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the fact that you're quick to tell me you're a pardoned felon but not why gives me a creepy feeling, and I say that with a lot of felon friends and family..

probably not the detail to omit to try to hook a readership..

technical aside : on low bandwidth connections your site acts really inconsistent and weird; it appears to be downloading those on-hover sound files.

    I was unable to rent apartments in San Francisco. 
    I was unable to get a job directly after being released from prison. 
    It's funny because when you owe the state $17,000 in restitution and
    you can't get a job, people become extremely desperate. 
    And that desperation can easily put you right back into prison.

I suggest that serially denying paid-for redemption (fines, incarceration) forever (never ending punishment delivered via criminal records) is deeply evil.

Thanks for sharing this!

I tend to hang with a number of folks with similar stories (I've been a Recovering drug addict for 46 years, and only mention it now, occasionally, because I'm not looking for a job -and it's usually not relevant to HN discussions).

Mixed feelings about it, though appreciate you sharing. Retired at 38 also sounds way too young, not as in "good job dude" but as in you have so much life ahead of you.

Thank you for sharing this. I would be excited to read your autobiography.

I find stories like yours inspiring, and reassuring in a way. I'm increasingly worried about this trend toward being tough on crime in response to growing public disorder, increasing maximum sentences, and generally taking a no-holds-barred approach because good society has been wronged.

I've been a victim myself, from petty theft to assault when I intervened to stop a hate crime, by people out on bail with long court records. After being assaulted I really did start to question my beliefs on this. But I still very much genuinely believe that people can change and should be given a second chance, even though some won't take it seriously, and for others it might take a very long time.

I've met quite a few people with criminal records, or records as youth offenders, who genuinely did become better people over time. A former classmate of mine used to deal cocaine and is now a personal trainer with a wonderful personality and sense of morality. Another used to be a lookout for a stash house and has similarly moved on from that life.

I guess that's what I find so reassuring about stories like yours. I've seen people change and move on from what was probably the worst chapter of their lives, and become people I'm genuinely glad to know. I worry that in our societal desire to be tougher on crime, we're becoming less willing to give people that chance. And I think stories like yours are a good reminder of why we shouldn't lose sight of it.

I read the first chapter of your autobiography, looking forward to reading the rest. For the current audience reading this, do you mind spoiling/summarizing how you got into software engineering? Had you dabbled in it before your conviction, and did you study it while serving your prison sentence?

>What I'm doing now is writing an autobiography. The main theme of it is hope.

Hope to work hard and win the lottery ticket when the game is stacked against you? What hope?

I'm happy for your personally, but it doesn't sound like a message of hope.

Minor feedback: please don't have your site make noises. It's distracting.

He hit (killed?) his father on the head with a baseball bat.

Show HN: I write books and stuff and have a juicy clickbait hook

Good for you, mate! Less good for those nuclear secrets you may or may not have stolen and those antelopes you may or may not have sex trafficked

your website uses the exact tech as the openAI website that they had for Astra. Interesting

Assault and Battery with a Deadly Weapon.

Ummmm, actually, I can think of a few politicians who have been accomplices to this, or have authorized this type crime, even one more recent, on a massive genocidal scale, against foreign citizens.

"All this time, no one knew that I was a convicted felon".

Hmm, did he change his name, or ?

And definitely seem to give off 'smug' vibes about his life afterwards. I'm all for people paying their debt but I didn't get the main theme of hope.

I got a feeling of lack of remorse and someone sort of sociopathically showing off.

Telling people that you are a convicted fellon without disclosing what you did is a red flag to me.

Especially if its for the purpose to drum up interest for your autobiography.

What did you do?

Tldr:

Hit his dad on the head with a metal baseball bat with other family members around.