In the begining...

• Born and lived in a small town in Montana for 5 years.
• Move to Portland, OR for about 6 months .
• My parents decided to become medical missionaries and we moved to a small village in Nepal for about 2 1/2 years.  Near here:
  
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• Upon returning to the U.S., we lived in Des Moine, Iowa for about 6 months.
• My dad decided to go back to school to become a psychiatrist so we moved to Grand Rapids, MI  for a few years.
• After getting his degree, we left Michigan and headed west to the lovely town of Coeur d'Alene, ID.
• During high school I played basketball, soccer, tennis, and became an avid skier.  My favorite high school achievement was to use my position as student body president to finaggle three school-sponsored ski days during my senior year.
• After graduation, I went to the University of Idaho with big plans for taking over the business world.
• I picked Accounting as my major and, after a few classes at the 300 level, I decided that my true passion was technology.
• I picked up an intership with a small web development company and help to create the first-ever live Internet broadcast of a collegiate sporting event. 
• Around year four of college, I met a great lady and we got married.
• Not satisfied with the pace or what I was learning in college I  dabbled in a couple of other business paths (MIS and Finance), but I decided to instead get certified as a network engineer and go the trade route.
• We packed up and headed for the Colorado Rocky Mountains and landed just outside of Boulder.  I found a job with a local computer networking company where I continued with my network engineering education and career.
• I started practicing martial arts at White Dragon Martial Arts and that would change much of how I would approach life from there on out.
• Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, my wife and I decided to take a trek to the Mt. Everest Base Camp in Nepal for our 5th anniversary.  I wasn't blogging at the time so I only have a paper journal.  Long story short...26 hours in a plane...2 weeks hiking...18,500' is really high...1 week relaxing...26 hours in a plane...best experience of my life...so far!
• After about 5 years as a network engineer, I felt it was time to try something new. I quit my job and spent the next few months looking at other options. 
• A fellow student at my martial art class showed me an ad for part time web developer position for a local company.  Turns out that company was a former client of mine and I decided to work for them.
• Working part-time, gave me an opportunity to finish my undergraduate.  We moved to Greeley, CO where I spent a couple of years finishing up my business degree (ended up settling on Management). 
• I let a team of college student help me setup an LLC as a school project. After it was done, RowdyData LLC was born so I would have a mechanism for taking on special projects as I encounter them.
• After graduating with over 150 credit hours, I moved to working full time but I kept commuting from Greeley to Longmont.  There was a possiblity the company was going to relocate so I put off moving back to Longmont.
• To make the 80 mile round trip commute tolerable, I bought a new BMW.  People seem to think you're an a-hole for driving one, but they really are fun to drive.
• My wife and I took a vacation to Couples Swept Away in Jamaica.  This was our first beach vacation and we got hooked.  We did it all, snorkeling, diving, sailing, and sunning.
• In my free time over about a year I built a specialized web application to privide live auctioneers with a content management system for their web site (RowdyData project).
• Eventually the company I was working for was relocated to Aurora, CO (northeast Denver).
• I had to leave my martial arts school because of the move. After 7 years, this was difficult thing to do. I would try to find another school but knew that it would never be the same.
• We put down a deposit on a new home north of Denver and had 6 months to sell our house in Greeley. This was just when the housing market was starting to suck.  We tried for a good price for a few weeks, but as prices started to fall, we dropped our price to be lower than the current competion yet still at a safe break-even point for us. Closed on the house in about 90 days.  Had we not dropped the price, we would probably still have that house. Lesson learned.
• Our new house was still being built so we had to stay in an appartment for 90 days and had the please of dealing with a double move. That sucked.
• For our 10th anniversary, my wife and I got our diving certifications from Tortuga Bay in Greeley.  Our final dives for the certification where at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM. It was awesome.
• To put our new certifications to the test, we went down to Isla Mujeras (just off the coast new Cancun, MX) and had a great time diving.  Did our first night dive and saw a good-size eel and a big octopus.
• I tried out a new martial arts school--Shao Lin Kung Fu--not my cup of tea. More "art" than "martial" if you ask me.
• We finally got moved into our new house and settled in both there and at my new office.
• After all the hassle and stress, it was time for another vacation. This time we went to the beautiful island of Roatan, Honduras. We stayed in a modest beach bungalow and dove and snorkled our brains out.
• I tried out another martial arts school--Progressive Martial Arts.  Very good school with a tough MMA system that reminded me of my former White Dragon school.  Unfortunately, my proximity to the school combined with big changes in my work schedule have not allowed me to participate at a reasonable level so I have put this activity on hold for now.
• Our company was underbid for our primary contact, and will no longer be operating. While this is bad news for the regular paycheck status, this is good news for anyone looking for someone like me.
• Turns out the whole contract thing worked out okay--for me.  The contract came under dispute and I ended up deciding to move on to a new company rather than ride things out.  Still sticking with the corrections field but moving out of web development and into more of a management role.
• Recently experienced my first significant earthquake.  On a dive trip to Roatan, Honduras we woke up to a 7.1 quake and several subsequent aftershocks. No major issues where we were at, but it was quite exciting.  Even experienced an aftershock 60' underwater later that day on a dive!
• Back to the contract thing...turns out they wanted me back and I'm thinking there could be some good opportunities under this new company.  Should be a real challenge jump-starting a project that's been in a holding patter for over 2 years, but that's my bag.

...to be continued.