A Thought Experiment:

How my Parents's Dislike of Video Games brought ned to SF

Have you ever thought "How did I get here? How did this situation come to be?" Here is a very interesting thought experiment I performed this evening (while trying to fall asleep).

The Steemit Meetup I helped put on a couple weeks ago, was an incredible success:

• 120+ people
• Met some incredible Steemians @virtualgrowth @happymoneyman @cybercodetwins to name a few
• Learned about SMT's (Smart Media Tokens)
• Heard @ned speak Live, in person!!!!
• Got to speak about why Steemit is an incredible platform for those new to cryptocurrency/blockchain

But how exactly did I end up co-hosting a Steemit meetup in a Steemit shirt I bought from @steemitshop in Silicon Valley on a cool Monday evening?????

Well, let's take a look. Here I will trace back the series of events that "Helped bring @ned to the Bay Area."

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To do this, I will go backwards, starting with the meetup event.

1. I co-host a Steemit meetup in SF with @ned as speaker.
2. I contact @ned, asking if he would be interested in speaking at a Steemit meetup with no serious belief he will be able to come speak.
3. I contact @steemrollin and tell him I am interested in reviving the Steemit SF meetup.
4. I lookup the Steemit SF meetup and see that it has not met up in many, many months.
5. I attend meetups weekly, from QTUM to Ethereum to Bitcoin, meeting people and learning, learning, learning. Now in SF, these meetups are only a short walk away.
6. I attend my first SF Ethereum meetup at a Food Truck park in San Francisco
7. I meet Matt, the host of the SF Ethereum Meetup, for the second time in a week at the Silicon Valley FinTech week conference, first time was a few days prior at a Bitcoin meetup, my very first crypto meetup ever.
8. I earn a free ticket to attend the Silicon Valley FinTech Conference via EOS.
9. I begin meeting with local crypo enthusiasts to discuss crypto, blockchain, etc.
10. I dive deep into Steemit, running a witness for a week, developing fun side projects, and helping moderate @steemitbc
11. I transition from blogging about my side projects to blogging about my life and experiences in the blockchain space
12. I begin blogging on Steemit weekly as I try to construct a cryptocurrency from scratch (very basic implementation that was never quite finished)
13. I attend the MIT Bitcoin Expo
14. I signup for Steemit
15. I talk on the phone with @ned and we discuss Steemit, the future of cryptocurrency, and incentives + blockchain
16. Partying with friends and a buddy from my school's rival I first hear about Steemit
17. I win the CGI blockchain competition
18. I spend an entire month focused on an independent study of blockchain
19. I enter the CGI blockchain competition and hear about blockchain for the first time
20. After a few months of blindly applying to CS internships, I hear of a local company, CGI, that is putting on a competition
21. I enter my second year of college CS with a focus on becoming a better CS student and getting a cool internship
22. I complete a summer internship as a mobile developer in Australia
23. I build a POS (Point of sale, not proof of stake) system with a friend, a mobile ordering application for my college's cafe
24. I join the computer science club at my school
25. I am cut from the ice hockey team at my school and begin searching for something else to do with my time
26. I begin college, hell-bent on playing college hockey
27. I spend the entire summer preparing for college hockey tryouts
28. I spend a year at prep school, playing hockey and taking CS classes that were not offered at my first high school
29. I have to choose between prep school or junior hockey. I go with prep school because the academic opportunities available at Phillips Exeter Academy are unmatched.
30. I finish high school and begin looking into my options for the following year.
31. I finish the 10 week intro to Python course at Sandia National Laboratory.
32. One day someone comes into my CS class and discusses a brand new intro to CS class for high school students that is being put on at Sandia National Laboratory
33. I take my first CS course ever my senior year of high school
34. Frustrated, I enroll in CS classes for the following year.
35. I realize I have no idea how to code
36. I download XCode, name my game and am suddenly faced with reality
37. I have the sudden desire to build my own IOS game
38. I get my first iPod Touch and immediately download nearly every free game from the App store
39. I become an iPod nano gamer, exactly what my parents feared
40. I upgrade my first iPod nano and now have a nano that can play simple games including Sonic the Hedgehog
41. I get my first iPod nano for Christmas
42. I grow up without any real electronics, my parents believe Game Boys are bad, game consoles are worse, and cell phones are unnecessary

Pretty incredible right?!?!

So, for those who were able to come to the SF Steemit meetup last week, don't thank me, thank my parents. If they hadn't disliked video games and banned me from playing them when I was growing up, this meetup may never have happened.

And with that, I need to get some sleep! Cheers and Steem on!