Viper
I was born on November 1, 1972. I had a full head of hair and I was covered with some sort of white stuff. Leftovers? I think not. The doctor spanked me a few times (i think it hurt) and fixed me right up. I was born in Big Sandy, Texas, and lived there for about 19 years. I went to BSHS (laf) and lettered in Track and Basketball. I was in the National Honor Society (nerd-pack) and was also in the marching band (drums and alto sax). I was about the only long-haired hippie in that school, so I had a good time. Fun. My graduating class had 35 people, and I was #3. Well we all knew the people ahead of me were just suck-ups who took the easy classes, oyes. In track I was in the top 6 in the state (in the 2A division) in the High Jump, as a Junior I jumped 6'6". However before the track season of my Senior year I had open-heart surgery to fix a problem I had with my aorta (basically I had only half of one, damn!). So my Senior year I just kind of existed, nothing fancy.
Upon graduating from BSHS (laf), I went to East Texas State University in Commerce Texas. (Now it is called Texas A&M Commerce). I had a double-major in Computer Science and Math (laf) and was also on the Track team and in the Marching and Jazz bands (alto sax). I stayed in the damn dorms and man did they suck. My Freshman year at ETSU was pretty low-key, I ended up with a 3.97 GPA and finally learned how to drink BEER properly (and in large quantities).
I think it was during my 2nd year when I met Mark Sass (Sassman). To say that meeting changed my life would be an understatement. I was standing outside of a class for Assembler and he walked up to me and asked if indeed this was the Assembler class. I said 'Yes it is, fagii' so he walked right in. Actually I am sure I just nodded my head, as I am not very talkative. I ended up sitting right next to him throughout the class (which I ended up dropping btw). One day he asked me if I had ever 'mudded' before and I said 'No' cause I did not know what the hell he was talking about. So he showed me later that day, down in the Unix server room of the Computer Science building. I forget what mud I logged in, it was some weird one where he was like one of the only players. Or maybe it was the first version of PowerMud, I am not sure. Well I was hooked because I liked playing AD&D, so I started playing more and more. Eventually he let me code on the first PowerMud, where I did a few areas. We ended up being roommates the next year, living in an older house called the 'Delt-Plex', so named because a certain fraternity occupied most of the other apartments. We had some good times there for sure, several parties and all. It was pretty darn cool.
Eventually I dropped out of ETSU, having about a year's worth of classes unfinished towards my two majors. I moved to Tampa Florida and moved in with my brother. I joined his rock band as a drummer and recorded a few tapes/CD's. It was pretty cool, but got old real fast. Night after night we played out in front of a bunch of drunks. However, my drinking skills came in real handy, for sure. Anyway, after about 3 years living down there, Sassman got in touch with me and clued me in on the fact of a new version of PowerMud he was coding. I logged in and he was using the old standard lib (2.4.5) and man it was ugly. So he started re-doing the lib itself and I started coding the regular towns and such. We worked out a lot of stuff during those first months, good thing he is a damn fine coder, cause I could not code my way out of a wet paper bag. Anyway he got it up and running and we got a few players and now it is about 4 years later.
Back in November of 1997 I decided to move to California and work for my uncle. He owned a software company and could use the help. I packed up my stuff, told my friends goodbye and moved out to here (San Jose). I am still working for the same company (Tellan Software), but we got bought by Cybercash about a year ago. I am now the Tech Support Supervisor and I get to boss around three people. Woo!
On May 8th, 1999 I was married to Aurelia Horga in Portland Oregon. Luckily, Mark (Sassman) was able to fly up there and be one of my Groomsmen. My brother was my best man. We took our honeymoon in Hawaii (on Kona and Kauai) and then settled down in Union City, which is about 30 miles north of San Jose. Eventually, Tellan was bought by Cybercash, so I ended up working for them, for a while.
UPDATE (8/14/01)
Well, I am now living in Phoenix Arizona. I quit Cybercash and moved here in March, 2001. I
bought a house, something I could never do in the Bay Area. I now work at Vital Processing Services,
a company owned in part by Visa. It is hot as hell here, but it is cheap to live! I work on PowerMud
as much as I can, and should be logged in there most of the time.