I've been tagged by Scott Hanselman, who's asking:
Did you grow up a geek? Let's see what you looked like as a young burgeoning nerd or nerdette.
I was online the other night, running my new dual locks through Ashenvale (I'm a new dual-boxer and absolutely love it. I keep telling Brad Wilson that Warhammer's fail sauce and that running twin toons around is a sheer blast! I've tried two mages, and Priest/Mage combo which I took to 60 in 3 weeks very casually... seriously I play maybe 8 hours a week, if that... anyway it rocks! Faceroll FTW!) when Communicator goes "PING" and it's Scott:
found pictures of me from 1985 ... when I was like 11 ... HUGE dork ... clearly, they need to be on the internet to embarass me... your turn ... go get the shoebox
I just happen to have this shoebox in my closet as my mom just moved out of the house that I grew up in. Literally - I lived there from day 1 through the age of 18, and she decided just last spring to move to Oregon and into a small place. I got to help move her out and in the (very cliche) dusty attic I found a TON of pictures of me.
My mom's a pack-rat. She kept everything, including trophy's of mine when I was a kid (the token T-ball kind of trophies).
Anyway - the picture here is of my family in 1974. My dad is taking the picture, and from the left is my mom, my sister Teri, my sister Candy, my bearded-genius brother John, and my punk rebel older brother Larry.
I'm in the blue pin-striped shirt, and that is the house I grew up in that my mom just sold (which is kinda sad).
I wrote before about how I got started in programming and really, I sort of fell backwards into it. My brother (the bearded guy) tried to corrupt me digitally around the time that this picture was taken, but I was more into playing ice hockey and baseball.
Crap. That makes my mom a "Hockey Mom". Lord help me.
Now this is going to sound very awkward and probably a bit vain, but I was kind of a cute kid. I tried to find a real dorky picture of me but I think my parents only kept the cute ones (I know this sounds horrifically vain- but it's the truth... what can I say... I was cute):
I did manage to find the revolting "kid in his first tux wondering how to be cool" picture though - you know where you think you'll knock 'em dead by trying to look like James Bond. This picture was taken in 1983 when I was 14, right before the Junior Homecoming dance, and makes my skin crawl:
Look at those watery eyes, that rail-like physique with a stare that could melt cheese. A "cool drink of water" as my gramma would say - if your definition of "cool" is having pizza face and so much mousse (or was it Dep?) in your hair that it almost snaps...
Believe it or not I did have a date that night...
Ahh the fun - thanks for the memory jog Mr. Hanselman! And now, these people need to be publicly humiliated...
Eric Kemp, Jon Galloway, Kevin Dente (you gotta blog sucka!), Steven Harman, and Jeremy Miller.
