Jos loved his work at WebTV because

1. he loved his many creative, bright, and fun coworkers;
2. he believed in the valuable social contribution of the product; and
3. he loved swimming freely in the ocean of challenging problems.

I think the Galoob game was a pivitol project in Jos's life. Inventing this game was the transitional step for Jos from html to javascript, from being a text formatter to being a programmer, from a liberal artie to a techie. The Galoob game never turned into the product he imagined but it gave him the Javascript skill which got him promoted from the WebTV "Customer Care" department to the job(s) he wanted next, "preview testing the next product (the WebTV plus)". Later things got even better as he became the link between customer care and engineering, and better still when he became a tech writer with a license to run around the company learning things and then writing about them. Mumsie says he was in heaven then.

I don't know if this is the place to say it (or if it should be said at all) but Jos's pay nearly quadrupled in the two years he was at WebTV (with more on the way). I mention this not to brag about my son's prospective wealth, but to illustrate that he really did find himself: Two years earlier, he had been living with his parents, unable to get an $8/hour webmaster job, and planning a bizarre life style, maybe working in a pulp mill in Eureka [I refused to cosign his lease], or being a masseur in Memphis or New Orleans [Mumsie hated this plan]. Now, not only was he enormously happy, but his income began to allow him to think realistically of having a family and a home in Silicon Valley -- though he didn't say that. He had only just turned 25 and had no regular girlfriend yet. His Mumalum and Popalop thought they'd almost made it to heaven then too.