didn’t recognize and wasn’t happy with. I gave up too much of myself. Building those ridiculous robots gave me something I could control, something I could build with my hands that worked exactly the way they were supposed to. Piece by piece. I was rebuilding something. It wasn’t just the Legos.

These days, I love building all sorts of sets and I love to display the sets I’ve collected and built. Maura and I also like to go to the used brick stores in town to buy bulk bricks — I like to build abstract sculptures and strange looking iPhone stands with them. I love the place it takes me, both when I’m following the step by step instructions, and when I’m free building the sculptures. Sometimes I get a little impatient when building by instructions, I’m anxious to get to the next step and anxious to see the finished product. When I’m free building I go into that other place, tapping into my creativity like the kid who built those weird little spaceships. It’s a fun place to escape to for a while.

Lego has become something new — not just an escape, but a way to connect. Maura and I build together, sometimes following instructions, sometimes just seeing what emerges from a pile of bricks. We’ve even had building sessions with friends. There’s something that happens when adults sit down and play with Lego — the potential awkwardness of adults playing with childish things together falls away and you meet each other at a different level. Childlike, unhurried, creative. It turns out that’s a pretty good place to connect from.

Lego has been there for me at some major turning points in my life. After my dad’s rage. After my first marriage ended. During the harder stretches of a long career. There’s something about the act of making something — anything — that reminds me that things can be put back together. And the shared joy of building, connecting — literally — over building blocks, is a wonderful place to be.

You don’t always need the instructions. You just need the bricks.

My wife Maura and I recently went to visit a good friend in a nearby town, about 45 minutes away. As we drove out of our neighborhood, she commented on a house that’s being built. She said, “Moving right along”, which triggered a song in my head “Moving Right Along” by Kermit and Fozzy of The Muppets. Since we were on the road, I thought it would be a great time to listen to the original Muppet Move Soundtrack. It’s such a great, upbeat and positive soundtrack and I love every bit of it.

I know this will date me, but I remember watching that movie in the theater when I was a kid and just feeling so inspired and empowered, especially when the giant Animal emergesfrom the building in the background to save the day. As silly as the Muppet Movie was, it had a pure spirit, a powerful message about following your dreams and the perpetual fight against those that want to keep us down. I remember walking out of the theater feeling 100 feet tall (like Animal was!) Even now when I hear the music or watch the movie it brings me right back to those feelings.

Those feelings were reawakened in high school when one of my English teachers introduced me to Joseph Campbell. I internalized his idea of “follow your bliss” — essentially, if you do what makes you truly happy, things will work out. I don’t know how much I believe in fate or destiny, but sometimes the Universe sends unmistakable messages. Two Bit Consulting is growing at a good pace. Good things are in motion. I feel more centered and excited for the future than I have in a long time. Hearing Maura say those words, having it trigger that song and the feelings and memories that came with it felt like the Universe confirming the momentum. I’m moving right along.

Three months ago today I walked away from a job I’d held for twenty years. I knew it was coming but nothing really prepares you for the moment when you hand over your keys and drive away.

I’ve been thinking about identity a lot in the last three months. What nobody tells you about losing a job you loved is how much of yourself goes with it. Not just the work, the identity. The morning routine. The sense of being needed. I spent the first few weeks genuinely wondering who I was without a title attached to my name and the work. I wrote in my journal: “I feel purposeless without a job, undefined.” I meant it. I had one particularly bad day in early February where I just gave in to all of it — the anger, the sadness, the feeling of worthlessness. I walked around the house all day being miserable on purpose. It sounds counterintuitive but it worked. I woke up the next morning in the best mood I’d had in years.

What I’ve learned in the last three months is that the identity I lost wasn’t really mine. It was given to me, shaped by an institution, tied to an organization, a budget, and an org chart I didn’t choose. After the shock of the change started to wear off I began building a new identity for myself. The one I’m building now is chosen. Every piece of it.

