My name is Dr. Thaddeus Ozone.
I'm an artist, and I'm a philosopher.
I'm also... a web designer. One of my biggest edges in this industry has been my ability to learn quickly. I
use my tools, and bleed every drop out of them.
I've been a designer all my life, and have worked (on and off) at it for over twenty years now. In my life, I've been a warehouseman, a street peddler, an itinerant artist, a truck driver, an auctioneer, a comic book artist, a furniture designer, a screen printer, print designer, and, of course, a web designer. It's been a cool life so far, and I'm liking it pretty well; I don't expect it to get boring anytime soon. Life is good.
Your pal,
-doc-
"Specialization is for insects"
I do many things, and am expert in a awide range of odd subjects. Specialization, as I've mentioned, is for insects. Here's a few of the things I do.
• I like to play with Adobe Photoshop™
• I like to program computers
• I collect antique childrens books
• I can burn my own plates and run an offset press
• Ditto for Screen Printing :)
• I can drive a truck. (Articulated, even!)
• I can fix my own car if it breaks down
• I play a pretty mean game of chess
• I'm trained as a fine artist, in several medias
• I know my way around a darkroom. Photography!
• I talk a lot. About anything, any time ;)
• This list could never end... there's more!
I've known some folks in my life to whom graphics and art came naturally, they simply picked up a pencil and "drew" what they saw! Amazing. Me, I had to work at being an artist, it did not come easy to me. But the pictures in my head! Ah, they were wonderful, and I determined to learn how to get them out of me and somewhere where other people could see things as I saw them.
It was a lot of work, and it's *still* a lot of work. I went to university to study fine arts, but thought it was silly, they wanted to teach me to be creative, I wanted to learn to draw! Industrial Design taught me what I needed to learn - how to draw, how to sculpt, how to build things in a machine shop, how to sell my designs after they were done, all the things I didn't already know. I'm still learning, every day.
Why? WHY? What do you mean, "why?"
Quite simply, I have no choice in the matter.
None at all.
There's a fire that burns in me, do you know what I'm talking about? If you feel it what I feel, you'll know what I'm talking about, and if you don't understand, then you probably don't have it. No arrogance here, this is mostly a curse, and you shouldn't envy this fire if it's not there, it will mess with your life.
But I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
I like being me.
43 years of travelling, sometimes it seems like I've been everywhere, but other times the world is just full of places I need to go. I was born in New Jersey in the USA, and promptly started moving to a new state every 3 years, such is life when your dad is moving up the corporate ladder. 18 years later, we finished up in New Jersey again.
For the next 20+ years, I continued my wanderings, visiting (and sometimes living in) 48 out of the 50 states. (I've still never been to Hawaii.) My last years in the states I was based in Minneapoilis Minnesota, and since 1998 I've been living in Stockholm Sweden. Has the wandering stopped? Probably not.
I owe a lot of who I am to a lot of different people. Some of them might be aware of this fact, most of them probably don't. Such is life. Here's a few of them, in no particular order...
Bob Freeman taught me to sail. Mr Tomascevski smashed my first crappy sculpture. Dave McLaughlin taught me to fix cars. Conal Garrity is always there for me. Matti Rendahl, Venerable Developer! Doug Rau, master of the Demonweb. Mike Horwath, BOFH. Micheal Quigley, my friend. Peter Fielding, master of pixels. Cyli, Bil, Ed, Sprite, Al Angen, Alice Ann, Robert Heinlein, Reidar and Jan. My Mom and Dad, you're the best! And, of course, my Malin, life wouldn't be worth living without you. Puss! Thanks to you all!
