By Brian Douglas

Since I’ve been invited to post here on an ongoing basis, I figured I’d introduce myself to the readership before I post my first official report on local Occupation events. I am not an impartial observer, as the Occupy Wall Street movement is very personal to me. I feel that it is important to tell the story of my journey within OWS so far, if for no other reason than to encourage other Occupiers to share their own.

I moved to Bushwick in January of 2011 with my pregnant girlfriend, Deb. We met at Lucky Jack’s open mic, enjoying the night lives of amateur singer/songwriters. We fell for each other pretty hard, pretty quick. Both of us are computer professionals, I do web design, she does video editing. At the end of February 2011, our son Dominic Oscar Douglas was born (named for my grandfather and the fact that he was born on Oscar night). As anyone will tell you, having a child changes the way you look at the world: it extends your view of the future. I was lucky to have concluded a big freelance gig just before his birth, which allowed me to stay at home for his first two months and just be with him and Deb fully. I loved it. It was the first break I’d given myself from following politics in quite a long time. I got by working from home until July, when I landed a full-time job animating banner ads for a major bank (oh, life).

I have always occupied my down time reading the news and blogs (especially Glenn Greenwald, whom I have been reading daily since 2005), but rarely engaged in any actual activism apart from trying to support the Howard Dean campaign in 2003.