Here are some facts from my life from age 20 till now (31)...
-I am 31 this year, January 13th is my birthday.
- I've worked at home for almost a decade. It's interesting in the least of senses. I have almost zero after work life since my office is seconds from my couch at 9:43 PM and there is no "office" to say, "Hey, want to grab a drink after work?" Being a single White Male does have its' downside at times. Poker tables look dramatically more social than my office after 3 days of not leaving at all.When I'm not on the road, I'm in my "office" at home. No, I don't get to sit and watch TV all day. I have a very well defined metric to gauge my work, it's called a Sales number. Hit it, you're adequate; Miss it, you're shit and fired. Blow the number out and you make pretty good money. That's the nature of my profession. Much like Poker, it's all about the number of hands that are dealt to get to the long-run.
- I am a college drop-out; and pretty proud of it considering the lack of computer knowledge that I DIDN'T learn in college. I ended up knowing more going in than I would have coming out. I would have stayed in college if I was actually learning something and I quit Ohio State because I was already making around $40k a year as a Sophomore in 1994, before anyone knew that the Internet existed. I ended up leaving OSU because most of the undergrad classes were only offered during business hours. I took what I could and aced most of them, except Macro Economics, that took me 3, count 'em, 3 tries. I owned the rest of my business classes once I switched majors to Computer Information Science under the college of business, instead of my original college of engineering; which was DRAMATICALLY more difficult. Then again, I was instructed wrong by conselling and tried to cram Engineering Calculus, Engineering Chemistry, Engineering Physics and my other undergrad requirements into my Freshman year. Converting my major to Business was a complete joke compared to that engineering curriculum. Then again, I was already making as much as the job that they were "preparing" me for. It does help a GREAT deal to prepare for your life-long career religiously since the age of 10. ;-) I learned 8086 Assembly Language language when I was 15 because "I wanted to" for god's sake. Find someone that knows Assembly today in the business, we're/they're like finding the missing link fossils!!! That's the Obsessive Compulsive mentality for ya...
- My Sophomore year, I made my patented "Nuclear Hell Fire Chili" along with my roommate Oakley and it came out a stellar Green color. You put that much Jalapeno in a pot and it'll do that kids! We had an early morning final and we fought over the bathroom that morning. We finally made it about 5 minutes late to Hitchcock hall for our programming final, when one the way down the hall to our final I said, "Dude, I can't make it..." "What? You gotta make it. It's the final." Some brief thinking and I replied, "tell her that I'm sick or something, I can't make it, man." I then made a mad rush to the "John" and thought I would die for the longest time. I finally arrived at the programming final, which I had rarely ever attended, and got my test more than 20 minutes after it started, finished it first, handed it in and raced back to the restroom for yet another sequel to the Nuclear Hell Fire aftermath. I got the top score in the class. Sorry for busting the curve kids; I did avoid 90% of the classes the give you a chance. It does help to have already mastered the curriculum at 15. That's what desire gets you.
- I once made $100 drinking a 7 shot glass of Bicardi 151 after work followed by a 7 shot glass of Coke, to be imbibed not fewer than 1 minutes having ingested the Rum. I waited 2 minutes to prove my worth and collected my money. Then I went to a baseball game, drank a 8 pints and returned to the originating bar to drain 4 pints of Long Island Iced Tea. By the way, I'm the light weight in my crew of friends. Ya, we can put it down. Wanna play No-limit when I'm "drunk"?
- I have already been a multi-millionaire. In-fact I was one of the few people that I know that made any REAL money out of the dot com boom, and I was right in the middle of it. I let around $2 Million dollars "ride", although I did end up cashing out around $130,000 of it to real cash. My whole take on that money at the time, being all of 25 (and still very good at what I do for a living), was that it didn't cost me anything to earn it above my normal 6 figure salary, and I didn't do anything more to make it bagiliions, so why not let it ride. I've already W2'd more than a million dollars in earnings in my 31 years, and I wasn't about to retire anytime soon. I love being a systems engineer and software architect! What better job to wake up to every morning.
When I was 14, I ran the basic math and figured the interest on $2 Million, even then. Call it practice for later life, call it a pipe dream. It's a nice living, but I would never hang up my spurs for a "crumby couple of million". There I said it, I've had it! I make one phone call and the FedEx'd check the next day is more than most make in a lifetime. That's my perspective...
I still wouldn't have retired. In-fact, I'd do my job for free if it really came down to it. It's not about the money, I love to solve customer's problems! I love waking up every day and knowing the answers to the questions that my customers haven't even though of yet. How do we...? Oh, this is how... But what if we...? No problem, here's how you fix that! Been there, done that... Much like poker, the money doesn't matter nearly as much as playing the game. It's also important to note that I have no idea where I spent $30,000 in those years. I honestly can't account for it in the slightest!
- True conversation at Best Buy.
Me: "Ya, I was wondering how much that wall of TV's cost..."
Salesdude: "Well, they're about $5,000"
Me: "What??? No, I mean for the whole 3x3 array of TV's plus all the back-end splitter equipment to make the "Wall O' TV's".
Salesdude: "Oh, I don't know, I'll have to check." Minutes later. "They cost about $60,000."
Me: Hmmm... "I can do that..."
...years later at a Bank of America while opening Vato's bank account.
New Accounts Dude: "WHAT??? You were that guy?!?!? My friend was THAT sales guy!!! We always thought he was lying and it was a myth!"
I priced Ferrari 355 Spiders too. ;-) Trust me, insurance is a BITCH at that age regardless of the $150k you have to flop down on an Italian exotic sports car. Still one of my favorite cars. I also ended up "hawking" my Rolex 2-tone Daytona; loved that Oyster Perpetual winding action though, no batteries!!! I think that I might have been the only guy wearing shorts and a worn T-shirt with a $6,000 time piece for a thousand miles. I still miss that watch now, never should have sold it. Not like I "needed" the money at the time. Not that I have since before I was 20. Find something you love kids, you'll never work a day... well maybe not as nice as I made for myself, but you'll be happy.
- Post dot com bust, I spent 9 months unemployed. I would get phone calls from my head hunter, my best friend Jagger and I'd see Wookie tending bar almost every night. "What did you do today?" "Well, I woke up around noon; poured myself a Bloody Mary and started drinking for the day." That's the beauty of having more money than you know what to do with at 25/26. I got drunk every single day for 9 months. Why not? I didn't have to call-in sick. I didn't have to really look for work, because the Bay Area was imploding job wise. New Lexus's were going on the market hourly because Photoshop dorks that couldn't find 6-figure work anymore and had to go back to Starbuck pouring Latte's and make the rent somehow. I actually had (have) marketable skills and the market was over saturated. No spouse, no kids, no responsibilities what-so-ever. Why not get drunk every day!?!?! How many people do you know that can get shit-faced wasted every day for the better part of a year and still have tens of thousands in the bank at the end of the year??? It was something that I wish on any non-Hilton's. A beautiful moment in my life when I could have gotten (probably should have) into a hell of a lot more trouble that I never did!!! I honestly feel like I let people down by not making a complete spectacle of myself... Ah! Such is life.
More craziness later. Life is short and a lot of fun for me thus far. The future can't be much different than my past 12 years. I don't have a job, I have a career as a Systems Engineer and Solutions Architect, and I couldn't have designed my life better. Much like Poker, if you play your cards right, the money will always come.
Nicholas has left the 3s