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| About this page: | Originally written sometime in 2005'ish Needs to be majorly updated! |
ACK! This is horribly outdated, sorry.
I hope to update it one of these days :-) -Adam
- Thousand Oaks, California (which is in between Los Angeles
and Santa Barbara)
- Kids' Unlimited Pre-school
- My creativity unleashed at an early age, I apparently nicknamed one teacher "the vaccuum cleaner." I'm assuming this is NOT because she sucked. I think I just like the way "vaccuum cleaner" sounded.
- Aspen
Elementary
- Got sent to the corner for politely telling teacher that spiders are arachnids, not insects. Scientist-dad got very upset.
- Became addicted to computers, starting with the Radio Shack TRS-80 ("Trash 80"), and moving on to the Tandy Color Computer and the Apple II+. I learned to load and save programs to cassette tape (no hard drives back then, or even floppy drives!), and procrastinate regular homework by devising and programming clever word and TRON-like games.
- Got first taste of how brilliantly manipulative women can be. Susan, the resident 6th grade hottie, batted her eyelashes and successfully got me to let her cut in front of me in the handball line.
- Redwood Junior High School
- Almost got beat up many times. Geeks may be popular in San Francisco nowadays, but they sure weren't back then!
- Got in trouble for a practical joke involving hacking the software code of the school's student disciplinary points system, giving all teachers negative points. Sadly, they didn't have much of a sense of humor.
- Thousand Oaks High School
- Almost got beat up many times, particularly by the football team, who -- true to the stereotype of being collectively dumber than a large rock -- mistook a compliment I penned in the student paper for an insult.
- Started my own singing telegrams company for charity, called "The Birthday Brigade." Sang to literally thousands of students, teachers, and amazingly-won-over administrators, mostly with goofy arrangements of songs I wrote ("Muppets Birthday," "Mr. Rogers' Birthday," "Mexican Hat Dance Birthday" and so on). We also sang the Star Spangled Banner at various school sporting events :).
- Was voted "Most Studious"... which to this day I'm not sure was meant seriously or sarcastically, since I rarely studied, and -- by senior year -- was spending far more time in extra-curricular activities than in the classroom.
- Kids' Unlimited Pre-school
- Evanston, Illinois (for Northwestern University)
- Majored in Political Science and Communications
- Was awarded 2nd place in a dorm polka competition.
- Experienced first snowfall (silly California boy!)
- Participated extensively in music performance and composition
- Received a "D-" in Band (Wind Ensemble) Arranging, largely in retaliation for missing the required finals-review session. During that time, I was dancing 30 hours straight for charity.
- The above disgrace was countered nicely by my "A" in Arranging for Jazz Bands, in which my "Time Consuming Piece Without a Title" was warmly praised by the talented jazz instructor.
- Had I spent less time playing in and writing for music ensembles, I might have received a more 'harmonious' GPA overall at Northwestern. But I would have had a lot less fun and really learned a lot less.
- Took first-ever dance class ("Jazz Dance") and was occasionally summoned to the front of the class to demonstrate moves. I'm now convinced that I was being used/abused for comic relief. But I was young and foolish then.
- Was bribed to join the men's crew (rowing) team. See above statement about being young and foolish.
- Thousand Oaks
- Spent a year in between undergrad and grad deciding what to do with my life. My wanderings included temp'ing, serving as a legal secretary for a (truly) corrupt lawyer, trying my hand at orchestra conducting, and beating up my body via masters swim team workouts. Law school, comparatively, was a piece of cake.
- Bloomington, Indiana (for Indiana University School
of Law and IU Kelley School of Business)
- Hung out with lots of wonderfully fascinating and fun undergrads, who helped keep me sane. Many of my fellow law students dismissed my socializing as 'a waste of time,' while my business students amusingly and rightfully admired my 'networking.' You can guess which group of folks was more fun to have beers with :)
- Insanely volunteered to take many extra intensive research-and-writing seminars. Wrote a (IMHO) groundbreaking paper on "Defamation on the Internet" that -- had I published back then -- would have likely earned me a bit of fame and acclaim. Stupid Adam! :(
- Created my first Web site ("Adam's SmileZone"), and played with my first Web server via my dorm connection and O'Reilly's "Web Site" server software.
- Continued to be active in extra-curricular activities... participating in student government, accompanying singers, assistant-music-directing "Little Shop of Horrors" and so on.
- Learned that -- while Indiana on the whole is rather scary -- Bloomington is an amazing cultural oasis! I saw tons of wonderful performances (musicals, choir festivals, etc.) for free or very little money, and also ate inexpensively at a fabulous mix of ethnic restaurants. Ah, how I miss those days!
- Learned to drive in the snow. Eeek!
- Mannheim, Germany
(first for an internship during last summer at IU, then full-time afterwards)
- Headed off to Germany to serve as a consultant for a German IT Consulting firm... speaking not a word of German, and having never ventured to Europe before.
- Got really, really drunk after stupidly (but innocently) commenting on my alcohol tolerance. My body was NOT tolerant enough to protect me against the ravages of a hangover endured while sitting backwards on a bullet-train in a smoking section at 7am after a finished-at-4am orientation "Welcome to Deutschland!" party.
- Learned that trying to be polite by asking, "Hallo! Sprechen sie English?" is a really bad idea, because store clerks will admire your accent and insist that you complete the transaction 100% in German. This is especially problematic when trying to open a checking account.
- Was fascinated by the differences between gender relations in Europe and in the U.S., both socially and in the workplace. This actually merits a substantial write-up when I have more time.
- Couldn't believe just how many gorgeous and (otherwise) brilliant folks smoke in Germany. Ack!
- Learned that the German trains, for the most part, really do run on time... and this highlights what a total joke public transit is in most of America :(.
- Wasn't able to find a dang grilled chicken sandwich in the entire 200,000 person town of Mannheim. It was similarly difficult to find a chocolate chip cookie or muffin or doughnut or decent salsa, despite how much my German friends professed to loving these things when they were in America. Clearly, entrepreneurialism in the area of international cuisine has not yet caught on much in Germany.
- Boston
- Spent just three short months in Boston, helping the German company set up a subsidiary.
- Slipped and fell on ice in front of my house and had a disgusting rump-bruise for about 3 months!
- LOVED the compactness and richness of Boston! What an exciting, vibrant, and colorful city!
- San Francisco
- Worked with the relatively hip high-tech PR firm Niehaus Ryan Wong, which unfortunately stagnated a bit and was unable to thrive during the dot.com downturn. My entire department was laid off, and later the whole company went bankrupt.
- Got involved with swing dancing, taught by the venderable Paul and Sharon, and became rather addicted to Lindy Hop.
- Traveled to Europe once or twice every year, especially around Christmas time to see close friends in Germany. Okay, and to bring home a suitcase full of decent chocolate, too!
- Decided to make a go of living off of my Web site revenues, plus miscellaneous online marketing contract jobs.
- Added AdWords / Overture consulting into my mix, helping a variety of small and large businesses with their online advertising campaigns.
- After a year of being a happy and oft-feedback-giving user of Plaxo, actually got invited to work for the company as a consultant.
- Got the "dream gig" of working on a music community... with Virgin Digital.
- Discovered Waltzing and started getting hooked.