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A brief introduction to J. Staute The Chance of a Realtime A J. Staute online epic Sponsor this page This page last updated on or about 3-4-06 a - j m o o n e y h a m . c o m - o r i g i n a l

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A brief introduction to J. Staute

J. Staute of 1990 AD was a workaholic toiling alongside an old high school-through-college friend again for the first time in years. The stint was unusual for Staute in several ways, but sufficiently intriguing (and well paying) to hold his interest.

So far as Staute's executive friend Steve was concerned, Staute in 1990 was basically a good trouble-shooter of personnel problems and technological bottlenecks who in a pinch could serve as an effective crisis manager or assistant project administrator, and could be trusted with the most sensitive of issues-- so long as those issues didn't get too dark in ethical terms. Steve considered Staute's personal moral compass as simultaneously one of his best features and worst flaws. It at times rendered Staute a little more honest and direct than was best for him or others. Staute's independence (due to his self-employment experience and low cost spartan lifestyle) was his second worst flaw in Steve's view. Combine the two and Staute was often fearless in business situations which would have had others quaking in their boots. More than once Staute confronted corporate executives far above him in the company hierarchy in ways which astonished his work-mates-- and yet somehow managed to keep his job.

Staute's friend Steve was in some ways a far bigger risk-taker than Staute himself. But the two friends early on had pursued almost diametrically opposed paths. While Steve climbed the corporate ladder and traveled the world, Staute preferred free time to pursue personal research and development projects above all. So while Steve was rarely out of the corporate workforce, Staute tended just to work in brief but high profit self-employment stints only as was required to keep his head comfortably above water, and his projects alive.

By contrast, J. Staute of 1972 was a young and often brash college student, still learning the ropes of entrepreneurial ventures while putting himself through school and applying the finishing touches to what would be his first major automotive project: a home-made super car created from a 1969 Ford Mustang, named Shadowfast. Shadowfast would meet a spectacular end not long after the events of 1972 described in The Chance of a Realtime (but that's another story).

As Staute usually preferred anonymity and working behind the scenes, plus possessed only the most average of appearances and physiques, and almost always worked alone (so few ever learned much about him) there wasn't a lot to make him stand out from the crowd in 1990. And perhaps even less so in 1972. Despite this, Staute was destined to be recruited for one of the most pivotal roles in all of human history during his early college years. A role he would be forced to immediately forget, until eighteen long years later.