It’s true.
No matter how corny it sounds. And as I sit here, writing this blog post, I’m thinking back at how I got here, to this very point in time. It’s been a long and strange journey.
My name’s Tom and I’m the creator of the original Online Alarm Clock. We were the world’s first online alarm clock to go live, back in March of 2006…don’t forget that, please. Since then literally dozens and dozens of imitators have come along and, you know what? I hate them all. But I digress…
All hail, Wisconsin!
I was born in a suburban town in Wisconsin. Later my family moved all the heck over the United States. For about four years we lived in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, which was kind of a tourist area on Lake Michigan; our house was located in the woods. At the time we lived there this town had a population of about 350. That’s right, 350. It was so boring for me as a young kid, because I had no friends living in the same town…my best buddies lived in neighboring towns that were about a 30 or 40 minute drive away from beautiful downtown Egg Harbor.
Egg Harbor was the kind of town known for Cow Tipping.
For those of you not in the know, Cow Tipping is a kind of modern myth. It refers to the practice of tipping over cows while they’re sleeping, which is supposed to be a fun past-time for hayseeds everywhere.
(The problem is that Cow Tipping is truly a myth, since every farmer knows that cows sleep while laying down.)
The other practice Egg Harbor was known for involves bar-hopping on snowmobiles in the winter. Each winter, at least one death seemed to occur when an unwitting and half-drunken snowmobiler unwittingly drove through a field with a barbed-wire fence, thus decapitating him or herself on the barbed wire.
Well, **** happens.
So now, some thirty years later, with Egg Harbor far behind, it should slowly become clear to you what I mean it, when I say that Online Clock saved my life.
After Egg Harbor there was Fayetteville Arkansas, then Evanston Illinois, then college in Boulder, Colorado, then a couple of years living with Mom in downtown Chicago, then about four years on the Upper West Side of Manhattan living in a horrific Single Room Occupancy Hotel, and then, due to not having “made it” in the city that never sleeps, I moved on over to San Francisco’s Mission District, and then finally to here in Berlin, Germany, where I live now.
Berlin is which is a big, spread-out city that sometimes reminds me of Chicago. Only the language is different, and they eat Döner Kebab and Currywurst here instead of deep dish pizza, ribs and pure beef hot dogs.
The Döner Kebab in its natural habitat.
Being an American dude, I feel a bit exotic here in Berlin. The life here is easy and much cheaper compared to what it was like for me back in the big cities of the U.S.A. It’s pretty safe here, too. No problems with guns on every corner. You can walk the streets at night, if you want to.
Come on over to Berlin, I say…moving here might work out well for you, as it did for me. There are a few advantages…
If you’re an American, Europeans tend to think you must be a computer genius. All Americans, right? I mean, the country that spawned NASA and the internet and Baywatch must produce nothing other than computer geniuses. If you move here from San Francisco (which neighbors on Silicon Valley), this “computer genius effect” is even intensified. Use it, as I have used it, to your own advantage. What the heck, you only go around once.
So, back to the subject of life-saving.
The Clock that saved my life.
Before I created the Online Clock website, I was kind of lost. Much of life in the U.S.A. seems to revolve around material success…and,well, I never had any.
As a result, I felt like I was walking around all the time with a big sign taped to my back stating, “Kick me, I’m a loser!”.
And then I had the idea, while working as a web programmer back in 2006, of creating the world’s first website devoted to being…an alarm clock. It took off.
Oh sure, there are those living in the USA who have completely different values and end up doing social work or finding religion. But none of that was right for me, somehow, so I simply floundered through my life there.
Moving to Berlin was a nice change. It resulted, through a serpentine and circuitous route, in the website that you’re using now.
And for me, that’s made all the difference.
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