In 1964, I was born in the city of Marietta, Georgia, were I spent the next eighteen years of my life.

After graduating from high school in 1982, I enlisted in the U. S. Air Force, with a guaranteed specialty as a Computer Programmer, but my enlistment didn't take effect until 1983 (the Delayed Enlistment Program allowed qualified candidates to get specific jobs guaranteed in their enlistment contract, but you could be made to wait as much as a year for your specific job to become available).

After graduating from technical school at Keesler AFB, in Biloxi, Mississippi, I was stationed at Gunter AFB, in Montgomery, Alabama, assigned to the Standard Systems Center (where the overwhelming majority of all USAF software is written and maintained), where I spent the next eight years (and change) of my life.

In February of 1992, after begging the government (on a yearly, quarterly, and eventually monthly basis) to send me anywhere in Europe (and, yes, I meant anywhere, even Greenland), Uncle Sam sent me on a one-year overseas tour of duty at Osan Air Base, South Korea. . . . (And, yes, you're right, that wasn't Europe. I noticed that almost immediately. ;-)

Because this duty location (South Korea) was officially designated as a "remote" assignment, I was told that I would have the highest priority when determining my follow-on assignment. With great optimism and confidence in the humanity of the military, I once again filled out my "dream sheet" (the official form for requesting specific locations), once again requesting that Uncle Sam send me to anywhere in Europe. In record time, my follow-on assignment was chosen by the Powers That Be (in Personnel), and I was informed that, when I left my new assignment at Osan AB, South Korea, I would be going from there to . . . you guessed it, Standard Systems Center, Gunter AFB, Montgomery, Alabama, where I spent the last two years of my Air Force career.

On April Fool's Day, 1995, after twelve years, I decided to part company (amicably and honorably) with the Air Force. I declined my re-enlistment, moved back home to Marietta, Georgia, and started attending college at Southern Tech. In December of 1997, after two and a half years of continuous, full-time enrollment, I graduated from Southern Tech with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science (with a very strong Minor in Mathematics; I couldn't afford to wait a whole extra year for the last four classes I needed to make this a Double Major).

In March of 1998, I started working as a consultant for Keane, and assigned to the Y2K Compliance Testing project for the Dept. of Human Resources in the State of Georgia.

In April of 1999, when, just after giving me an extra-large coffee mug filled with Lifesavers candy (to commerorate my one-year anniversary with Keane), I was down-sized.

In July of 1999, I started working as an applications programmer for SITA, the computer/telecommunications company for the airlines industry, and I was assigned to the Departure Control Systems (DCS) branch, where I worked on the Check-In (CKI) systems.

On my own time, I continued expanding my web pages, and I started learning about CAD, specifically using the freeware built by fans of Lego for building Lego models in virtual space. I also started learning about ray-tracing via these same Lego enthusiasts.

Also in relation to Lego, I helped found a regional club here in the South-East, called DixieLUG, the Dixie Lego User Group. (I was the one who first suggested our name.)

Things didn't work out for me at SITA, and so I was let go in June of 2000.