My Name
It’s often said that God doesn’t make mistakes. I would whole-heartily, one-hundred percent, agree with that statement. But while God doesn’t make mistakes, parents do.
I, for instance, was a mistake.
Ok, that’s probably too harsh. How about this:
I was an “oops.”
Let me explain. My brother was 16 when I was born and my sister was 15, so I wasn’t born quite in my parents child-bearing life stage. Yep, that’s pretty much all the explanation needed.
They got me back though.
They gave me a girl’s name!
Apparently I was named after a preacher at my parents’ church who died before I was born. From they have told me he was a great man. That’s all well and good, but that doesn’t change the fact that he had a girl’s name!
Thankfully growing up I had an anthem to cling to. Every time I heard Johnny Cash’s Boy Named Sue I felt a certain emotional connection to Johnny. He knew my pain, and, even though he had a dude’s name I still felt he had some empathy for my cause.
Before I go on, let me just throw this in, just in case you may be considering naming your son a feminine name. When I approached a certain age I got several items in the mail that a boy approaching that age (or any other age for that matter) should never receive. I’ll not go into any further detail…it’s just too painful. I also had several invitations for beauty pageants and other girlie-type stuff.
Moving right along
I am a Christian, a Christ-Follower, a Jesus Freak, one who digs Jesus or however else you want to say it. “I love Jesus, yes I do. I love Jesus, how ’bout you?” “I am a C. I am a C H. I am a C H R I S T I A N…” Ok, that’s enough. You get the point!
I’m one of those you would say grew up in the church. I had perfect Sunday School attendance. I was at every church function. I went to the Christian elementary school at church. Heck, for a time in high school I even dated a Nazarene preacher’s daughter so for a couple years I went to two churches. Also in high school, because I was a Christian, I thought I had to go into the vocational ministry so I went to Lincoln Christian College (now Lincoln Christian University…fancy-schmancy, eh?).
This didn’t (and still doesn’t) make me a Christian. Honestly, it took me a long time to come to this realization, long after the youth group meetings, even long after the day I was baptized.
But church was my drug.
It was my addiction.
Going to church is important, don’t get me wrong, but It was what kept me from a relationship with Jesus. After studying the gospels and Jesus’ life I slowly began to realize that I was for all intents and purposes a Pharisee. They were hooked on their religion and so was I.
I was judgmental.
I was short-sighted.
I was one of those people that wore cheesy Christian t-shirts and listened to mostly Christian music (Stryper and Petra were my favorites. Ok, I confess, they still are!). They were evangelism tools you know.
I was so caught up in my “religion” that I missed the relationship with Jesus…just like the Pharisees.
But again, over the past several years I have been trying to get over this. I still go to church almost every Sunday. I still listen to Christian music at least about half of the time (more if you count U2, Lifehouse, and Sufjan Stevens as Christian bands/artists…even more if you count Johnny Cash). The difference now it that I realize these things are only tools to help aid in my relationship with Jesus. They are not meant to replace Him.
My Family
In high school I in no way was a ladies man. During those four years I had two girlfriends. I was a really nice guy. Unfortunately that was about all I had going for me. I was chubby. I wasn’t great looking by any stretch of the imagination. I dressed like an idiot. I did the craziest things to my hair. I was a dork. All of these issues followed me to college.
Fortunately for me a tall, hot blonde named Amy saw past all that stuff and for the last 18 years has been by my side. I’m sure there have been plenty of times throughout those years she has wondered what she was thinking, but I’m very thankful she has stuck it out. It has gotten slightly better for her now. I’m no longer chubby. I dress much better. My hair, although very grey for my age, is normal. I may have even gotten better looking (this is not saying much, but still).
In these 18 years we have been blessed with three boys. Joshua (Josh) was born in 1999. A nice surprise came in the form of Nathaniel (Nate) 16 months later. Yet another nice surprise arrived 18 months after that in the form of Andrew (Drew). Having three boys 3 and under was challenging at times but we wouldn’t change a thing. They are all wonderful boys that have their own unique personalities, which again, at times makes things challenging, but also at times each one will surprise and shock us (in a good way that is).
Due to the lack of estrogen in the house, a couple years ago we all decided it was time to help balance the house out a little by adding a little girl to the family…
…no, not that!
We got a dog.
My Career
Back to the college years. I was terrified of public speaking so I definitely did not want to be a preacher. I hate needles so there was no way I was going to the mission field because of all the vaccinations I would have had to have (yes, that was my logic). I wasn’t musically inclined so that was out too. Now most Christian colleges are limited in the degrees they offer. So with preaching, missions and music out of the equation my choices were drastically narrowed.
So I picked youth ministry. Really, if you’re good at it it’s one of the best jobs in the world…you get paid to act just like a kid. However, I was not good at it! Through several bad experiences and my realization that I didn’t really like kids, especially little kids (this was before there were children’s ministers) I discovered that youth ministry was problematic for me.
Unfortunately, I didn’t really figure this out until the semester after my junior year which was also just after our wedding. This was not an ideal time to discover you have no idea what you want to do.
So I finished my senior year with a couple classes left to graduate so I could transfer to Lincoln Land Community College. In high school I was very good at two things. The first was computer programming. The second was drafting. I had won a couple regional drafting competitions and Lincoln Land had an architecture program so I thought I’d give that a shot. We moved to Springfield where we spent several years dirt poor. Amy worked at a day care and I went from part-time job to part-time job trying to finish school.
The architecture thing went pretty well for about a year or so then I realized that wasn’t right for me either. While I was very good at drawing and designing houses, I was not so good with the technical stuff—like the stuff that keeps houses from falling over.
