Thursday, May 17, 2007

See Scott Run

Have you ever wondered why places that appear bright and shiny in your childhood memories seem dull and drab when you revisit them as adults? What a sad reality! Because my father was in the military, most of my childhood places remain as distant memories, and I think that's the way I like them. That's just a random thought and not really the purpose of this story.

When I was in 3rd grade, I went to a bright and shiny school in NYC on Governor's Island. We had recently moved to NY from CA, and unlike my school in CA, this school was indoors and all the rooms opened inwards into these large carpeted corridors, it was like the classrooms only had 3 walls and the 4th wall was the corridor.

Soooo, I was in my class and I remember we were sitting around the floor, I guess for story time, and we hear a commotion before we see anything. A female voice is yelling at someone to STOP RIGHT NOW! As our collective gaze riveted on the corridor, a small body goes tearing past my classroom closely pursued by an elderly teacher with white hair in a bun livid by the disobedience and defiance of the wayward youth. It was my older brother Scott. Older by 17 months. We were transfixed by the wonder of it all; the reversal of authority, we would have applauded if not restrained by the threat of censure.

I was thrilled by the audacity, I'll never forget that feeling, like a caged bird viewing the essence of freedom. Of course, he lived to regret that behavior and eventually learned the value of conformity, but that spirit lives in all of us.

My Brag Book

This covers my contributions to the world, and if taken as a whole, I might look like an upstanding citizen, but remember that I've hidden all those stupid or mean or petty behaviors that have also populated my personal history. Forget about that, this is what I'd like to remember:

1974 - 2nd Grade Reading - so advanced that I sat alone in a separate room doing anything I wanted while the class learned to read...already reading at high school graduate level.
1977 - 5th Grade Art - more pictures on the wall than anyone!
1978 - 6th Grade straight A's - the teacher (Mr. Ridgel, Hamilton Elementary) had never given straight A's before and actually tried to give me a B+, but I petitioned for an A and he agreed!
1979 - 7th Grade - selected to give Spanish puppetry show on Parent's night by Spanish teacher
1981 - My freshman year of HS - started on road to academic success, actually my least successful year as I received one B+
1982 - My favorite subject of all time, Geometry, scored so high that I had to be taken off the curve or the next highest grade would be a C...loved the logic
1983 - Chosen as a delegate for our school's contingent in the state academic decathlon in rhetoric; unfortunately the only glory was being chosen because i made no effort and didn't even read the rules or prepare, I think I was an embarrassment :)
1984 - Highest achievement in my school on SATs
1985 - Salutatorian of class...not #1????
1985 - voted Best in Math & Science by HS faculty & received Faculty Scholarship
1985 - President California Scholarship Federation
1985 - Joined AF - got honor graduate in boot camp and again in Tech School
1986 - Commendation by AF Inspector General Team - best books in the AF (I was a bookkeeper) and got a 3-day pass
1987 - Accepted at Air Force Academy; lots of stuff here, Most Improved Volleyball, Basketball, Rugby, CO all-state rugby team, Wing Champs at Team Handball, Best in Math, Dean's List, yadda yadda yadda - I did NOT like the AFA, and then i left in 1990.
1993 - Graduated Cal Poly, 120 units of my 4-year 198 unit degree in 1 year with 3.5 GPA...damn i'm good :)
1994 - moved to Sacto and got hired by Transamerica Info Mgmt Svcs, worked for the best boss in the world, Darryl DeBond
1994 - 6 mos later, got promoted to Mgr, youngest mgr in company
1995 - got promoted to Director, 30 people working for me, youngest sr mgr in company
1996 - selected as one of top young managers in transamerica corp and sent to Darden Executive training
1996 - highest ranked mgr at TIMS in 360-degree review performed by outside firm
1997 - left TIMS to jump on web bandwagon...woo-hoo
1998 - moved to Guam to essentially play soccer, scuba dive and do enough web design to pay the rent (about 10hrs a month)
1999 - got lured back to the states for the dotcom craze, ridiculous salaries, profit-sharing, etc.
2000 - went to work for a startup, 1GlobalPlace.com, fantastic company, smart people. Managed dev group and lead all major projects for a year before we got bought out by Verisign
2001 - Took all my liquid assets and poured it into education software company, Schoolbygolly, still love that name. Developed the s/w for a year, took it to trade shows, couldn't live w/o capital and fund-raising efforts were unsuccessful. Really great reception of interface at tradeshows, but closed the doors in 2002.
2002 - Went to bootcamp to learn .net - got hired as bootcamp trainer while at bootcamp; taught bootcamp with no practical experience in .net (yikes)
2003 - Almost died, sister saved my life, took me to emergency room in the middle of the night because i had refused to go to the dr for what i thought were flu symptoms. turns out my body was septic and was shutting down.
2003 - Popped out 1st Beautiful Child in August
2003 - Got married...REALLY??? how did that happen??? Robert's fault entirely
2004 - Got a gig writing c# and XML with no practical experience, I somewhat winged the interview and exagerrated past exposure to these technologies. Learned that google was my friend and favorite search term started like "VB C# equivalent..."
2004 - Popped out 2nd Beautiful Child in Oct
2005 - Started working at www.guidance.com as s/w architect, great company
2006 - Popped out 3rd Beautiful Child in Sep (it's a girl!!)
2007 - Lost 15 lbs in 3 weeks on Body for Life program
2007 - created Guidance Seminar Series
...and there's more to come...always more to come