A Journey of a Thousand Miles

Rags to Rayman, the title of this series, is a bit of an exaggeration. Just a few short weeks ago, I was sitting pretty with a cushy job as a corporate litigator and collecting a fat paycheck on a biweekly basis. In all fairness, I was hardly in rags. Still, the name is catchy, and I'm keeping it.

In any event, I left that cushy job just as I was coming up on two years as a lawyer because I simply couldn't imagine doing it for the rest of my life. That was about all I knew, though. When asked what my future plans were (and I was asked a lot), my regular refrain was "I'm figuring it out." Note to readers: don't try this at home.

So I did what any reasonable person with a wad of petty cash and no job does: I traveled. Several weeks later and after much soul-searching, I landed on something that felt right. That something was software development. I had picked up a tiny bit of Python back in high school and had half-assed my way through an introductory course of C++ in community college (while watching Breaking Bad in the back of the classroom). But it was only part way through law school that I actually started to get in the groove, about the time I first dabbled with Unreal Engine 4. Since then, I had been toying with the idea of getting into development, and especially into gaming and virtual reality.

But inertia is a powerful thing. With thousands of dollars down the drain in tuition, I felt I had to stay on the roller coaster. It took me years to work up the courage to change course and to make my peace with time lost. In the end, though, I took a leap of faith, and here I am. Many of my friends and colleagues called me "brave" for making that choice, though there is a fine line between bravery and stupidity. Here's hoping I'm on the right side of that line.

This series, and the site it calls home, are a living record of my forays into this new frontier. I don't know where I will end up, but I'm looking forward to the adventure all the same. As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So...

Step.