To be very honest, Ewan is my pen name. But how about some real information about me?
About the use of a Pen Name
Since in my paying job, I see a lot of innovation and advances in technology AND due to the objective of being totally factual at that job, I am not able to express my visions of the future using my real name since these viewpoints might be and usually are contradictory to the stated direction of IT experts and pundits.
Lastly, where did the pen name Ewan come from?
I apologize in advance to any Scot offended by the use of Scottish Gaelic in the episodes.
Parts of my family, along with over half of the people where I live in Western North Carolina, have Scot ancestry. Like any American claiming Scot-Irish heritage, mine has been traced back to Scotland, Ireland, and the Nordics, including ancestors from the McDonalds, Campbells, Stewarts, and Tudors.
The Foundation
I spent the early years of my life living in rural Alabama, where hard work, family, community, faith, and country living were the norm. After graduating high school in a town of 2,200 people, of which 600 were in grades 7-12, I went to college at a D2 university where I graduated Cum Laude in Math, Physics, Computer Science, and Chemistry. Not wanting to take any more exams, I joined the US Navy to become an officer back in the day when aviation officer candidates were sent to Naval Air Station Pensacola. Soon after joining the Navy, I realized every day was an exam.
At NAS Pensacola with other Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) peers and running many times around the F4 Phantom at Aviation Schools Command, I graduated as one of 17 out of the original 40 in my class. To get an idea of what it was like, check out this video. OBTW, 17 out of 40 included five people from the previous class who were injured and fell back to our class. So, it's more like 17 out of 45. The funny thing, though, is our Drill Instructor, who looked amazingly like the one in the video, said on day 8 that he would be graduating 17. Coincidence or Goal? In any case, it was 17 of us, and our class was the first one to have more than one female in the class. We started with 4, graduating 3, one of which became the first woman to night qualify for carrier landings.
During my time in the US Navy, I specialized in Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4SRI), starting in the E-2C Hawkeye. Follow-on tours included C4SRI in one form or another, from an exercise where a US carrier would help supply water and power to Bay Area residents when an earthquake hit to a few other actions that I can’t disclose. Within the same year as my idea to have a Carrier provide water and power, the Loma Prieta earthquake hit, and the Carriers did what we had practiced.
Another Path
In 1993, Bill Clinton balanced the budget with the help of Thomas S. Foley partially by invoking the “Involuntary Release from Active Duty (IRAD)” mandate. And like most of the junior officers in the Navy, if you weren’t a pilot or nuclear power officer, you were “let go.” Funny thing though, when GW Bush became President, they asked myself and others to “come back,” but by this time, we had all found civilian jobs; to wit, is where I am today.
So, when a person who specializes in C4SRi leaves military service, they go into jobs that require decisions, computers, and plans—basically, we become Information Technology Consultants, which is the job I have today.
Since I have a job that is not based on fiction, or rather one that removes fiction from IT plans, I write here - the fictional side - under a pen name.
Life after the Navy or rather Life After Active Duty
I spent another 15 years in the Navy Reserve performing alongside many of my friends from Active Duty after the Clinton IRAD departure. I dedicated 25 years of my life to the Navy, balancing my commitment to the Navy with God, Family, Country, and my civilian job—not always in that order, to my family’s disappointment.
I want to thank my wife and children publicly for their lifelong understanding of that commitment. Life has been very hard for all of them, with me being away from home for the civilian consulting job and the Navy Reserve commitment, which was more than just two weeks per year—more like three to four months per year.
Today
If you haven’t figured it out, I work in Information Technology and have always been on the leading edge of it, even in my older years.
What I see with Artificial Intelligence is both amazing and scary. When I first started thinking of the plot and the twists and turns of this journey, I included many aspects that had not yet been pushed into the public domain.
With the craziness and advances in AI from 2019 through 2024, many of the plot twists and capabilities have already come to fruition. So, I ended up rewriting the plot.
The new plot includes more ideas and risks about our advanced technology life and how far with just a wee bit of innovation and abuse where it could lead.
So, call me Ewan.
Like in the phrase, “you’n ain’t going believe what I am about to tell ya.”