LoL.... Yes, up stairs. I also sometimes get stuck *under* pool tables
Well, let us see...
I was born in Portland, OR in 1970. I am first generation US from my mother's side (they are French/French Canadian) and 5th Generation on my fathers side - Welsh/Irish immigrants from back in the day. My parents met and married in the Peace Corps in Nigeria (where, incidentally, is where I was conceived.) My parents were the true hippie sorts - we didn't even have a TV until I was 8 and didn't have cable TV until I was 16. I have a sister - Heather - who is 10 years younger than me.
I did the public school education, but tended to have more fun outside of school. I took up Violin in kindergarten, started also on Cello in 4th grade, switched from Violin to Viola in 5th grade, and added piano in the 8th grade. I belonged to a variety of groups (from the Portland Youth Philharmonic to various quartets that we would play at weddings, etc.) In middle school, I would hop a bus downtown to a "Saturday Market" and play viola/cello to make some extra cash.
I started soccer in kindergarten as well, and played all through high school then switched to rugby in college. I am not really athletic, but do enjoy remodeling, etc.
I was always into tinkering, electronics, animation, etc. I have done everything from setting the middle school science lab on fire (that will teach them to give *me* fire and tell me to see how much heat I can conserve) to blowing an entire floors electricity in a capacitor experiment in high school. I did an internship during high school at Will Vinton Studios working on a few small commercials (it is an animation company.) I also made a series of animated claymation movies staring Dirk the Daring when I was .. oh.. nine to eleven years old. Used an old Bell and Howell super-8 camera, a hand editor/splicer and a projector.
Like any kid in that era, Atari ruled initially, replaced soon by Sinclairs, Vic-20s and C-64s.. and then x86 came rolling along. I took a few years of BASIC programming classes in middle school and helped write an award winning game with our teacher and classmates (Dr. Dr.) on some TRS-80 Model IIIs. Took some Pascal, etc moving forward as well. But was mostly just an "end user" for all practical purposes once I got into high-school and until I left college.
I took five years of drafting/architectural drafting in High School (I took classes at the HS while I was in middle school, they were right near each other.) I thought I wanted to be an architect - until I found out how nasty, ugly, competitive that industry is.
I went to Reed College in Portland - starting in their Nuclear Physics program. But.. they used Apples in their nuke lab and they drove me nuts. I also started taking a lot of.. mind altering substances, so I decided I should switch majors - so I went with Mathematics. As it turns out, that is also not good if you are ingesting large quantities of mind altering substances, so I switch my major again - to Philosophy ..
I married my high school sweetheart, which ended in disaster - but did yield two really great kids - Eli (11) and Claire (9). I could go on for hours about them, but will save you the boredom
For work, I have done everything from grocery (clerk, cashier, asst. product manager) to pizza delivery to doing live animal demonstrations at the Oregon Zoo. I worked for 7 years at a coffee roasting company that started opening retail stores, which was interesting. We went from only little retail store to 70-something of them in five states. When I left, I was IT Director (having previously been Master Roaster, Store Manager, and Regional Manager) - it was at this company that I got back into computers...
Post divorce and having left the coffee company, I worked for a while at Sprint (T2/3 dedicated line support ¡V ISDN, T1, etc.) but when they merged with Earthlink, I ran away fast. I then moved to Seattle to work for a software company, and is where I am still today
I have remarried to a *great* woman, recently moved into a great house and am having a blast with the kids. And loving my job as well
All I could think of off the top of my head..
Edit:
Smurf Fact #1:
I was the 3rd Generation to graduate from US Grant High School in Portland, OR.
ou are never going to be able to vote for the revolution. Get that hope out of your mind" -Jerry Rubin
