I was born in '75. In Louisville, Kentucky.
I made Richmond by early 80s for some growing up. Returned to Louisville after High School.
I met a dove on Delphi back in '93. We were friends, then better friends. Four years later she was my wife. Move on down south, deep south.
Now we have a little house in a big subdivision. Down the street, off another street and over by the golf course. No, not that one. The other one.
Two dogs, no kids. Molly's half black lab, half horse. Nearly. Cody's a german shepard/chow mix. He's just smart enough to realize how dumb he can be sometimes. They're our prescious pets!
Brandon, the Designer.
I've worked online for over 10 years now. Gah. I'm practically virtual. Sometimes I have to shift the pixels on my left hand. Upgrade my memory. Code the road.
That Was Then...
I joined Softdisk Publishing a year after the Id guys (of Doom/Quake fame) left, so I didn't get a chance to meet them. Still, it was an exciting time to be developing e-commerce. I helped design one of the first downloadable e-commerce stores and I was interviewed by Montrael radio. Pardon my french. (Actually, that was an English speaking station).
After that I did some contract work for some of the bigger players in town. But then settled down. With ANR SoftCom. I was Director of Internet Services and we had a lot of ambitions for creating a business-oriented Internet Service company. We did some great things, but some people higher than me made some decisions lower than them, and it didn't work out.
By this time I was teaching Web Design at Louisiana State University (in Shreveport). I taught a few classes a month for a few years and it was exciting to see the industry change and adapt. I knew it all along. :)
When the phone rang and said "The Times". I thought they were selling me a subscription. I didn't answer it for days. Finally, they left a message and were looking for a "webmaster". Is that what I am? I wonder. Well, that's what I was for awhile. With The Times, I worked hard to help break their typecast (yes, that's a pun). With The Times, I developed the best sites I could. And with The Times, I was primarily responsible for launching their very first news web site. It won an award at Gannett's annual gathering. I guess my boss still has it. *grin*
In 2000 it was time to spread my wings. I had done the web site for a large furniture company here in town and they liked me. They really liked me! They invested in me and I started Scenic Blue, LLC. A web design company with a focus on quality. We had some good times, we did some great work. Projects ranging from a few hundred to over $70,000. I had a group of four employees and we covered it all. Custom coding, e-commerce, we were at the top of the game.
Sept. 11th changed a lot of things, including the way corporations promoted their business. During the economic fallbacks, we realized that high quality, commercial web design was in decline for a bit so we closed the doors.
I went to work for National Mail-It, Inc. One of our larger clients with offices all over the south. They did direct mail. I was responsible for developing a large operations, inventory management project. We called it SOLAR (Much catchier than Sales, Operations, Logistics and Accounts Reconciliation). I was doing some consultant work at the time as well. It's just that after being on the same project for over a year, it starts to lose the spotenaity. The drive. The passion.
So I went to full time consulting and freelance work. I know a lot of people and had a lot of big contracts. But I found myself working for the corporate sector more than I wanted. I spent too much time in board meetings, marketing meetings, management discussions, strategic planning. I wanted to keep my hands dirty. I wanted to be with the people. I wanted to be the artist, not the producer.
Out of the blue, for curiosity sake, I went to work for the Shreveport Public Library system. I was in Automation (I don't know how that's different from Tech Services or MIS - to each their own). I was one of two people responsible for upgrading, troubleshooting, and maintaining the 450 public computers in 20 branches. I handled a variety of projects there. It had its ups and downs, but it was time to move on.
This Is Now...
I continue to do Internet and design consulting to a variety of old and new clients. In addition, I found a niche market through my wife's writer's community. I now run Writer Webs, a web design company exclusively for authors. I've had the good fortune to meet some fantastic authors and even designed the web site for Gregory Benford, my favorite author.
What goes around, comes around. And on a journey ever seeking, I find myself always returning to my first love - web design. Design in general, for that matter. Now I move forward in pursuing all goals, because success isn't always about how much money you make, or how many hours you work. In my opinion, success is enjoying what you do and doing it well.