I’ve been working to launch a consulting business: building the website, creating branding, getting organized. I launched Two Bit Consulting a couple of weeks ago, and this morning I received the Articles of Organization from the state of Missouri. It just became real in a new way. My client list is growing quickly. I’ve been writing more, building things, exploring technology in ways I haven’t had time or energy for in years. I called a former colleague this week and told them that life on the other side is pretty dang nice. I meant that too.

I’m not going to pretend the last three months have been easy. Some days were genuinely hard. But I can say without hesitation that I’m happier, less stressed, and more myself than I’ve been in a very long time.
The explorer, the builder, the connector - it turns out they were still here the whole time. They just needed a little room and energy.

Disclaimer: This is a very geeky post, if you are geek-sensitive, please feel free to skip this one.

It feels really good to be back in control of my website. I missed hunkering down with the code and losing time while figuring things out. I’ve had that on and off over the last several years, but nothing gets me there like web development. I lose myself and my sense of time; it makes me wish we had more than twenty-four hours in a day.

After finishing the Two Bit Consulting website, I was feeling a little listless and in need of another project. I had moved my domain and hosting to Micro.blog a while ago, which is a GREAT platform and there are parts of it that I’ll miss, my posts and content migrated with me, so nothing was lost, but I really wanted to get back to a self-managed, self-hosted situation. Working with Anthropic’s Claude for support and assistance, I installed Hugo, a static site generator written in Go, on my computer and hooked it up to a new git repository on GitHub. A simple git push publishes the updated files to GitHub, which then automatically deploys to my Dreamhost-hosted site. I realized I could go a step further with Apple Shortcuts and created an automation to monitor the local folder for changes, which would then trigger the terminal commands to push to GitHub. It’s not quite as user friendly as a managed host like Micro.blog, but it works very well and it feels a lot more genuine to me, kind of like driving a stick shift after years of automatic transmissions. I’m much more in control and own the whole process, plus it saves me some annual costs! Also, with the automation, I can post from my mobile devices, since the local directory is hosted in my iCloud Documents folder and syncs to all my devices. As soon as my computer sees the changed files, it will push them to GitHub!

I’ve also worked with Claude to develop a web interface to allow me to edit the various parts of my site with a nicer GUI. Which I’m using to type this little update! It works really well!

You can see the result right here — you’re already reading it. Welcome to the new jakefowler.com!

Apple was founded 50 years ago today which has me thinking about my relationship with technology and specifically Apple. My first personal computer was a Macintosh IIfx with 80MB of storage. I remember wondering what I was going to do with ALL THAT SPACE! There’s no way I would ever use it all. I also remember surfing the Internet (via AOL, IRC, Usenet, etc.) with a book to read while things loaded. How far we have come! That IIfx sparked a curiosity and passion in me that I had only experienced a few times before. I had used a Mac Classic in high school and college and was fascinated by what they could do, what they meant for me and for society even then. I had also used old PCs before that, but the Mac was approachable and friendly; it was nowhere near as intimidating to use and explore. I have always loved to push the limits of what technology can do and explore every nook and cranny of each device and piece of software I encounter. Apple made it fun to create and connect with others; I met some pretty great people in IRC channels back in the day some of whom I’m still in touch with! Computers made it much easier to find your tribe, especially for the shy introvert that I was back then.

That’s part of the inspiration for the name of my website, Something Out of Nothing. I love the idea that you can sit down at a blank screen and just start creating, whether it’s a journal entry, a book, a website for your new business, a piece of music, or a whole album. Computers offer so much potential to impact humanity in so many positive ways and Apple capitalized on that in the best possible way. I still love to explore technology and its capabilities and I love to be able to share that experience with others in ways that they can understand. This is a huge part of why I do what I do; both the love of technological exploration and the pull to help others use it to improve their lives, workflows, creativity, and connections to the world. Apple’s introduction of the Macintosh and all the life changing, society changing products and services released since helped me to discover who I was: the explorer, the builder, the connector. Years later, I’m still all three. Happy birthday Apple and thank you for the inspiration.

