I am going to keep this fairly vague and brief because if I told everything here; what would I have to talk about in person if someone read this website? I would start telling a story and they would interrupt me with the end. So to avoid that, this is going to be very abbreviated.
Let's start with 2 facts; I was born in Arkansas and I am adopted. My birth parents are supposedly Italian, but I know nothing about them more than that and don't care to. The people who raise you are your parents. The people who put a roof over your head.
I moved to Florida in the early nineties, I think around 1991. I was raised in the Baptist ideology, and attended Baptist private schools (and did exceedingly well) until the 8th grade when I wanted to go to public school. All of my friends on my street were in public school and I wanted to relate to them more.
I slacked off a lot in High School. I have no reason for it other than I didn't feel it was important. I was told my entire life by therapists that you have all of the skills you need to get through life before high school, so when a high school teacher is telling me a class is the most important thing in the world; I couldn't buy it.
When a professional with a degree who makes more than probably all of the teachers at the school combined tells you that you have all of the skills you need; you start wondering why do you need High School?
I still to this day believe that High School is about interactivity with people; not education. Education is the back drop; how else would they get you there? If they told you it was purely for interaction with society, no way would anyone go. So I understand it; but I don't think education in High School matters at all.
Now if someone from a job I am applying for is reading this; don't get me wrong. I did well. I had like a 3 GPA for the first 2 years. But when they made me take a class I didn't care about; if I was in a bad mood, I just wouldn't go. I'd take an early lunch, whatever.
My attendance sheets would literally read like this: (they read based on absences per period) 1 3 9 2 5 1
If I felt the class wasn't important; I wouldn't go sometimes. I would still usually manage a D-C, but I would bail most of the time. But it shows that I would leave and come back for classes I did care about.
Eventually though, there was some complications between my parents and the High School over a 504 plan or something and my parents pulled me out of school on my senior year. I did not quit; I was removed by my parents.
I relaxed for about 3-4 months, then went to OWC and did well on the GED and started college, which I was still taking before I was hired in my current job. I currently plan to go back to college in my spare time.
As a child, I drove my parents insane my drawing on the walls. When I started school, I took every art class I was allowed to take.
I always found art classes easy; most of them consisted of drawing pictures that already existed. We would just pick up a picture, sit it next to our paper and draw it from looking at it.
I was hoping to become an animator at Disney. Then around the age of 12 I found out that I had arthritis in every joint in my body.
It had always hurt to draw after about 15 minutes, and now I knew why.
So I decided to move my art onto computers. I started with programs like Microangelo and Paint and slowly progressed to Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.
It took a while to re-learn my craft; but now I am very confidant in my abilities. In between High School and College, I would just work on art from day to night. My computer would be locked up all day from rendering 3D pictures.
Now I am working on getting a degree in art as well.
My art style has been described as an "overload" style; but if instructed I can adapt to work in whatever style someone wants.
Websites are something fairly new to me. Naturally as a kid growing up on computers, I used to have my own little pimped out Geocities page with the rotating fire gif and the neon green hit counter.
Over the years; I would build a page with Dreamweaver every now and then. Nothing special; but they would get the job done.
I never liked working with them because it was too hard to remember where shit was. Where is the table function, where's this, where's that.
However recently; when a webmaster named Ted Fox was hired where I work; I started building web pages using Notepad++, which is basically Notepad but with tabs and a few other features.
To me, it is a lot easier. I don't have to remember where anything is. Want a table? Type <table>. No frills; no sillyness. Writing this entire website took 1 day.
Here I will just list some things I was to accomplish: