2002

At sixteen, I started going to every computer exhibition I could get into. Some kids saved for concerts - I saved for train tickets and day passes. I’d wander the halls for hours, but always ended up at the same place: the network booths. Switches, cables, patch panels. Diagrams of topologies taped to plastic stands. I don’t know why, but it clicked. Seeing how everything connected - physically, logically - made sense in a way the world outside rarely did. It wasn’t flashy. But it was real. And real was what I was after.