Starting over at the drawing board

In 1999 I started over. After a herniated-disc operation I chose a completely new direction — and went back to school.

My back had caught up with me. After the operation, returning to my old work was no longer an option. That's a strange moment — you're not done working, but the door to what you used to do closes.

So I chose something new: a vocational course to become a construction draftsman. Back to school, at an age when most people are "settled where they are." Exciting, and honestly a bit uncertain too.

But it fit seamlessly with who I'd always been. Because drawing had by then moved to the computer — with AutoCAD. And that digital side suited me, after all my tinkering years earlier. Where classmates struggled with the software, it felt like coming home: construction and computers, together in one trade.

I finished the course with a six-month internship at a building design firm. Real drawing work at last, learning in practice — and discovering how much it suited me.

What I didn't know yet: that exact combination — building and digital — would stay a common thread. And lead me, years later, to my own software.

A setback doesn't have to be the end. Sometimes it's a beginning.

Next: freshly into the trade, and immediately lent out to a big conversion project — that failed completely.