Born April 16th, 1977. Lived my whole life in Wilmington De. So.... let's start from the begining. I've always been a dork. No escaping that. I started out as a middle class dork in a private school with upper class rich kids. Do I even have to get into how much hell that was? Anyway, the good thing for me was that I turned out to be a good athlete. By 8th grade everybody at least knew that I was a huge dork who could greatly improve the wrestling and football team's chance of winning, so shallow as it may have been, they let up a bit.
Highschool comes around and I can't afford to stay in private school. This turns out to be the best thing that ever happens to me. I'm accepted by the new people I meet in highschool. I'm still a huge dork, but I can socialize much better now for whatever reason. Highschool football turns out to be one hell of an experiance. I'll never forget it. Baseball is my true sporting love, but I suck at it so what can you do? I can hit a fastball a million miles, but a curve? Forget about it. I continue my wrestling. I started every single varsity match from my freshmen year through my senior year. I would go on to coach for several years after I graduated and compete in several independant tournaments, but my college didn't have a team so my full time competition ended with highschool. I'm currently trying to get in shape to wrestle this upcomming winter. I've got a looooong way to go, but it will be worth it.
So yeah, highschool was mostly sports......sports and drinking. :p Damn, did we have some crazy parties in the summer. I still can't look at vodka. Oh, and somehow I ended up as senior class president through all of that.
At the end of my senior year a good friend taught me how to play guitar. That would end up changing my life forever.
I met a girl my Junior year of highschool. I never kissed her and never went out with her, but she was the first girl I fell in love with. We did everything together for a year, but I was terribly awkward and didn't know how to move anywhere with it. I'm still in touch with her. She is in the middle of a two year run with the Peace Corps in Africa. I got my first real girlfriend at the very end of my senior year. We went to separate colleges 2.5 hours apart, but it lasted 3 years. The breakup was very, very messy.
Backing up a bit, my first year of college (U. of Delaware) I roomed with my good friend who taught me how to play guitar. We swore we'd never join a fraternity. Turns out we ended up founding one. Funny how things work. We were approached by a mutual highschool friend who told us he wanted to bring Kappa Sigma to Delaware. Sure. Why not? What started as 7 of us is now one of the biggest fraternities on the campus. A fun run to say the least.
Back to my breaking up with my first girlfriend.... I was a wreck. I dropped an entire semester of courses. Before I thought of dropping a semester, I pretty much failed out the whole semester before. Ended up setting me back two years in the end. I was on anti-depressants, therepy, the works. Turns out I get set up with a girl as a blind date for a Kappa Sigma date party. She pulls me right out of it. I've never been happier after I met her. She litterally kicks my ass to graduate. I get my mechanical engineering degree. Years later, she litterally kicks my ass to take the fundamentals on engineering exam. I pass it and get my official engineering intern status... But I'm working as a technical writer. Doh! Funny how things work out. :) Things are going great with her. She moves to Virginia to teach elementary school. I stay in De. The commute isn't too bad. Marriage talk is thrown around... Then she goes to grad school at Penn State. The pressure gets to both of us, and things start to fall apart. We broke up, but we see each other frequently to this day. Glad to know her.
I had another girlfriend after her. There's a recent-ish Fight Club thread around about how I'm all screwed up over her.... Much detail there so I won't get into that here.
Rewind a bit to the "guitar changing my life". Turns out I'm a very mediocre guitar player....but my foot is in the music door. I go full force into music recording/live sound/studio work. By the time I break up with my second girlfriend, I am the soundman for my current band, Omnisoul. (www.Omnisoul.com <-shameless plug). Things go great there for two years. We're climing the ladder. That takes us to present day. They grew faster than me. We're at the "opening for national acts" level now. I have zero experiance with systems that powerful and rooms that big. I'm on "monitor board" duty right now while I learn. With work I may some day make it back to the "front of house board". Fun stuff anyway and the only thing that holds my sanity together right now.
So... still a dork (my Transformer collection is testimony to that). Still technical writing, but looking for engineering work. Single. Do'in the band thing. I'd get into more, but I'm sick of typing. :P
