You might be wondering why I haven’t put out many new episodes of my podcast over the past few years. One more obvious reason for this is the fact that I have two young-ish kids (aged 10 and 6), and this sucks up a lot of time I would otherwise have to edit podcasts, as well as the energy required for such a task. I’ve also been trying to take up more side projects to broaden my experience in electronics repair, design, and modding (with a dash of designing for 3D printing). But there was another reason I wasn’t even aware of until recently.

I had been working for a health insurance company since 2014, and before that, Paetec/Windstream from 2009 to 2014. Needless to say, neither of these are what anyone would call their dream job. Not the worst jobs in the world, to be sure, but “inspiring” isn’t the word I’d choose for them. I was happy to have these jobs, especially given that I had graduated college into the worst American economy since the Great Depression. But gratitude for not being destitute can only carry you so far.

I was slowly becoming miserable. Every day I was dragging and forcing my body to do something it desperately didn’t want to do, and my body was fighting it more and more. I would frantically search for new podcasts to listen to just to have something interesting for my brain to be entertained while I did the blandest work imaginable. Food was also a common comfort, since it allowed me to feel something while I waited out the clock each day. The degree to which tabs were kept on us at the health insurance job was also quite demoralizing; they didn’t just take meticulous note of when you clocked in/out, but would also track how often your screen was locked and even your mouse movement. In fact, if you left your mouse unmoved for two minutes, they called it “idle time” and you could get dinged pretty hard for it. It certainly gave you a sense of urgency, but at the expense of your sense of human autonomy.

As a form of therapy over the past several years and as a way to gain some modicum of control over my increasingly prescripted day-to-day existence, I took up electronics as a hobby. It started with simple circuits like Atari joysticks and little LED flashers, but slowly grew into console mods, repairs of all sorts old electronic junk (computers, radios, CRT televisions, toys, etc), and I even got into circuit design and engineering by way of EasyEDA and KiCad. 3D printing also entered my life by way of a Christmas gift from my parents (an Ender 3 V3 SE) and I rapidly got into design for 3D printing as well.

AYWAYS – the company I was working at did a “Voluntary Resignation” program earlier this year and offered me $10,000 to get lost. It didn’t take long to for my wife and I to decide that this was my out. This was the best chance I was ever gonna get to take my electronics work to primetime. So, with the help of the WNY Law Center in getting the paperwork started, my supportive wife and kids, and my pent-up passions, I started my own lil’ business: Lockhart Electronics! Within a week of being done with the health insurance job, I felt joy return to my life. Colors became brighter, the air smelled sweeter, and waking up wasn’t so hard. I instantly had more patience for everything around me. Every ounce of my energy was no longer being monopolized by a dull job with low reward (seriously, my base yearly salary never exceeded $50k), and I no longer had to rely on fumes to carry me through the care tasks of raising two kids. The road ahead certainly isn’t going to be easy or guaranteed, but it sure looks to be much more life-giving.

So what can you expect for what’s next? Well, Lockhart Electronics is launching itself as a place you can go to seek repairs or mods on all sorts vintage tech, be it old radios, CRT televisions/monitors, old consoles, old computers, or heck, reel-to-reel tape recorders! I’ve already built up quite a portfolio of work, including recapping over 20 Game Gears (and more than a few screen replacements), building dozens of modded NES controllers for consoles like the Atari 7800, Colecovision, and Commodore 64, repaired many models of stalwarts of early computing (like the TRS-80, Commodore 64, Apple II, etc), and even designed and built a pin converter so masochistic fighting game fans can play Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game in a standard Street Fighter II arcade cabinet! And if you’ve been reading my annual-ish updates, you also know all about my adventures in building TTL video games out of a 45-year-old book. A website is forthcoming, but if you would like to reach out in the meantime, you can shoot me an email at Nathaniel@lockhartelectronics.com.

And what does this mean for the podcast? It’ll still be a spell before it comes back to any sort of regularity as I get this plane fully off the runway, but it is still in production! In fact, I have a doozy on the editing block regarding some very fun, very nerdy navel gazing. I also have some others I’d like to record, but scheduling that sort of thing while starting a small business is a bit tough.

In the meantime, if you’d like to support my transition to full time repair/modding/3D printing/podcasting guy, I do have a seldom publicized Patreon that can be used as a sort of tip jar. I would very much appreciate the support, and I’d like to be able to add some features to it! In fact, if you have any suggestions for fun lil rewards, I’d love to hear ’em.

Thank you so much for your support over the years, and I hope you’re all as excited for what’s to come as I am!

Nate