Jamie Dolan Bio

My name is Jamie Dolan, and I was born and raised in Neenah, Wisconsin — a place I’ve called home my entire life. Much of who I am is tied to this corner of the Fox Valley, and a good deal of my story runs right alongside the way technology has reshaped the world over the past few decades.

I attended kindergarten through sixth grade at Washington Elementary School here in Neenah. The building lives on, though in a new role: today it operates as Washington School of Early Learning, the early-childhood campus of the Neenah Joint School District, serving the district’s youngest students — its “Little Rockets” — in pre-kindergarten and early childhood programs.

For seventh and eighth grade I went to Seton Catholic Middle School. That building was razed in 2016 and never reopened under the Seton name, so there’s no longer a school by that title to point to. The Catholic middle-school tradition it belonged to does continue, though — these days it’s carried on by St. Mary Catholic Middle School in Neenah, part of the St. Mary Catholic Schools system (formerly the Twin City Catholic Educational System).

From there I spent four years at St. Mary’s Central High School on Second Street in Menasha, graduating in 1997 as the very last class to walk out of that old building before it was torn down. The school itself didn’t disappear — it relocated and lives on today as St. Mary Catholic High School in Neenah, home of the Zephyrs.

It was in high school that I first fell for technology. I taught myself graphic design on the early Macintosh computers of the day and started a little company called Squirrel Publishing, doing design work of all kinds. For a couple of years I led the school newspaper, helped with yearbook photography, and spent plenty of time developing film in the darkroom. I was the first person to scan photographs at the school — using a handheld scanner I’d bought and carried in myself — and the first to bring the internet through the door, somewhere around 1996. I hauled in a personal computer and a fifty-foot phone line, which the school kindly let me run across the building to a utility closet, and I believe I gave an America Online demonstration to show people what this new thing could do.

Around my junior year, that curiosity turned into a real business — an internet service provider I named PowerNet Online Services, later also known as US Power.net (uspower.net). I started small, reselling dial-up internet accounts I’d bought wholesale. By my senior year I was renting an office building at 304 Appleton Street and working toward a 64K line and the first real equipment — a Livingston PortMaster router and banks of modems. Over time it grew into something much larger: multiple T1s and fiber optics, a 3Com Total Control chassis, Cisco 3600 routers, and Sun Solaris servers humming away in the racks.

By the year 2000, with DSL and cable moving in, the competitive ground shifted under all of us, and I had to look for new directions. I merged PowerNet into Digicorporation, Inc., a local printing company that wanted to open an internet café, and I was a part owner of that venture for a couple of years. In 2003 I struck out on my own again and opened Ashwood, Inc., a digital printing company focused on digital direct mail. It got off to a strong start — and then significant health issues arrived and made it impossible to keep going.

From 2006 to the present, I’ve shaped my life around my own interests and whatever my health allows. That’s included a number of website projects, this blog, the care of my pets, and a steady habit of continued learning. For several years I ran a website for my dad’s Willy’s Jeep, until he retired it in the early 2010s. I’ve long had a dog group called Paw Dogs, still on Facebook and referenced at pawdogs.com, though its activity has thinned as Facebook has changed over the years. I’ve also have several health support groups tied to my own experiences, helping people track down information and find a little support along the way — where I share my own experience as my health permits. Photography has remained a constant — you’ll find a good deal of it shared here — along with a deep and growing interest in artificial intelligence and the speed at which it’s racing toward genuinely agentic capabilities.

I hold what feels like a fairly unusual vantage point on the history of technology, simply because of when I grew up. The early part of my life was essentially without the internet and without smartphones, and the computers of the time were about as primitive as they come. When I started high school, our Macintosh had four megabytes of RAM; the machine I’m writing on now has ninety-six gigabytes, and the phone in my pocket has twelve. I was there in the early days of dial-up, helping people get online for the very first time — their first blogs, their first web pages, their first domain names, their first businesses. I was there selling and designing direct-mail postcards to help local businesses spread the word about their brand-new websites, back before online advertising had taken hold and before Facebook was even a public platform. And now you’ll find articles right here on this blog where I share where I think we’re headed with AI. I think it’s enormous — a lot like the dot-com explosion, except it’s unfolding far, far faster than what we lived through decades ago.

Away from the screen, I love to cook; sous vide, grilling, and a good espresso are a few of my favorite things. I enjoy a trip to a state park, and some of my most treasured travels have taken me out west to places like California, Washington, and Montana. Over the years I’ve had the joy of caring for many pets, and you’ll find photos and short video clips of them scattered throughout the blog. I don’t have any pets at the moment, but they’ve been a wonderful part of my life.

In 2024, after decades of mystery ailments, I was diagnosed with late-stage Lyme arthritis, confirmed through laboratory testing. Finally having an explanation has meant a great deal. I’m in the care of my medical team, though it’s a complicated road — decades without proper treatment have a way of making things harder to untangle. I do my best with what I’ve got, stay actively involved in my own self-growth and self-care, and work to keep an optimistic outlook despite the adversity that’s come my way.

So — welcome, and have a look around. Thank you for reading this far. I hope you enjoy some of the material I’ve put together with care here, and please feel free to leave a comment or use the contact form if you’d like to drop me a note. I always do my best to respond as my health permits. Thank you so much.

For old times’ sake, here’s my original 2009 bio.