About
I’m a PhD chemical engineer, retired after 37 years in the refining, petrochemical and chemicals industry, where I supported pretty much the full gamut of technologies – mostly technical roles in manufacturing, design, or R&D, but also some people and project management Through it all I guess you could say: I learned a lot about a whole lot of things, a whole lot about a few things, but I never did learn everything about anything.
I can’t retire from math, science, and engineering; it’s just too much fun. I can leave corporate life and I can shed big company headaches. Nowadays, I work on whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. It’s a rejuvenation really – no bosses, no deadlines, no year-end reviews; just me, my curiosity, and however much I want to invest.
I created Extreme-Novice.com mostly just to learn how it was done. I wasn’t sure what I’d put here. For now, It’s a place to post just-for-fun technical articles, stories about my hobbies, and maybe a friends and family section for my sporting and political “hot takes” – we Dallas Cowboy fans are often in need of venting. It takes a bit of effort to get a website off the ground by yourself with no experience, but it was fun and I learned a lot.
Which brings me to my theme. Extreme Novice imitators are on the rise – the ExtremeNovice.com domain was selling for $3k; the dash was free. I think I have a credible claim to being the original Extreme Novice. In 2009 I started the Extreme Novice Regear Thread on Jeep Forum – the story of my project to re-gear my Jeep and upgrade my axles. The thread took off and, as of today, has over 300,000 views. I believe it is still the most ever viewed Jeep Forum thread. The way Grok Tells it: the Extreme Novice Regear Thread is iconic and BRJeep is legendary – Grok can wax poetic and I do pay him for his time.
The idea I meant to capture then and want to capture now is being an intentional novice. Intentionally aiming yourself at projects and problems that make you uncomfortable and that you know little about because the sheer pleasure of learning makes it fun. Well, fun and rewarding when it’s done; mightily frustrated along the way.
I saw a YouTube recently about learning – the journey from not-knowing to knowing, the feeling of learning, I learned, was frustration! Great learners seek frustration because frustration leads to knowledge. I don’t know why that resonated, but it did, and it sounds extreme. So here we are: Extreme-Novice.com – stories from the steep part of the curve.
I hope you like it!