I spent elementary school outside of Cincinnati where I played chess with a next door neighbor every day for a year. I beat him almost every day, but we both cheered so hard the day he finally beat me! He went to a private school and we were both chess champions of our respective schools. The Reds are still the only baseball team I even check the scores.

My parents were divorced, but we all wound up back in the Nashville/Middle Tennessee area. The private high school I went to was tiny and didn't have a chance at anything computer related, so I took keyboarding (typing) because it's all they had. It was so small everyone (me included) played football or else we didn't have a team! I was also in Mu Alpha Theta (MATH club) and graduated 3rd in my class.

My first year of college, I took BASIC, Pascal & FORTRAN. Then I took some time off to find myself.

This led to 20+ years of construction work, bartending, food service, and several different positions at hotels. I started a business with my wife where we raised Lovebirds and sold pet bird supplies. I showed Lovebirds at that time, too and won the Lovebird division of the National Cage Bird Show twice! We had season tickets for the TN Titans and middle Tennessee will always be home for me.

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