The VTech years

As a kid I used to program code into my trusty little VTech toys so my cashier dreams could come true. I built mini POS systems for play time. The toy came with games. I wanted more than the games.

That instinct kept showing up. I never went deep into HTML or CSS at the height of millennial blog web design, but I learned enough to handle corporate microsites and internal pages when layout suddenly mattered at work. Logic classes and Venn diagrams from school came back years later when I started building and teaching BI reports. Include, exclude, and, or. Knowing that kept my reporting from being wrong in ways nobody would have caught.

The same instinct is why I’ve gone past the chat window with AI. Chat is one interface out of several, and most people stop there. Ask a question, get an answer, move on. Or worse, hand over the judgment calls entirely. Either way most of the capability stays on the table.

Going further is where it got interesting. I’ve built automations, set up a design system I can replicate across my own brand work, and revived projects that sat dormant for years. Work I expected to take months took days.

The tool always has more than what it hands you on the surface.