Dave's Place - About Me: My Life So Far

My Life So Far

I guess, the easiest way to explain my life, is to bring you up to date with a brief list of events:

As you know, I'm an American living in Calgary. It all started in the late 1700s. My mom's ancestors came to the U.S. from Wales. In the mid 1800s, my dad's ancestors came to the U.S. from Wales. That is pretty cool. Both sides of the family came from the same place. What are the chances? My mom's side of the family settled in central Florida near Orlando, and my dad's side settled in southern Georgia, near Columbus.

Next, we jump forward about 200 years. That would be when I was born. Within a couple of days, I was adopted by a wonderful set of parents in Atlanta, Georgia. That would be the family mentioned above. I lived in Atlanta for the first 17 years of my life.

For high school, I chose (on my own free will) to do Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC).

For undergrad, I moved outside of Buffalo, NY to go to university. While living in Buffalo, I had a girlfriend who lived outside of Pittsburgh. As a result, I ended up having an apartment in Mt. Pleasant, PA. For nearly four years, I spent every weekend in this small steal town in Pennsylvania. Well, I eventually realised that I could never date someone from western Pennsylvania. After four years of dating, we broke up.

Eventually, I graduated from undergraduate with two separate Bachelor degrees. One in Business Adminstration with a major in Investment Finance. The other in Information Systems. I graduated with honours, but during a recession, so jobs were hard to come by.

Following graduation, I moved back to Atlanta to live with mom, but one month later the Defense Department offer me a job in Washington, specialising in coal and natural gas procurement. I accepted the position, and one month after moving to Atlanta, I moved to Washington, DC. After about a year, my job function switched from contracting to designing and maintaining my subagency's website.

Within 18 months of living in Washington, I met a wonderful lady from Philadelphia (the other side of Pennsylvania). One year after our first date (02 Oct), we got married. Imagine that...I was married.

Well, that didn't last very long. Two years later, I was divorced. We both agreed that we made a mistake. If there was ever a peaceful divorce, I had it. As a result, I realised that Pennsylvania women and I just don't work (west or east side).

While working for the Defense Department, I went to night school and earned a Master's degree in Economics with a major in Law and Economics. From there, I was accepted to Law School. I went through three semesters, but realised that Law School involved way too much reading. I hate reading, so I dropped out. That would be the end of my education.

While working for the Department of Defense, I was heavily involved in the Natural Gas Industry. I had made contacts throughout North America (mostly in Houston and Calgary). After a couple of business trips to Calgary, where I got to do some mountaineering activities, I decided I prefered the Canadian Rocky Mtn Lifestyle. In June 1997, I moved to Calgary, started working for NrG Information Services (a software firm for the natural gas industry) and started focusing on climbing.

In January 1998, I accepted a position with Agrium as an Internet Development Analyst. Agrium is a medium-sized international corporation (about 4,000 employees) specialising in the fertilizer industry. Basically, I was the company's one-man web team.

In August 1998, I started dating a woman (Tina) from Strathmore, AB. In June 1999, we moved in together, and started to date much more seriously. Tina had two little boys (Dustin (age 6) and Delaney (age 2)). Of course, the kids are older now.

In September 2000, Agrium lost most of it's "good" managers to PanCanadian. Those Managers took me with them, so in September 2000, I started working for PanCanadian. I was hired to develop web applications for PanCanadian's HR department, but in March 2001, I got "drafted" into PanCanadian's Natural Gas Division as a Business Analyst. Then a reorganization in September 2001 got rid of my team. Ugh.

In April 2001, Tina and I decided to "officialise" our relationship. We got married at the Rimrock Hotel in Banff.

In March 2002, I began working with the City of Calgary doing project management for web projects.