Guilty Pleasure: No One Ever Really Dies

Not the group, but the same level of intelligence. Not the movie, but the same quirky interests. Not the computer kind, but the Web kind...Actually, I could use the type of bank account the computer kind has...

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Pretty much all my life I've known that I wanted to do something in computers as my career. My buddy James Lampkin and I had a conversation in Ms. Hoffman's 6th grade class in elementary school where we both decided we were going to do "something in computers" because even back then, playing Oregon Trail in the computer lab sparked excitement and interest. As I got older, lots of people (mainly teachers and family members) would tell me:

"You're good with math and science, you should be an engineer!"

After a while with many people telling you this, it starts to stick. You develop a confidence in your intelligence I guess and you start to think:

"Well, maybe I really can be an engineer one day."

So in high school, I took some computer programming classes. Mr. Schlude was a cool teacher. Most of the students probably considered him geeky because he was a short white guy with the typical nerdy looking glasses, cracked corny jokes, and he spoke proper English (ya'll know how that goes in urban settings). On top of that, he taught classes like "Computer Math". But through his classes, I got to learn foundational programming languages like FORTRAN, PASCAL, and eventually C++ (don't worry about understanding that stuff).

So by the time my senior year of high school arrived I combined the two things I knew - or at least thought - I was good at and enjoyed (computers and math), with the advice so many people had given me, "Be an engineer", and I decided I would major in computer engineering in college. I went on to enroll at the Johns Hopkins University and do just that. I would learn though, that learning Computer Engineering would not make me happy like I thought it would and that I could not see myself pursuing it as a career. So in the fall of my sophomore year I took a class called "The Internet". I remember Leu Beach was the teacher. Leu was one of those teachers everybody wanted because he was cool, laid-back, and his classes were fun. So that's where I believe my love for the InterWeb began. Shaffer Hall, Room 3 on the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus.

After "The Internet", my interest grew more and more to the point where I would buy books about [relatively] new Internet programming technologies (back then it was XML, PERL, CSS, JavaScript). I landed an internship at the Department of the Interior (thanks to my man Booze) doing web development for a summer. The next summer I taught Computer Camp at the American University in Washington, D.C. And in my senior year of college I worked two jobs: one doing clerical work in the Accounts Payable deparment on campus (work-study jump-off), and another updating a website for one of the departments on campus. Needless to say, I was getting my "experience" the best way I could, on my own. My major was Computer Engineering. Hopkins didn't offer an "Internet" major. The closest I could probably get would have been "Computer Science" but I was afraid of the programming required. So I had to go out and grab the knowledge I wanted. I think this helped build my character.

Upon graduation I took the job I'm still working as a Web Developer and over the past two years or so that has helped spawn more interest, a business venture outside of my 9-to-5, and the blog you are now reading. But in the midst of it all, I've developed my guilty pleasure of being a wannabe WebNerd. I say "wannabe" because I don't know what'll make me official (LOL), but some people think I'm already there (I'm told it's a good thing though). So maybe I'm the first?

"I've been in this game for years, it me an animal. It's rules to this [ish], I wrote me a manual, a step-by-step booklet..." --Shot out to Biggie

So when things like Amazon's refund policy, YouTube's successor, Google's plan for world-takeover, USB air-conditioned t-shirts, multi-touch user interfaces (way before the iPhone was announced, I might add), or nerdy blogger shirts appear on my blog, realize that there's a history to the madness. There's a sort of struggle to gain happiness through the pursuit of knowledge. There's a real love for something that enhances my life in a certain way.

I guess it's like Juelz Santana (I hate to quote him but it fits) said:

"You can either comprehend it or complement it. [But] it's all authentic!"