Decade in Review

2000-2009 A life in Nick

As I listen to all the decade review podcasts and read the looking back websites, I wanted to do the same. My website obviously will only be interesting to those to know me and useful for looking back in 2019 when the internet is piped directly into my brain. My goal is to do this in sections and bulleted form. This makes it quicker and frankly my brain thinks that way:

Stats –

• Age – 15/25
• Weight – 155/155
• Hair – Spiky On my head/ Flat and Still there
• Eye Sight – Amazing/Amazing for a a computer manager
• Mile Time – 7:00/5:15
• Relationship Status – Single/Happy in a Relationship
• Geek Cred – High for 15 year old/Scary for 25 year old
• Family – Amazing/Amazing
• Dog – Lucky/Oscar
• Car – 1984 Blue Honda Civic/Small Fleet
• Employment – Silyn-Tek und Surf1/Boeing Company
• Faith – Catholic and Growing/Catholic and Growing
• Political Leanings – Rush is great/Ron Paul is great
• Favorite Drink – Strawberry Milk/Water
• Favorite Food – Pizza/Sushi
• Saying – Sheesh/Sheesh
• Favorite TV Show – Dawson’s Creek (shut it)/The Office
• Favorite Movie – Saving Private Ryan/Office Space
• Favorite Music – Hip-Hop/ANYTHING

Techie Favorites:

• Favorite Store – BX/Amazon.com
• Favorite Technology – Audiovox MP1000 and Linux/Open Source and Information Security
• Favorite Programming Language – Perl+Bash/Python+Bash
• Bandwidth – 28.8kbps/50Mbps
• Browser of Choice – Netscape 3 Gold/Firefox 3.6 or Chrome
• Removable Media – Zip Drive 100 or 3.5″ Floppy/16GB IronKey
• Favorite Website – http://slashdot.org / http://reader.google.com
• Computer Hardware of Choice – Whatever parts from the dumpster/Vintage collector
• Computer OS of Choice – SuSE Linux/Debian & MacOS

Looks –

Places lived in this decade:

• Germany
• Mississippi
• Louisiana
• Texas
• Florida
• Arizona
• Virginia
• Washington DC

Places I have worked:

• Self Employed
• Jackson County School District
• United States Air Force
• Self Employed Again
• General Dynamics
• CSC
• Boeing

Transportation:

• 1984 Honda Civic
• 1989 Honda Civic
• 1984 Ford F-100 (Thanks Dad!)
• 1998 Ford Ranger
• 1997 Kawasaki Motorcycle
• 2001 Honda VFR800 Motorcycle
• 2001 Saturn Ion
• 1997 Saturn SL1
• 2002 Mini Cooper
• 2004 Honda RC51 Hayden Edition Motorcycle
• 2008 Ducati 1098
• 2006 BMW Z4MC
• 1997 Jeep Wrangler Lifted

Personal Digital Assistants to count smart phones:

• Palm I
• Palm III
• Compaq Aero 1500
• Palm V
• Handspring Visor
• Apple Newton 2100
• Blackberry 950
• Blackberry 957
• Treo 180
• HP HW6915
• Palm Treo 600
• Palm Treo 650
• Blackberry 7200
• Blackberry 8700c
• iPhone v1
• HTC Touch
• iPhone 3gs
• Blackberry 8301

Notable Computers (new, not counting vintage purchases)

• First iBook 500
• 12″ G4 867 PowerBook
• First Pentium Machine (Fujitsu Laptop)
• Home built AMD64
• iMac Lampshade
• 24″ iMac
• Dell x1
• Sony TX
• AST 486DX

Lessons learned in life:

• Faith is waking up after the world spits in your face and still having a smile
• Hard work always pays off – ignore those who say anything else
• Friends come and go, but your family is there always. Love them with your heart and soul
• Home isn’t a place you receive mail, home is that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you are surrounded by those who care for you.
• Work for the joy, not the money
• A job with no challenge is like playing Contra with the Konami code. Sure it works, but every win and success is just a feeling of mediocrity (↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A)
• Never believe you have it all figured out, God is just waiting for the chance to yank the rug
• Just because CNN talks about a technology doesn’t mean it will happen or be successful. Examples: PointCast, Y2k, Online Grocery Store, dotCom anything
• There are leaders and managers. Leaders inspire their folks to charge a hill. Managers make sure they all have bootsLove isn’t just a word.
• Love is right after being so happy to see them that when you argue you don’t punch them in face. Good and bad go hand in hand
• Waking up being happy is more important than waking up in silk sheets
• Learning the fundamentals means more than learning the technology itself. To move forward you must understand what is behind you
• I enjoy going fast way too much

The 2000’s are over and I feel somewhat pleased. I had some really horrible times this decade with Hurricane Katrina and a divorce, but I also had some amazing times. Looking back has made me see just how blessed and happy I am to be here. Here is looking forward to 2019 to see how far I made it. When I started this decade at 15 years old I never imagined where we would be. Now rather than typing this on my 1024×768 256 Color machine running Debian on a 28.8k connection in Germany, I type from a MacBook Pro in Richmond VA over WiMax. The consistent things are my family loves me, life is great, and I am still a big geek…