I even have a strong religion. And only a few matters shake it. One issue I don’t forget shaking it and shaking it hard became waking up the morning of April sixteen, 2007, and turning at the television most effective to look at a “unique news document.” There became a few kinds of taking pictures (in development) going on at W. Va. Tech, however, details were “nevertheless sketchy.” As always, I tried to think the great, and perhaps this becomes some sort of hostage state of affairs, and all people could be exceptional. It changed into now not to be. It turned out, of direction, to be the deadliest taking pictures rampage using an unmarried shooter in U.S. History, on or off a faculty campus. In a flash, the inspiration of my religion has been shaken. I strive now not to impeach God. For goodbye, I held onto that worn-out-old philosophy (that now I regularly sense is cliché’ previous at exceptional) this is, “Everything happens for a motive.” I found no motive for this. I determined it mindless, and if I hung on to that notion, “everything takes place for a cause,” to me, it’s for the lazy man or woman’s excuse.
I sat at my domestic office table for the next few days, unable to cognizance or concentrate. I felt in addition to how I felt after September 11, and, which oddly sufficient, my first memory of such “wondering the universe” changed into in my teens, looking the frame baggage coming home from Viet Nam, and, upon coming into university, absolutely losing pals in that conflict. It became, like, even these days, looking at the news and hearing of frame luggage of young people in Iraq, I even have decided to forestall the silly belief of using the term, or at least the use of it as rarely as feasible “everything takes place for a purpose.” It, too, without problems, makes me a nonparticipant in the international in which I live. It supplies me an excuse not to write about, communicate approximately it, attempt an open-ended democratic discussion approximately it, and praying the right phrases to fall into the arms of the right individual, who can put a prevent to this “reasoning.” I nevertheless sense, at age fifty-four, that so long as I am alive and kicking, in a free u. S. Including this, it is unreasonable not to speak out, paintings, suppose and try to locate approaches to make the sector a better region for everyone. All life is treasured to me, and I cost the imaginative democracy of America more than anyone will ever know, wherein someone can question, to venture, that notion of “the whole thing happening for a motive.”
A few nights after the tragic West Virginia event, I had a dream. I generally tend to hold a pen and pad via my mattress, as, being in cartooning and e-commerce, I sense that a number of my first-rate ideas come to me in my sleep, whilst my attention is as open and loose as it will ever be.
Suddenly within the dream, I changed into instructed to invent a product that had by no means been invented (or much much less even dreamed approximately). It could be an existence-saving product. It could require excessive tech, knowledge of biotechnology, physics, and many others. I had no education (my schooling changed into Internet Technology), which could be useless in this product, besides for its marketing.
It becomes a bizarre dream. I was in a technological know-how lab with some scientists, and we watched a huge screen television. In the funny tv business of “Life Alert,” the woman “Help, I’ve fallen, and I can’t stand up.” One of the scientists instructed me that this generally does not show up. When critical emergencies appear, extra regularly than now not, the victim is either unconscious or too disoriented to push a button and cry for help. What turned into wished was a fully automatic automated bracelet that could continuously monitor important signs (even oxygen proximity), save medical records, and in fact “dial and text message” the nearest 911 or emergency middle with a complete explanation of person’s name, scientific records, vicinity, and so forth.
In the dream, I was given a “crash path” in biotechnology and designed the device. I even named it “Insert Alert” in my dream; even though it isn’t always surely inserted into the body, it’s miles noninvasive and has sensors that could “examine” one’s insides.
It even monitors blood pressure, which brings me lower back to the dream. Had best one child (as though that had been not enough) been shot in West Virginia, 911 might have been alerted right away. Subsequently, the possibility of others being shot could have been diverted. Even if the only shot had not been wearing the tool, it would have raised the only wearing its blood stress and heart charge rapid enough to put on the tool could vehicle-dial 911 with the emergency area. If you don’t forget, there has been a whole lot of confusion, and it took the police too long to get there, as a result giving the killer time to do his deed.
I woke up and took notes. Oddly sufficient, I discovered myself illustrating the tool. I downloaded the patent office work from the America Patent office and acquired my provisionary patent. I placed up a website and started elevating finances to have it built. That isn’t an easy factor; simplest approximately .001% at most seed inventions get any cash in any respect from traders. An investor contacted me, now not vice versa. He positioned up sufficient for me to agree with an engineering company to start improving on the tool. Two PowerPoint displays had been made.
At the time, “Bluetooth” turned into the quality satellite tv for pc communications protocol for such gadgets, but nowadays, there are superior ways to talk with satellites. So I did some predominant amending at the design but left the old manner up, simply if someone determined to replicate it. Good for them. They would have sunk tens of thousands in a device that might have barely labored. I by no means said all desires were absolutely educational. I have become lucky to have a terrific buddy who has several Ph.D. s, one in physics and one in electrical engineering, a senior engineer at IBM. We were close long sufficient to understand; I should open up to him. I have become nevertheless cautious. I informed him that I might inform him of my new invention if he might supply me with a quote for my website. I felt that that would be enough protection for me if he by chance told a fellow associate at IBM. I knew he might in no way scouse borrow the concept. He gave me a glowing document, and it stays on the front web page of my website.
For numerous months, I had to pull lower back at the project, when you consider that generation modified a lot, and I knew I became going to must hark on 2-3 years of development even after elevating the monies to construct the prototype, then license it out to a bigger agency for mass manufacturing and distribution.
