Sit and be humble with me

September 4, 1997
by Alex Zavatone

So I'm hanging out at Canter's house on Potrero Hill In San Fran, 2 days after my 32'nd birthday, rain is pouring down, there's a great view of the City and we are buzzing rather heavily. Remember, we're trained professionals - don't do this at home.

Marc's phone is ringing off the hook. Stray threads of thought are flowing rather steadily. I just dubbed Marc, "the King of segues". Strangely, I'm not really blown away that I'm hanging out at the house of the guy who started the company that created my carreer path. That in itself is odd.

Marc tells a story of how JT and his kids were over for thanksgiving. JT wrote this language called Lingo.

I remember back to college in '87 where at 2 am, I snuck into the computer lab, was rendering on 3 mac II's and pulling everything together in the prerelease of Director 1 on the 8 meg IIx. Looking at the credits of Director and Swivel 3d 1.1l, the names of John "JT" Thompson, Dan Sadowski and Young Harvill still stuck in my mind. "WOW", I thought, "having your name in the credits to these programs is like having your name in the credits of Star Wars! Even Key Grip would be cool!"

Funny, now I've worked with these guys. My name is still in some of the credits. 4 years were spent on "God knows how many projects" at Macromedia. I was fortunate to come on to the Shockwave 4.0 team and be part of that crazy project. But things changed. I left. The burning question of "What's next?" sticks in my mind. Looking around and listening to Marc talk to his kids on the phone, I really wish that I took a business minor in college. And expecting to find the next major lesson, there are none to be found. The inspirations that I found while visiting Sweden and at IDSoftware are missing. There are no great lessons here.

Bummer.

Maybe the point of this visit is that sometimes there are no inspirations. Maybe it's time to stop justifying that "I can hang out with the big boys" and take the knowledge and opportunities that are present and make something out of them. Maybe there is a time for inspirational thought, a time for organizing your thoughts and a time for contructing a plan. Maybe I oughta just shut up and write a business plan for the next killer app.

Maybe I really should?

On that note, it's late and I think I've got a lot of work ahead of me.

- Zav

The day's still not over yet. You've still got time to change the world.

A Director user since 1987, Alex (Zav) Zavatone has worked on the engineering teams for both Director and Shockwave, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Recent investigations find him developing foundation classes for Director with asynchronous process management and other life threatening activities. In its early days, he had something to do with this Internet thing known as "DOUG". A noted ne'erdowell, slacker and laggard, Mr. Zavatone is nonetheless is trusted by children, small animals and the elderly. In his spare time, Mr. Zavatone rehabilitates lame desert trout.