About Me
My Life Story
I was born in New York, raised in Missouri with a small time in New Hampshire when I was in pre school.
Raised in a small town at the north edge of Lake of the Ozarks. I am married to the love of my life, Mel. We live in the small town I was raised and live with four dogs and three cats. We live less than a block from my brother and his four kids. Life couldn’t get better.
What would you say, I do here?
I was a geek from an early age, I’m old enough there was no such things as smart phones and tablets were the things Moses brought down from the mountian.
I would take apart radios and try to put them back togather. The problem came when I used items that my parents wanted to use again, and I wasn’t always successful in the repair work.
I got my first computer when I was entering 8th grade and we got dial up internet about six months later. The world opened up to me in ways I didn’t even know were possible.
You see, I was a square peg in a round hole in rural Mid-Missouri. I didn’t play sports and I enjoyed Motorsports and scifi. There wasn’t anyone who I ever really had a lot in common with. I had friends but it wasn’t like the bonds you saw with people who played sports.
I grew up as a space nerd and wanted to be a pilot, so one of the first things I did was get Flight Simulator. After a while I purchased NASCAR Racing 1 in the clearance bin at K-Mart. I had found my passion.
Then, I found NASCAR Racing 2 with Trucks at the store and bought that. It had so much better graphics and was a lot of fun. The manual that came with the CD-ROM had a links to sites that were all about a thing called Sim Racing. Which is like Flight Sim but with racing.
Going to all those sites I found that NASCAR Racing 3 was the latest and greatest. My parents were very nice and bought it for me. Yes, I read the manual for it and saw a blurb about Dale Earnhardt Jr and his love of sim racing. He talked about how he raced online all the time.
How did he race online? I found the multiplayer and started racing with real people. Quickly I learned that I needed a steering wheel and pedal set and not a joystick. My parents took me to EB Games at the mall and I bought a mid level Thrustmaster wheel.
Then my world opened up I found the Team Lightspeed! forums and asked lots of questions and also answered questions when I could help out. I became a mod and then was asked to join the team. I was never a really good sim racer but I enjoy helping people.
Racing online with less than stellar computer parts meant I was always having to troubleshoot issues. That’s where my skill set in computer repair started.
I was able to take those skills and have a, now, 20 year career in IT. I am currently a Systems Administrator. I make sure the servers are running, backed up, and updated.
Updated 6-15-26