I thought maybe I’d like to be a teacher, a math teacher specifically. I looked into transferring to Illinois State but that ended up not working out either.
So on to the computer programming thing I went. I had a friend from church who was a programmer for the IL State Police. His boss, who also went to our church, helped me figure out what I had to do to get on with the state. Sounded good to me. State workers get paid and don’t have to do a thing! Perfect!
Back to Lincoln Land I went, this time to take programming classes.
Like in high school, I was good at programming, but something was missing. I was doing COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) programming, which, for those of you not familiar with programming, is boring. No color. No sound. No pictures. Just words. Yuk! But I continued on and took the test for the state. I didn’t pass. I took it a second time. Nope. The third time came around. No luck. Now you’re probably thinking maybe I wasn’t that good a programming. This is not the case. I don’t know how anyone passes that test. The questions were barely even related to programming.
Anyway, I was getting very discouraged by this point. While I was taking these classes I worked at the local YMCA doing secretarial work. I ended up doing a lot of desktop publishing and graphic design, kind of by accident. One of my projects during one of my classes was to create a web site. Now this was around 1998-99, the days of AOL and dial-up internet, just before Josh was born, and when people were starting to figure out this Internet thing might go somewhere. I found a couple HTML tutorials and a copy of Microsoft FrontPage (don’t judge me!) and created a site for class.
I found out I kinda liked that web design thing. It was computer programming—but with bells and whistles! There was color. There were pictures. There was movement (I used some of those infamous spinning animated gifs). This had potential. Problem was, there were no college majors for this. There were no college classes period. I really wanted to know more about this so I started to find as much information as possible and as many tutorials I could find on this subject. I used what I learned to work on a site for the YMCA. As visitors came to the site and as word got around more and more people started asking me for help. The more and more I helped people the more I learned.
My position at the Y took a turn in the wrong direction for various reasons, the main one being I was spending too much time on the computer learning than I did on what my actual job was. Oops! At this time Josh had just been born and I found out by word of mouth of this startup Internet company coming to town that was looking for tech support people, so I applied.
My tenure with this company was like a whirlwind. I was the tech support person for a couple weeks then I ended up moving up and eventually ended up being the head of the web division. The problem was, this company was not run very well so in a matter of a year or so it was out of business and I was out of a job. But during these few months I kept developing more skills in web design and development. I had also started learning how to build Flash animations and working with databases.
After that company went out business I looked for an entry-level web design position somewhere, anywhere. Within a few weeks I was able to find a position with a very small printing company that had recently gotten into the web design business. The pay was minimal but the exposure was huge. I worked for some high-profile local companies as well as the very large corporation Lucent Technologies. The company was eventually bought out by Lucent and then I was designing and developing sites that were seen literally all over the world.
Like I said, though, the pay was not good. Even though I enjoyed what I was doing it just wasn’t enough to pay the bills, especially with now two little boys to take care of. Then finally, there was a breakthrough.
After about a year working for this company I saw in the paper that St. John’s Hospital was looking for a Web Developer. St. John’s was one of two very large hospitals in town. I knew that with my lack of professional experience (only 2 years) and my lack of a degree (still 3 credit hours short, uh, from a youth ministry degree—try to put that on your resume) I didn’t have much of a shot, but I applied anyway.
I ended up getting a call for an interview. It went well. I still didn’t expect to get it. Coincidentally one of the people in interview had a younger brother that went to Lincoln Christian College. Also turned out the person doing the interview had a good friend that was professor there. A couple weeks after the interview I got the call, they said they were going to give me a shot. I remember sitting at my desk at work when I got the call. They offered me the job and told me the salary. I fell out of my chair.
There have been very few moments in my life when I have been excited beyond description: the night I proposed to Amy, our wedding day, the days each of our boys were born, and that day.
It’s funny, I have never used illegal drugs in my life but I was so nervous going into the drug screening for this job. I made sure I ditched the poppyseed muffins though so I passed. Woo-hoo!
The rest, as they say, is history.
I was at the hospital for over 5 years. I then moved on to ADM in Decatur. They made you wear a tie which I thought would be cool then about my second day on the job thought was dumb. Programmers don’t wear ties! So one year later I came back to Springfield and have been with Levi, Ray & Shoup for almost 4 years.
I’m very grateful to Amy for supporing me through this long journey to find, to quote a Michael W. Smith song, “My Place in this World.”
Other tidbits of information
- I don’t like my nose or my teeth. Every time I look in the mirror I think of Austin Powers.
- My eyes change color. Sometimes it depends on what colors I’m wearing. Sometimes it’s around my mood. They turn grey when I’m sick.
- I prefer “grey” over “gray.”
- I lost over 100lbs about 8 years ago (and have kept it off).
- I can move my ears.
- I can’t stand anything or anyone touching my shins.
- I’m not proud of it, but I like Glee & Dancing with the Stars (again, don’t judge me).
- My sports teams are (in no particular order): Stl. Cardinals, LA Lakers, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and the Indianapolis Colts.
- I love to play sports. Golf is not a sport. I hate golf.
- I don’t like NASCAR.
- I have never seen Hoosiers.
- I don’t like mayonaise.
- I like sardines and anchovies.
- I don’t really have a favorite color.
- My favorite movie is The Princess Bride.
- My list of favorite bands/musicians change too much for me to list.
- I am only 6 years older than my oldest niece.
- I learned to play guitar a few years ago.
- My favorite show growing up was Happy Days. Our first dog I can remember was named Arthur Fonzerelli.
- I love peanut butter. If you have never tried Skippy Natural peanut butter you are doing yourself a disservice!
- I’m trying to break the record for the longest About page in blogging history.
- Have I succeeded yet?
- How about now?
- Now?
