Day 13 of 30 (in 30 days of Geek) – How did you become such a geek? Career? Personal interest?

Day 13 of 30 (in 30 days of Geek)…

– How did you become such a geek? Career? Personal interest?

Definately personal interest, as I have been a geek since birth 🙂

I was an avid reader as a kid, read all the si-fi books in my jr-high library and started dabbling with computers at the same time (we had trs-80s at our school and also a commodore 64),  that would haave been in 1983.

my first real app though (basic) was a phonebook on apple II-e.  (1983 or 1984)

My passion in highschool though was music (saxophone), reading, and AD&D, rather than computers.  (I took a hiatus for about 4 yrs where I didnt do much with computers) but then started dabbling again in while working on my undergrad degree.

After my undergrad degree (started as a msic major but finished with a BS in Leisure Studies – Parks and Recreation specialising in Travel and Tourism Managament) I woke up and realised that I needed a career change if I wanted to pay the bills.  So, I went back to school and did 2 yrs of computer courses (c, c++, shell,  and cobol programming, linux administration, web stuff) and in parallel got accepted into a masters degree (MPA) from NC State (Masters in Public Administration concentrating in Information Systems). And while all that was going on, I got a job as a software tester for a couple years, then moved into software development in the mid 90s, and have never looked back.

Then I met my wife Linda, who is a part time geek (she plays online computer games and reads nerdy stuff) and that brought me eventually to New Zealand where I am now.

So that is the geek story 🙂