Today I launched a website. Wait, that sentence feels smaller than it should, let me try again.

A couple of months ago, after twenty years of working in technology at KCAI, most recently eight years as Director of Campus Technology, I found myself without a full-time job for the first time in a long time. While I’ve been helping folks with IT stuff outside of KCAI for many years, it hasn’t been an official business with its own identity. After taking a couple of weeks to come to terms with what happened, I decided I needed a project to sink my teeth into; that’s how Two Bit Consulting came to exist.

What nobody tells you about losing a job you loved is how much of yourself goes with it. Not just the work, but the identity. The morning routine. The sense of being needed, of having a place where your particular set of skills and experience actually matters. I didn’t realize how much of who I was had been wrapped up in what I did until it was gone. Getting that back, or building a new version of it, has been the real work of the last several weeks.

What I missed most was the actual work. Digging into a problem. Figuring out why something wasn’t working and making it right. Helping someone understand their technology instead of just fighting it. That feeling when a project comes together and the person on the other end of it is genuinely better off than they were before. I missed that more than I expected to.

Two Bit Consulting is, in part, my answer to that. It’s real work, IT support, fractional IT leadership, web design that Maura and I have been doing in pieces for years. Making it official felt like taking back some ownership over who I am and what I do, independent of whoever is signing my paycheck.

I want to be clear about what this is and isn’t. It’s not a pivot. I’m still actively looking for the right full-time opportunity in technology leadership. The job search is ongoing. Some days it’s harder than others. But having something concrete to build and point to has made the in-between feel less like waiting and more like working.

If you know of a technology leadership role that might be a good fit, I’m genuinely grateful for the introduction. And if you or someone you know needs their technology to actually work, or a website that looks like it was made on purpose, that’s what Two Bit is here for.

twobit-consulting.com - I had fun building it. Poke around, there are a few easter eggs to be found. One hint: Konami code.

It’s been a couple of months since leaving my last job. I’d been keeping busy - learning things I hadn’t had time for, helping a few people out with tech issues - and I knew my routines had changed. What I hadn’t consciously registered was what was actually missing.

Yesterday I looked up from what I was working on and realized several hours had passed without me noticing.

That’s when it hit me.

I miss problem solving. I miss helping people figure out their technology. I miss losing time to something that makes a difference. I miss having an issue gnaw at my brain for days and then - seemingly out of nowhere - the solution arriving almost fully formed, like it had been working on itself the whole time.

I needed the break; I don’t regret it. But that moment yesterday reminded me who I am and what I’m built for - and while I’m still looking for the right full-time role, I’m not waiting around to scratch that itch.

More soon.

Since I have more free time than I’ve had in many years to explore my interests in more depth I’ve been looking at and experimenting with Artificial Intelligence. It’s here now and it’s not going anywhere. I’ve always enjoyed being on the forefront of technology, but this feels different. I remember playing with Eliza, the natural language processing computer program developed in the ‘60’s to explore what communication between humans and machines could look like. It was very basic and mostly just repeated your comments back as a question, psychotherapy style. It was pretty uncanny at first but it was very limited and we got bored with it pretty quickly but it sparked an interest, as I know it did for many people, on what the future of human/computer interaction would look like.

In my recent explorations with AI (I’ve used several different platforms for different tasks) I’ve had some somewhat uncanny conversations with the chatbots. I’ve asked them for feedback on my resume with some good results. I gave one full access to all of my notes (my digital brain - a journal, articles that inspire me, job search notes, recipes, etc.) and asked it to give me a summary of what kind of person it thinks I am and what values are reflected in my notes. It’s a little surreal to have a conversation with an AI bot about yourself but I feel like it has helped give me some insight into some things that I hadn’t thought about in that way before. For example, I feel like I have a good handle on my core values, but the recent conversation brought up some other things that I know were important to me, I just hadn’t elevated them to the level of a core value.

