Who Am I?

Since I’ve gone public with my blog, I’ve decided to write up as much as I can about who I am for all of my new viewers. There might even be some things in here my friends already know, so read up and learn as much as you can about me. This blog is accurate up to Oct 12th, 2008

August 4th, 1986 I was born. It was a hot rainy day, my mom broke a doctors hand when I was born, and I had earned the nickname of “Scooter” by my dad’s (RIP) mom (RIP) within the first hour of my life. The story told to me was that when a nurse had pulled me down to the end of my hospital crib, I would scoot myself back up to the original end I was laying in. That should’ve been a warning to my mom that I wasn’t going to be a typical kid, nor would I be easy to handle growing up. Sorry mom.

The day I was born

Growing up, I was definitely not what my mom would expect. I was INSANE as a child. I forced my parents to read everything to me until I had learned how to read myself, and way before any of my peers. I was a very hyper child with what seemed like a never ending source of energy. I destroyed things when I got angry, snuck out of the house in the winter wearing only a diaper and my dad’s boots to go play on the neighbors swingset. I had also suffered from night terrors (if you don’t know what they are, look them up, I’ll write about it some other time) and had a photographic memory.

By the time I was in school, I was already more intelligent than everyone else, and I liked to rub it in peoples faces. I think I barely made it a couple months into kindergarten, when I was expelled because I was too hyper and out of control. I was then diagnosed with ADHD and put on the child zombification drug ‘Ritalin’. Later, I was put through some sort of intelligence test and had wowed the people testing me and was put right into first grade the following school year instead of repeating Kindergarten. I think at that point, I was an alright child, as long as I was on the Ritalin.

By 6th grade, I had developed a love for Heavy Metal and anything that just seemed weird, dark, or scary to everyone else. I had also got into Marilyn Manson, thanks to my parents (which they hated showing me him) and met my best friend, James (my parents never liked him either). Middle school era me was probably the most rebellious me ever, but was also the time in which I had fell in love completely with computers. I was also getting heavy into doing bicycle stunts and rode a bike as much as I could every day.

By the time I got into 9th grade, I knew I wanted a career in computers. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, but it didn’t matter because I knew the possibilities were nearly endless. Also, I had just got a guitar and started growing my hair out so I could be just like my friend James and all of the metal bands that came out of the 80’s.

10th grade, I was involved in anything technology related. I excelled in our tech lab where we had these different stations setup for different things in computers. Graphic design, web design, video editing, word processing, computer trouble shooting and I even took an extra class on programming in Visual Basic. This is also the year I lost my virginity, and realized I should’ve waited like I had originally planned.

11th grade, I got into Eastland Career Center for Interactive Media. I had enjoyed the webdesign module in our tech class the previous year so much, I decided I wanted to specalize in this field. I was in the best shape of my life, and stopped riding my bike as much to focus on setting myself up for a career. Mrs. Friend (the Interactive Media teacher), and Mr. Umstead (the Information Technology/Programming) teacher had both fought over who got me for the first few months of school because they both knew I’d be great at whichever path I took. I ultimately went with Interactive Media so I could exercise my creative muscles and have fun doing it.

That year, I had got on this grant project where we had to make a tutorial cd for some Distance Learning Video Conference hardware/software, but with a focus on gearing it towards the blind. My job was to actually build the tutorial like a website, so I had to then learn how to do websites in Dreamweaver MX instead of just notepad. On this project I had met my first love, Katie, who was a student at the Ohio State School for the Blind and was working with us to help us make the tutorial more blind accessible. We talked for about four months before we cheesily decided to start dating on Valentines Day 2003.

12th grade, I had completely taken off with the web design and was really happy with my choice. I was making websites for money, and decided that I should go to college and get a degree in this field so I could be a real professional. I was already helping teach the class on how to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop, as well as how to do HTML (4.0). A month after I graduated, I got my first job which lasted about two weeks, and had started going to college at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online. Also, I was running a webzine called ‘The Blastbeat’ where some friends and I reviewed music, wrote articles, and interviewed musicians.

After my 18th birthday, my mom, Katie, and I were in a terrible car accident where my mom was seriously injured. I was supposed to be driving that day, and had driven to Dayton no problem, but was too nervous to drive back.  Also at some point, I had quit going to AIO and switched to DeVry for Computer Information Systems because I wasn’t happy with the Interactive Media program.

January 23rd 2005 was the day that the Bobby everyone knew died. Katie and I had been together for almost two years when we broke up. Earlier in 2004 I had proposed to Katie in front of A LOT of people inside an airport after she had returned from visiting her sister in Connecticut, so this had completely crushed my heart and soul. I was an overachiever, extremely motivated, almost always in a great mood, and basically an all around great person to be around. I had transformed almost instantly into a depressed wreck who slept all day, worked at night, and became spiteful, bitter, angry, and basically the exact opposite of what I had been.

From January 23rd 2005 to September 24th, 2007 I was not the best person I could’ve been. I went through a few jobs, changed colleges, but didn’t stick with them, had countless numbers of extremely horrible relationships, lived with a couple different friends, gained 50lbs, and had been kicked out of my parents house. I did happen to join a couple bands along the way as a new hobby so I could keep myself busy and not sleep all the time. I joined Pain Awaiting in Sept of 2006 and have been there ever since.  I got fired from a warehouse exactly 1 year to the day that I was hired on as a seasonal associate (and never was hired permanently for that whole year) and that had been my wakeup call. I was sick of working in warehouses, doing stupid little tasks that didn’t challenge my brain at all. My brain hungered for knowledge and new experiences, and that’s when I decided I REALLY wanted to go back to college.

Just after my 21st birthday, I had picked out The University of Northwestern Ohio as my new school. I had noticed they had what seemed to be a really nice Network Security program, and since it was 100 miles away from home, I knew I wouldn’t be distracted by all of my friends. Three days later, I was kicked out of my parents house and had to move in with my friend Zack at his grandmas house. That day sealed the deal for me, and I vowed to completely turn my life around and stop being a loser and become something.

September 24th 2007, I moved to Lima and started going to college. It was rough at first, but I got used to it and stuck with it. At some point during the school year, my Network Security professor had introduced to me the world of Computer Forensics. I researched it and decided that it was what I really wanted to be in the IT field. I was sick of Net Admin/Computer Troubleshooting jobs and wanted to get into something that required usage of other skills that I have (creative thinking/problem solving, psychology, law). Basically, I decided I wanted to be Grissom (CSI: Las Vegas) of Computer Forensics.

Unfortunately, my Net Sec professor had been ‘let go’ from the school and a new teacher had been hired for Network Security, but he wasn’t going to be teaching Computer Forensics. Anxiety had risen, and I didn’t know if I was going to get into Computer Forensics, and be stuck with Network Security.

Things started looking up in the summer of 2008 when I had learned that UNOH hired someone to teach Computer Forensics. Not only did they just find a professore, they found someone who was perfect for the job, and has been a pretty big inspiration for me and I’ve only known the guy a couple weeks.

Now you guys know my history. This will be updated when old chapters end and new ones begin.

~ by rewalker3 on October 12, 2008.