About Me
This is somewhat of a rundown of my life from birth up until now. Of course it isn't a complete detail of my life; consider it more like Cliff Notes on me. If you read it, you should probably get a little bit of an idea of where I am coming from and just exactly what in the hell is going on in my mind.
I was born in Berwyn, Illinois in October of 1973. Thankfully I don't remember that day. In fact I don't remember anything of living in Illinois at all. I was the only child, and it stayed that way too (must be the quality vs. quantity thing.) My sources tell me that we moved to Janesville, Wisconsin when I was about two years old. That is the part where my memory kind of kicks in. My next door neighbor was also my best friend. Her name was Amy. We were both the same age and both went to Kindergarten except she had morning classes and I had afternoon classes. The two memories that stick out most in my mind are sitting in her driveway playing and hearing the tornado sirens go off and another time when I made an Easter Egg especially for her and when I went to run next door to give it to her I turfed it and crushed the egg in my hand. As far as school goes I remember Kindergarten pretty well. I sure as hell didn't want to go, that part I do remember. For four years of my life I get to sit around the house and do nothing but play with toys and watch TV, and now I have to go to this school thing; what the hell? Well by the time I finally started to like school and started making friends, I was told we were probably moving. Damn that life thing was starting to get complicated already. One thing we did get before we moved was a new puppy. He was a runt of the litter, but he was pretty special to me. Before first grade started, we ended up moving about 200 miles away. I had to give up my best friend Amy and start all over again with new friends in the first grade.
Well now that I was used to this whole school thing, it made it a little easier this time around. I still made friends pretty easy and got along with almost everyone. I was the typical kid. I liked recess more than class and absolutely loved the smell of the carbon copies we'd get. These were the purple copies- made from actual carbon sheets on a roller press. By the time I was in Sixth Grade everything seemed to be going pretty well. I had two real good friends and was friendly with everyone else. I started getting into extra activities around school. I was a crossing guard, I had a paper route at night, and most of my friends lived on the same block as me. Things seemed great. Unfortunately things aren't always as they seem.
It was February 13th, 1985, the day before Valentines. It seemed like any other day to me. I remember at the end of the school day being asked to bring in my boom box for the Valentines Party the next afternoon. We used to always have parties on Holidays, and I was one of the people that had a boom box. After school I had to go to the dentist and get my front tooth recapped because the old cap was turning brown. I remember my mom bringing me home from the dentist and my dad was snow blowing the driveway. When we got in the house there was a vase of flowers on the TV for my mom for Valentines from my Dad.
We didn't really eat supper that night, my dad thought he had a real bad chest cold and said he wasn't feeling that great. We did have a large Hershey's Kiss that was for Valentines Day, but we had it early. We sat around in the living room and watched TV like we always did. My dad was telling us about how bad his cold was, and that the night before it felt like my mom was sitting on his chest. My dad went downstairs to put a log in our wood stove, and while he was down there my mom asked if I heard that. I didn't. She said something's wrong with dad and yelled his name. He didn't answer. She yelled again and there was no response so we both ran downstairs to find him lying on the floor. My mom ran up to him and he sat up as much as he could and put his arms around her, said her name and then lay back down. I ran upstairs and called 911 for her and then I was sent to the neighbors' house. It was like an eternity sitting there waiting for my mom to get back from the emergency room. I was too scared to cry I didn't know what was going on or how to handle it, I was only 11. When my mom finally came back from the Emergency Room, I knew. I knew it was the worst. She came in the door and said Dad died. My whole world stopped. I knew a couple kids at school who had dads that didn't give a shit about them, and my dad who was always there for me and always did stuff for me and with me was dead. I would never get to go fishing with him again, or watch movies, or have him listen to my music and pretend he liked it. It was over, my whole life changed in an instant. That was the worst day of my life.
After the funeral we moved another 200 miles north. I started seventh grade here, and had basically turned into a shy, quiet person. I probably could have used some sort of therapy; I went through quite a bout of migraine headaches during all this. I was quite depressed by everything and basically shelled up. Eventually I was able to bury my emotions and try to move on. I got a couple friends and just tried to be a normal school kid. It wasn't until 8th Grade that I met my friend Mike. We were a lot alike, with a lot of the same interests and what not. He helped me break out of my quiet mode, at least around him. It was around this time that I developed my cynical attitude towards life. I seemed to have somewhat of a real quick wit, but a very quiet mouth still. However Mike was not as quiet as me, so whenever I would form an opinion about something, he would make sure it was heard. Mike moved in 10th grade to a town about 40 miles away, so I still saw him, just didn't go to school with him anymore. I graduated in 1991 and went on to technical college for a Marketing Degree.
Currently I have been the HBC/GM Manager at the same store for over ten years. I honestly hate this job, which has been mentioned several times in my blog. The only good thing that came out of this job was I met someone there that would end up being another one of my best friends. Twyla delivered chips to my store, and since she was only one aisle over, we just kind of started talking one day. Much like my best friend Mike, Twyla was also very outspoken and outgoing. Between the two of them over the years, I think I have come along way from being the shy and non talker I once was. If it wasn't for them, I may still be as shelled up as I was back in 7th Grade, which is probably why they are still my two best friends today.
As far as my personal life, I don't go out to the bars much, mostly because I can't stand the bar scene. I don't need to see all the slutty women, and the drunken slobs drooling all over them, if I want to see that I'll rent a porno movie. I also can't stand cigarette smoke, which makes it a little difficult to hang out in a bar anyway.
As far as excitement, Mike and I went and saw George Carlin in May of 2001. We made close to a 400 mile round trip to see him, which is something we had been talking about doing since high school.
I am currently looking at going back to school of some sort, whether it is online or an actual building to further my web developing abilities. I am extremely interested in creating web pages for a living and I hope that I will be able to make a career out of it.\
Well that's my personal life, or at least the basics of it. If you would like updates on this, check out my blog, which may or may not contain daily personal updates about my life