40+

So this blog post has been pending for over 4 months. I originally had the idea on June 1st, the day after I turned 40. It was to be titled 40 + 1. The intent is for me to summarize the first 40 years of my life and outline what I am thinking about for the next 10. Here I (we) go …

Most of my life has been spent in New York in New York City, aka “The City”. I was born in Brooklyn, NY, raised in Queens, NY, moved to Long Island, NY when I was 22 then moved to Chandler, AZ when I was 35.

School

I attended a few different Elementary schools. One of which I qualified and participated for the City-wide spelling bee. I attended 1 Junior High School, where I was part of a program calls Stars, which was geared to “smarter” kids. This program allowed me to complete 3 school years in 2 (7th, 8th, and 9th grades). I then moved on to Richmond Hill High School where I was…

• on the student council
• in charge of the student store
• coached the Junior Varsity Girls Basketball Team. We finished in 2nd place.
• swam on the school’s Varsity swim team.
• played on the Varsity Volleyball team. We made it to the City Championship but got eliminated. I did set a record for the most consecutive aces, 30.
• was a student counselor for troubled kids
• graduated with Cindy Lauper, out school gave her an honorary diploma since it was our 90th anniversary and she attended the school.
• graduated in the top ten of 400+.

I attended both City College of New York (CCNY) and Long Island University. I did not graduate from either of the team.

My family life

In July of 1994, I met Deidre Faude, after 2 years of dating we tied the knot. Our wedding was the happiest moment of my life… that was until I had my first child Joseph (JJ) and my second Emily. Having kids and watching them grow up and being active in their lives and keeping Dee happy is what I live for. Which leads me to my first life motto… I work to live, I don’t live to work.

For my kids, I am there when they need me, I have been a soccer coach for my son for 6 years and a baseball coach for 4. I have even coached his Chandler National All Star team last year. For my daughter, I have coached 4 of her softball teams, including her Chandler National All-Star team.

In the last two years, both of my parents have died. Yes, I used the word died and not lost, I know exactly where they are

My career in technology

I attended college to become a High School Math teacher. Unfortunately, attending college and working full time both turned me off from the “education” system and turned me on to making money. My first job in technology was working as a Sales Person in a local Radio Shack. I then moved on to a manager position in an inventory company named RGIS. My first exposure to a technology job was when I worked for a store called ComputerWorld, which was a store that sold computers and software. One day a customer walked in and asked if I knew anyone that could write them some software for their real estate company. I said, that I could even though I knew nothing about programming at the time.

At this time, I went to my girl friend’s, at the time, college library and got a book on computer programming. It was the small blue book about QuickBasic. I started with the samples in this book and ended up building a quite large application in QuickBASIC for DOS. For this application, I had to write the user interface, the database (each table was a file), the database indexes, routines for rebuilding indexes, routines for printing and networking. Anyway, I eventually moved on to work for a real IT shop and quite a few other IT shops.

Community

I strongly believe in giving back to to the world (see my life motto #2 below). In high school, I was a student peer counselor. At one point in college, I was actively participating on the MSN Board (yes MSN boards) where I got my first Microsoft MVP in Visual Basic (for DOS) back in 1996. It was not until I got married and had kids that I got back into the community. As I mentioned above, I coached both of kids teams in a few different sports. I even coached a soccer team when I first moved to Arizona for a friends of mines kid’s team. When I started working for my current company I wanted to give back even more. At this point, I joined the Big Brother Big Sister program where I was a big, both in age and weight for three different kids. It is definitely something I recommend everyone do at least once.

I got into the technology community back in 2008 when I started the Southeast Valley .NET User Group. I presented times, helped out with other events which lead me to my second Microsoft MVP award. However, that apparently was not enough and I joined the INETA, International .NET Association Board of Directors where I became the Director of Marketing. After almost a year of service to INETA, I became the President of North America. Geez, that was a lot.

The next 10 years

In the next 10 years, both of my kids should attend and graduate college. I will hopefully make INETA relevant again. I will make it to my 20 year wedding anniversary, if Dee can continue to put up with me .

No matter what, I will continue to live by my 2 mottos

• I work to life, I don’t live to work
• Leave this life better than it was when you entered it.

Where should I go next? What should I do?