1) I have a fairly substantial network, but most of them know me as a manager, not a tech. I'm an excellent manager (people still ask me for advice), but I don't love it. I love being a coder.

2) Of the fairly substantial coding work I've done, almost all of the work (that I can talk about) was done for NPOs, as open-source for organizations that don't have a pot to pee in, so that network is a bit dicey for me.

I am doing something that is not usual. I'm reinventing myself in-place. I've done it before, but that was back when we actually respected folks with gray hair. Running into the ageism issue has been...enlightening.

I'm also not very good at pitches. I do demos; which means no pigs in pokes. I tend to not take the wraps off of things until they have reached the MVP stage, and I'm not particularly interested in getting funding.

I just want to do what I love: write code. I'm an excellent architect. My systems tend to last for decades, but that isn't really something that folks care about, and I understand that. I need to re-tool my architecture focus as well.

I have history writing demos that can't be ignored. I'll need to build a new network, but I can't do that until I have something to show (not talk about -SHOW).