About Me

TL:DR

My name is Tom. I have over 15 years of professional experience as an ITSM System Implementation Specialist and have a deep passion for lifelong learning and personal growth. I have taught myself to code through personal study and amazing mentorship, and recently obtained a Degree in IT Management, feeding my continual desire to explore and expand my intellectual horizons. A devoted bibliophile, I collect books at a pace that outstrips my ability to read them, building a library that serves as both inspiration and aspiration. Spending quality time with my wife, two children, and granddaughter is one of my greatest joys. As such, shortly after obtaining my degree, we fulfilled my wife's lifelong dream of opening a coffee house in our small town that we now run as a family. My life's mission is to be able to look back on my life from my deathbed and be satisfied with the way I lived, and so far I am on track to achieving that goal. As my favorite quote goes, "Straight, not Straightened."

Why I Created this Site

I am not a writer. In fact, one of the primary lessons that I learned in public school was that there isn't any wrong way to write except for any/every way that I wrote. My writing has always been direct, and that wasn't what my teachers wanted to read. So I built up some resistance to the idea of writing at a young age, a resistance with which that I am still struggling. I've always been a very digitally minded person and only in adulthood have slowly gained a respect for the importance analog modes of thinking. So, I am now challenging myself to regularly write a blog (and microblog)... you get a front row seat to my struggle.

More About Me

I have always been a huge fan of argumentative dialogue, as I grew up in a family that debated any (and every) topic. This has taught me a great many lessons for which I am extremely grateful. Below are just a few of the abilities that this upbringing taught me how to do:

  • disagree without animosity
  • think through my belief structures and their consequences
  • identify problems (and solutions) with abstract ideas (rather than waiting until the idea is implemented)
  • communicate to a range of audiences
  • navigate nuances and semantics
  • recognize verbal miscommunications and resolve them early

I am often reminded just how rare these skills are among the general population... extremely grateful to have learned them.

Some facts about me:

  • I wasn't born with the last name "Harner", but it is officially on my birth certificate... and shouldn't be.
  • I truly believe that you can do anything you put your mind to (assuming it's physically possible).
  • My longest running hobby is collecting hobbies

More to come...