You must walk away from past before you open door to future

By David McElroy · May 31, 2018

I quit one of my jobs today.

It’s really more accurate to say that I made official what I had already planned to do. I let people in my department know that I’ll be gone at the end of June. I introduced them to the guy I’m recommending to take my place. So now it’s official. I’ll be gone from here in a month.

When a long-time friend — who was the chair of the computer science department — called to offer me this job almost five years ago, I first turned it down. I’m ashamed to say that it felt beneath me to work part-time for a college overseeing computer labs and helping students with their problems.

But I was broke and desperate. I hadn’t figured out how to transition from my previous days as a political consultant. I was looking for a big opportunity, but none had come my way.

I’m grateful now for a small opportunity that offered me a lifeline while I needed it.

Honestly, it was the easiest job I’ve ever had, but I was well-paid for a part-time job.

It could be frustrating at times in the beginning. Two of the four labs I oversaw had aging Dell computers that required constant troubleshooting and repair. I quickly became an expert at replacing power supplies, fixing dead fans and swapping out misbehaving hard drives.

Things got easier as all the labs were slowly upgraded with newer equipment. Then it got even easier after one of the labs was converted to iMacs last year. (I can work on Windows PCs, but I strongly prefer Macs — just as I can eat bologna but prefer filet mignon.)

When I took the job, I was pretty sure I’d be there only a few months until I found something better. But the path to something better has been a long time in coming. I’m still not where I need to be, but I’m slowly getting there.

When I leave for the last time in a month, I’m going to miss some people here. I’ve had some wonderful co-workers, but I think I’ll miss the students the most. Not all of them, of course, but I’ve run across some amazing people — including the guy who I’m pretty sure will take my place. (He’s actually more technically qualified than I am and he has a better attitude about helping ignorant people, so I figure it won’t be long before the department is grateful that I quit.)

But my focus is on the future. I’ve been working at a real estate company — doing operations and marketing — for about 18 months and then I got my own real estate license six months ago. I’ll be working in real estate full-time for the time being, but I still expect that to be a stepping stone to something else.

I didn’t want to take this job when it was offered. I also didn’t want to add the real estate job when it was offered. I further resisted the idea of getting my real estate license for about a year.

I’m not good at things that I don’t want to do, but I know I have to keep moving forward — taking opportunities — in order to get back to where I once was financially. If I stay with real estate for long, I’m confident that it will make me wealthy. If I find the right other opportunity, though, I’ll make myself wealthy in a way more consistent with my personality and natural skills. I have an intense need to create art, but I have to get paid well.

When I started this job, I couldn’t wait to get away from it. Now, I’m mostly thankful for the stability it provided me when I was desperate not so long ago.

It’s time to walk away from this place, because there are other things to do and other places to go. I’m excited about the future, but I’ll always be thankful for my time in HSB 450.

This place has been good to me, but it’s time to move on.

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It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

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