I think about this kind of stuff a lot; I’ve been reading about metacognition lately (defined by Wikipedia as “an awareness of one’s thought processes and an understanding of the patterns behind them.” That sounds right to me. I think a lot and I think about thinking a lot. Yes, it’s a rabbit hole. Hey, there was a reason I dove headfirst into Philosophy in college and ended up majoring in it. I like knowing what makes people tick but I really like knowing what makes me tick. I’ve always believed the moment we stop pushing ourselves to learn about the world and about ourselves, we may as well just quit. I’m always trying to find new ways to evolve and explore how I experience the world. The recent conversation I had with the chatbot about my notes was enlightening, frightening, and perhaps a little self absorbed but it gave me some interesting things to think about and explore further.

I feel like I should say something about my stance on AI. I think it can be a powerful tool when used correctly. It can also be very dangerous and make us lazy when relied on too heavily. I don’t think it should be used to replace human thought, but to supplement it. I’ve used it a lot in the past to get me started with writing a policy for work or a technical email, but I always rewrite it in my own voice. I like to use AI as a collaborative tool; not in place of my work or other people’s input and thoughts, but in addition to them. It’s also very good at some of the more tedious tasks like proofreading.

Back when I was experimenting with Eliza, I quickly realized that she couldn’t really know me. She simply reflected my own words back to me and made me interpret any meaning. What’s so eerie and striking about AI these days is that it can actually synthesize, find patterns, make connections and sometimes see things about you that you’ve been too close to notice. That’s powerful, and yes, a little unsettling. But I think that’s the point. The best tools don’t just make things easier; they make you think harder. Used that way, AI isn’t replacing human thought, it’s provoking it. And for someone who thinks about thinking for fun (and profit?), that feels like exactly the right kind of rabbit hole.

When I was a kid, I used to have the strange belief that we had a limited number of words we could speak in our lifetime; once we ran out, no more talking, no matter how much longer we lived. I know, this sounds like something a parent would say to an overly inquisitive or talkative toddler, but I’ve been told that they never said anything like that to me. I was a weird kid.

I’ve been thinking lately about the last time I was unemployed and searching for my next thing. I had recently had thyroid surgery and the doctor told me that there was a chance they could nick my vocal cords and cause permanent damage. After I went home to recover from the surgery, I wound up getting the hiccups. We called the doctor and he prescribed a surprising remedy; apparently, Thorazine (the anti-psychotic) cures the hiccups instantly. I stopped hiccuping and I was one with the universe for a while. I understood everything; it all made so much sense! I even took notes; they are complete, untranslatable gibberish but I’m sure there is deep meaning in them somewhere.

In the meantime, I did end up losing my voice; I sounded like I had been smoking for a thousand years. The best I could do was a hoarse whisper, which took a lot of effort and wore me out quickly. I had a hard time getting past the phone interview and even those didn’t last long. I felt the need to explain why I sounded like that. I was in my mid-twenties and I sounded like I was well past retirement age.

I finally got my voice back while plummeting 189 feet on an amusement park bungee jump ride. I yelled “Oh F%&K!” as I was falling and my voice suddenly popped back. To this day, if I’ve been talking a lot or have been in a lot of meetings, my voice wears out and the muscles in my throat feel like they’ve had a workout at a gym.

I was somewhat prescient about the finite nature of words as a kid; I just had the time-frame wrong. It’s not a lifetime limit - it’s a daily one. By the end of a long day of meetings, words have a higher cost for me. Maybe that’s not a bad thing; scarcity has a way of making you focus on what and who is really important.

Fifteen years ago today was the fist time I used wax to create my handlebar moustache. Happy birthday to my faithful companion, my face wouldn’t be the same without you!