Introvert Gone Wild would be more accurate, but I went with Superstar Kebab because my stash of leftover domain names from unrealized projects doesn’t include anything close enough to the former. If I ever get re-fixated on starting a restaurant cheffed by a rotating cast of street food vendors hand-selected from around the world I’ll have something to figure out. At this point, even I can tell that’s unlikely.

Of all the things I was gonna do over the last 60 years, becoming a writer (whatever that is…) has the most grey hair on it. Near as I can remember, that idea got going when a high school English teacher, Patricia Autenrieth, told a class of us to read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. I could not put that thing down. Coincidentally, or maybe in explanation, just a few years earlier I had been escorted from a meatpacking plant, queasy and no doubt trembling, while the rest of my Scout troop enjoyed the field trip. Not a good look for a Nebraska boy.

Anyway, some lightbulbs went off around what people could do with words while reading that book. How they could go places and see things, then paint the picture and make some points. They could take you with them. She’s probably gone now, and wouldn’t remember me anyway, but with that assignment Ms. Autenrieth set me off on a lifetime of prowling around in used bookstores and library stacks. 

Somewhere along the way I just kinda started assuming that I’d eventually write a book too. I’d write something anyway. Fifty years later I’m out of excuses. Am I gonna do this or not?

We’ll find out together, right here.

~~~~~~~~~~

You might be looking for something closer to a biography, so here: Grew up in Omaha, graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with an Econ degree, then moved to Seattle. That was 1987. With a set of grandparents on each coast (WA, CT) and a mom who was not shy about putting miles on the Rocket Sled, our loosely-suspended and overly-horsepowered Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser, I’d seen enough of the country by then to know the PNW was my place. For the next few years I ran a lawn service (Emerald City Lawn Company) with a buddy, which turned out be a fantastic way to get familiar with the nooks and crannies of Seattle. Around the time that was getting old the Web came along. Suddenly there was so much software work that even a home-schooled coder could get into a startup. Next thing I knew it was 2023 and I was retiring after almost 30 years in the industry, the bulk of which was spent managing data engineering teams.

Home base in Seattle has mostly been Ballard, where my wife and I raised two beautiful daughters and remodeled a couple of houses. I won’t be leaving anytime soon.

- Chris Mills (12/12/24)