This doesn’t have anything to do with anything, it just occurred to me. I picked a terrible time to have a stroke. I’m almost 46 years old now, so that means I’m completely missing my mid-life crisis. It’s probably just as well, I don’t think I’d be very good at it anyway. My marriage is way too good to risk messing it up by wanting to and actually having a fling with some 23 year old bimbo – BUT, I’d drive a really cool car, though. (Just to be clear: I doubt that every 23 year old girl is a gold digging bimbo, just 3 or 4 of them.) I’d be ‘that guy’, tooling around in a muscle car that should belong to someone twenty years younger than me. I might have had one of those Bluetooth phone things attached to my ear and maybe even hair plugs (if I needed hair plugs). Whew! I’m sure lucky to have dodged that bullet by having Locked-In Syndrome. That would’ve been totally embarrassing.

OK, enough about that stuff. I want to talk about how the choices and decisions I made about my future 25 years ago, give or take a few, have and will continue to have an impact on the rest of my life. Like I said before, having Locked-In Syndrome gives me plenty time to sit around and think about stuff. Jen and I have many young nieces and nephews in both of our families and a few of them are at or close to the age when they’ll be faced with decisions and choices that will affect them for the rest of their lives. I hope they all make wise decisions.

When I was that age I, like many other kids, didn’t have the foggiest idea of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life but I was pretty sure it would require a college degree. There was never really a question of if I would go to college, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion. So, along with all my friends, off to school I went. Once there (UMSL and Flo Valley), I kind of floundered around and just took the classes that fit into almost ALL degree programs because I still didn’t have a real strong interest in anything. I was starting to get worried!

At the time I was going to school part-time and working part-time at UPS loading trucks. Man, that was miserable and hard work. That experience taught me that I wanted some kind of job in a climate controlled office building where the dress code might include a necktie. I just wasn’t cut out for a job where you had to wear shorts in the summer, sweats in the winter and take frequent water breaks.

But I still couldn’t seem to zero in on a career path. After my third change of college majors, I decided I’d better hunker down and figure something out. I was still pretty young but I wasn’t getting any younger. I remembered that back when I was a senior in high school I took a class where he (Mr. Schnable) taught us programming in BASIC on TRSDOS-80 computers. These “desktop” computers were roughly the size and weight of a Volkswagen Beetle and our programs and data where stored on cassette tapes. Anyway, I remembered kinda liking that class and not being half bad it. So I went yet another direction and signed up for some computer classes. (Really) long story short, my seven year college career, where I worked and took classes – both part-time, led me to a job at Emerson Electric and eventually CADP (now NISC). Both of these companies were great to work for, I made a lot of good friends and gained a ton of experience. Not to mention the fact – that’s how I met Jen!

As I write this, I realize that I’m starting to ramble and blather on and on – I’m practically telling my whole life story! Who wants to hear that? Not me. So, I’d better get to the point before you completely doze off:

‘If I had it to do over, I would probably…’…join the military for a few years right after high school. I don’t know that it would be the most popular move to make but I think being in the military goes a long way in helping kids grow up; it also teaches stuff like honor and discipline in addition to building up strength and character. Sure, if I joined I’d probably have been shipped off to a base just outside of Middle of Nowhere, AL. But who cares? I’m only 18, I’m excited to be going anywhere! Besides, in 1985 we weren’t involved in two wars half a world away, so being shot at was a very small probability.

After my stint in the service I would go to college for four years. I now know that your job doesn’t require that you know 90% of the stuff you learned in college, it’s biggest requirement is that you actually went to college. For that reason I would major in something that actually interests me or could be useful like mechanical engineering or physics.

Upon graduation I would try to get a job like: cop, teacher, paramedic, NBA basketball star… (I got serious game). I’d like to have a job like one of the first three because it allows you to work with and help people. Actually landing a job like that with a B. S. in Physics presents a problem but I’ll figure something out!

Don’t get me wrong, I love(ed) being a computer programmer and I don’t know that I would really change a thing. It was a very rewarding and challenging career and I was always learning something new. I was never much of a “computer guy” but it definitely satisfied my mind’s problem solving nature and totally fit into my Type B personality!