Heroes

Iain and I had an interesting conversation tonight about his heroes. Frankly, I was surprised to hear that he had anyone he would put into that category besides someone of the “superhero” variety. Would you like to know who they are? Well here you go.

1. Mario – you know this guy. Short, mustachioed plumber who defeats things like Koopas and Goombas.
2. Jason Torchinsky – he’s new. You don’t know him yet but go to www.jasontorchinsky.com and I think you will quickly see why he’s on Iain’s list.
3. George Washington – because, in Iain’s words, “he helped us form America”.

An eclectic list, yes? Let me tell you how all this started. You may or may not be aware that I have a Facebook account and I have been looking up old high school friends. One I found today was Jason Torchinsky. Jason and I were friends. Not in the sense that we hung out, because as I have said on here in the past, I was a brooder and didn’t do much hanging out with anyone outside of my best girlfriend. He was REALLY smart and REALLY funny and we walked together between classes in the afternoons for almost a whole school year. I enjoyed the brief moments we spent walking to class. I would huff and puff because I carried every single book assigned to me due to an extreme fear of being tardy and Jason made me laugh, A LOT. What happened after that year, I don’t know but he is one of the few people I remember being kind and genuine in a sea of insecurity. We sent a couple of emails to each other tonight and he has been doing some fascinating things, building robots and creating games just to name a couple. He sent me the link to his website and Iain and I went and checked it out. While we were looking over Jason’s site, Iain just about lost his mind! As you all know from reading here for so long, two of Iain’s passions are video games and robots and when he saw this person that I actually knew was creating these things he just freaked out! I think it made his interest more real, does that make sense? He was able to see that someone could take the same things he’s interested in and turn it into something for other people to enjoy and instantly Iain was over the moon about it. He called out his heroes and Jason beat out George Washington, people. Now THAT’s saying something. I didn’t even realize he had a running list. lol

Personally, I’m glad I “ran into” Jason on Facebook because I always liked him but am also happy because Iain can see that you don’t have to choose the traditional route in grown-up land if you don’t want to. You can find your passion and follow it and have fun doing it. It was AMAZING to see the wheels turning in Iain’s mind.