In the beginning

Starting a new conversation has never been my strong point. I suppose I could bore you with a bit of background.

Classic Nerd

I consider myself as an Old-Skool computer nerd. Back even before I was a teenager, my parents had given me a shiny new Commodore VIC-20. At first, I didn't even have a tape drive, but it didn't take me long to convince my parents to get a tape drive as well. I also had one or two books with programs and games for the VIC-20 and so by trial and error, I started learning programming. When my father got a Commodore 64 I spent most of my computer time on that instead.

Game Nerd

All this time, with my exposure to these computers and not to mention the arcades that were popular at the time (now all but dead thanks to high-powered game consoles), I developed a strong affinity to arcade and computer games that's stayed with me to this day. In high-school, I would take programming classes and after whipping up my programs in half the required time, I would spend the rest of my time playing games (often to the distain of the teacher).

Toy Nerd

My other favorite childhood activity was playing with Legos. I had a fairly decent collection as a kid and enjoyed building complex machines, cars, spaceships, ect. If I had been born 10 or 15 years later, I would have had Mindstorms robot kit.

Class Nerd

As a student, I always excelled in the exact sciences and suffered in most others. Math, chemistry, biology, physics, electronics were always an easy "A" for me, while History, Government, Literature, and writing were always a struggle.

Navy Nerd

When I finished High School, I spent 6 years in the Navy as an electronics tech. I liked the electronics part of the job - I wasn't too crazy about the military part.

Tech Support Nerd

After getting out, it seemed that electronics techs with military experience weren't in high demand - at least not where I lived. I ended up in tech support where I still work. I've learned a good deal of things from that and never got tired of working on computers.

Husband and Father Nerd

Also a few lonely years after leaving the Navy, I met this beautiful woman that was capable of putting up with my faults so I did the only sensible thing and married her. I've since adopted her adorable daughter and had two more beautiful girls. Things have been busy, but wonderful since then.

Of course there's far more to my past than that, but I feel I risk this page being linked from Imsomniacs Anonymous if I go into more detail.