I’m a Pirate

I have a the Jolly Roger up in my office, and the sign next to my door says, “Kevin P.* Lawver *the ‘p’ is for ‘pirate’”. I’ve had the flag for a while now (got it from Archie McPhee), and decided one day to put it up so everyone who walked past my door could see it. I wasn’t initially sure why I did it. I had it, and I put it up… simple as that. My manager asked about it yesterday, and here’s pretty much what I told him (flowered up for the it-ner-net).

I realized I was never going to influence the way the company does things by doing it the same old way. I’ve tried convincing people one at a time, and it was taking too long. I needed to do something subversive, something brash and stupid and “out there”. I decided to become a pirate. I realized that picking off one at a time wasn’t going to get me anywhere, and I needed an army of pirates. I am the fast ship in a world of gold-laden galleons. So, I collected a couple other like-minded people (who don’t realize it, but they’re pirates too), and we formed a pirate club. We put out a pirate manifesto, and now we’re collecting pirates. We’re recruiting them from the ranks of the very galleons we’re going to come back and take over. We’re going to take them off of the Same Old Thing and the That’s Just The Way It Is (which are crappy names for ships if you ask me). We’re going to train them in our pirate ways and then send them back to their ships to incite mutiny.

Why does it have to happen this way? Why am I forced into piracy? The ships are too big to be influenced by a single voice. They need to be taken from the inside, changed from within. The sailors know their one way of doing things, and because it gets them to port, and keeps the captain off their backs; that’s how they do it, and nothing else really seems to matter. I can’t infiltrate every ship and take it over. That would take too long. I need other folks to go in and do it for me.

Here I am, with my musket, eye patch and preachy parrot, to say there’s another way. All those galleons they’re so fiercely protecting are about to sink. The rocks ahead are sharp and the water is getting shallow. It’s time to throw some of that old stuff overboard and learn some new tricks.

I’m a pirate. I’ve got tricks a-plenty. I’m forming a pirate army. We’re taking over.

(this is all about web standards… pretty anti-climactic, huh?)