Wow, I was tagged by Donald Belcham (über coder in an igloo). Here we go:
- I grew up (2nd grade through 12th grade) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Whenever I tell someone I grew up in Vegas, they always look at me weird and ask how that was. I'm sure it was different than growing up in say the Midwest but I wouldn't trade it for anything. We always had a great time cruising up and down the strip looking for girls (high school girls) - met most of my girlfriends that way (and no I didn't have to pay for them :)).
- I was an accounting major in college (Miami University) and only took one computer class (dBase) while I was there. Really didn't like it much. When I graduated, I was planning on continuing at Miami to receive my masters in tax. At the last minute, I took a job as an accounting software consultant for a very small company in Cincinnati. As it turned out, by the time I started, they no longer were working with the accounting software and instead they had me write software using a product called Forest and Trees (now owned by CA). Although F&T was not a true development environment, it helped me understand how to develop. For the most part, I am self-taught - at least in terms of development. Learned a lot from my boss on designed great software. When I started working in Delphi, my boss and a fellow developer mentored me, but they were from an AS/400 background, so it was all procedural. Took a long time to "get" object oriented programming (and unlearning procedural programming) - still learning it. I think having a strong background in mathematics and accounting has helped make me a better programmer. There is nothing better than creating something out of nothing and that's coming from someone who has done some construction (e.g. finishing my basement, etc.).
- The owner of the company I worked for out of school was going to merge with a company I did subcontracting for. At the 12th hour, my boss backed out, said he was shutting down the company (4 of us at time), and going out on his own. I ended up going to work for my current employer and it will be 12 years next month. It doesn't seem working for the same company that long in the technology field is too common.
- For the past 10 years I have been using Delphi as my developer tool (Delphi 1 - BDS 2006). For the past 2 years though, I have been learning .NET/C# in my spare time. Although I have not yet written any production .NET code, I do feel very comfortable with .NET, ASP.NET, and C#. Helps it is so similar to Delphi (thanks Anders).
- I met my beautiful wife while we were both working at King's Island in the pizza shop during college. BTW, my wife works for the same company I do. She is in QA and tests the applications I work on. Makes for some interesting times...
- Back in 1997, my parents, my wife, and I traveled to Italy for a 2 week vacation. My dad's cousin, now the Bishop of San Diego, set it up so we can hopefully get a private audience with Pope John Paul II. The first night we were in Rome, we stayed at a hotel right near the Vatican so if we were lucky enough where John Paul was available, we would be close enough to get to the Vatican quickly. After returning back from dinner on the first night, we had received an invitation to meet at the Vatican at 6:00 a.m. the following morning. We were led up to John Paul's private chapel where we had mass with 4 other non-lay people and about 20 lay people. After mass, we were ushered to John Paul's office where we were able to speak with him and take pictures. During that time, we were in the process of moving to Chicago and were having a hard time selling our house (house was on the market for 4 months). John Paul asked if we were from Chicago and we said we were moving there. The day we got back from Italy, our house was sold! Meeting Pope John Paul II was definitely one of the top three highlights in my life.
Bonus: I am a huge geek book freak (more OCD). Currently I have over 40 .NET-related books.
Tagged, you're it: Larry O'Brien (one of my favorite journalists), help.net, Kathy Sierra (love those Head First books), Mads Kristensen (excellent source for ASP.NET info), and Mark Levison.
