The beginning, I guess.
I got my first computer in 1981 when I was practically a Geen in Diapers. I still have that TI-99/4A and, miracle of miracles, it still works. Learned to read by copying programs out of the TI-BASIC manual and had quite a bit of trouble in those early days of school when I believed GOTO was an English word. From there I moved on to Apple IIs, Commodore 64s, and then to the 386s and 486s using DOS and Win 3.x. Started using Unix on Sun workstations in 1992 when I got my first shell account and immediately realized there could be no end to the depths of my geekiness.
After a brief and ill-conceived plan to become a doctor, I realized that I was born to be an engineer and attained my B.S. Engr degree in Computer Engineering in 2001. My epiphany came the day my (at the time) cutting edge Pentium MMX 200 MHz system arrived and I'd already voided the warranty within 20 minutes by deciding it really needed a network card and upgrading. Campus Ethernets were coming into favor, and I wanted to be one of the first to plug in. During my studies I focused on hardware design and networking, and spent many hours poring over circuits and electrons, eventually designing a small scale RISC processor. During that time I was employed in the university's computing services department doing general hardware, software and network troubleshooting and user support.
After I graduated, I decided that my heart didn't lie in transistors and silicon wafers, but in designing, building and troubleshooting networks. I gained a position as the head network administrator at a lower-medium sized firm, began doing freelance consulting in my off-hours, and kept right on building computers for myself and others. I've been in my current position for the last four years, and administer a LAN of approximately 250 PCs and 500 users which currently includes Windows XP and Windows 2000 workstations and Windows Server 2003 and Solaris 9 servers.
Because I am a glutton when it comes to all things geek, when I found this website in the course of trying to flesh out a particularly nasty piece of adware, I couldn't resist the urge. I was impressed with the talent displayed here and the kindness in helping others. I decided I need to stick around and try to help out and continually challenge and increase my skills.
That's about it.