Please, Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

A refresher for some, simply fresh for the rest.

My name is Tim, and it occurs to me that while a lot of you have some idea who I am, very few of you have the full picture. Context is key in everything in life and so here's a note that I hope will provide some valuable context for you in deciding whether I'm worth the extra blip in your inbox a couple times a week. (Or thereabouts...)

I'm a Vermonter, to start, which isn't really relevant to this in any way except that I think Vermonters tend to be nice people and Vermont itself is surely an awfully nice place. There's probably a connection there. Regardless, I do try to be nice. I've been told I do okay.

I studied two things in school: software and writing. My dream job at the time was video game development. As I neared graduation my network in the gaming industry was strong, strong enough that I started to understand how the sausage was made. Readers, never learn how the sausage is made, if you can avoid it. There are some amazing game dev jobs out there but it's safe to say far more people get thrown right into the meat grinder. 

Speaking of meat, I try not to eat the stuff. I'm vegetarian, but that is also completely irrelevant. 

Anyhow, my first freelance writing gig came while I was in college, reviewing video games. My initial assignment was a review of Cool Spot for the Sega Saturn. Humble beginnings, but we all have to start somewhere, and some of us start by critiquing an isometric adaptation of an anthropomorphized carbonated beverage logo. 

I'd like to think that my writing prowess and obsessive love of video games got me that job. In reality, I was one of the few people who owned a Sega Saturn and could put two sentences together. I've grown a lot as a writer since then. Now, more than two decades and thousands of assignments later, I feel I can occasionally string together a good half-dozen. 

My apologies, as we seem to have passed that mark a few paragraphs ago.

When graduation time came, instead of the game development route I followed the money and dove head-first into the dot-com boom of software engineering. I was a high-flying consultant billing by the hour. Before too long I worked my way up to be a software designer, then a software architect, and then an enterprise software architect. I was managing big teams of terrifyingly smart people scattered all around the globe while learning how to survive the corporate tides. Before long I wasn’t just floating, I was swimming. Each step up the career ladder earned me a little more respect and a little more money, too, but it also moved me further away from what I loved: the code.

All the while I was still doing freelance video game reviews. I would wake up at 5am and whittle together 800 words on the latest Dynasty Warriors before work. I'd blow half my year's vacation so that I could go to E3 every summer. My proudest moments were when Adam Sessler would read one of my game reviews on Xplay. I'm pretty sure my colleagues thought it was all very silly. I'm absolutely sure they were right. 

In time those gigs evolved into tech blogging and soon I earned a chance to contribute to Engadget. That was around 2006. This was the big time. I believe I was paid $12 for my first post. It took me approximately four hours of painful revisions before I submitted something good enough for then-Managing Editor Ryan Block to allow its publication. 

Go ahead. Do the math. Even in 2006 dollars that's not great.

I did get faster and, while the money never really got good, I came to love being at the beating heart of the then-exploding tech journalism world. Even more exciting was the increasing crossover between tech and cars. I became Engadget's first Automotive Editor, though still only on a freelance basis, still writing just a few hours a day, usually before dawn.  

Years later, Block's successor, Joshua Topolsky ended his tenure as EiC and went off to launch The Verge. Unlike most of my peers I decided not to follow. Instead, I threw my hat in the EiC candidate ring. My experience both in the editorial world and in the business world got me the job. I quit the software industry and became a tech journalist full-time.

Now, while nobody's ever told me this to my face, I'm sure a lot of folks over the years have said that I got lucky, that I was in the right place at the right time. And they’re right. However, I think it’s worth pointing out that I busted my ass to earn the right to be there at that time. Those folks probably didn't see that part.

Anyway, the next 2.5 years are a blur, probably the hardest of my life, but along the way I not only got a new career but a new family of amazing people. At this moment I'm not sure for which I'm more thankful. 

That job was never destined to last long. I was fired by AOL in 2013. TechCrunch broke the news before I was even out the door. 28 minutes later, I had an email in my inbox from Lindsey Turrentine at CNET. Turns out that she and CNET’s then-SVP Mark Larkin wanted to build something automotive-related but weren't quite sure how to position it. Might I have some ideas?

My dear reader, I had a few. 

That led to the next phase of my career, building a new team, a new family, and along the way having so many amazing adventures that I'm tearing up right now as I think about it.

But that phase too had to end, and so here I am beginning the next. Thank you so much for being a part of it so far and for agreeing to stick with me a little longer. I'll try to make sure that my future musings are worth yet another blip in your inbox a couple times a week. 

Or thereabouts...