I didn't take the time to introduce myself when I first started frequenting the forums here, so I thought I'd take the chance to rectify that. I'm 25 years old and I'm a Computer Engineer at Siemens Molecular Imaging in Knoxville, TN. We make PET Scanners here and marry the systems to a variety of different imaging modalities (i.e. CT Scanners to form a PET/CT Scanner). I write service software that our production team and field service engineers use to set-up, maintain, and troubleshoot our PET systems with. I graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with a B.S. in Computer Engineering and a minor in Mathematics (go Vols!). I originally planned on going to graduate school in the Math department, but I got a job offer from Siemens and couldn't pass it up. Since I took the job in 2005, I've settled down and bought a house in Knoxville as well. I live with my girlfriend of 1½ years and without her I wouldn't be where or who I am today. As far as gaming goes, I've been playing video games since my parents brought home our Commodore 64 (I think that I was 4-5 years old at the time). Even though Atari was available at the time and the NES surfaced later, I pursued computers rather than consoles. That lasted until I was 8 and fell off the top of a ladder for a high diving board. I fell backwards onto the concrete and utterly destroyed my left arm (1 compound fracture, 2 compound dislocations, and countless dislocations and fractures in my hand). Instead of playing on my little league all-star team that summer, I was left with one usable arm and not much to do. Luckily, I'm right-handed and soon realized that I could play the NES one-handed (thank God for such simple controllers back then). A few puppy dog faces later, I was the proud owner of my very first console. I've since regained full use of my left arm (to the doctor's amazement, actually), but I've been splitting time between console and computer gaming ever since. In my first few years of college, I played Quake 3 competitively (professionally?) under the name Weap0nX. I only made a few hundred dollars playing, and have since decided against a career in professional gaming. The only other interesting tidbit is that I co-founded a gaming club at UT called the Knoxville Gaming Bureau (KGB). We initially created it to get an office with access to the staff network for our Counter Strike servers, but its horizons broadened year after year. When I graduated, our monthly gatherings featured consoles, computers, CCGs, pen-and-paper RPGs, karaoke, DDR, and whatever other forms of gaming you can probably think of. I believe that it's still active at UT if by random chance anyone happens to go to school there. That came out far longer than expected, time to end the rambling!
I guess that means you drive your mongoose around the Bungie 500 with only one hand? Thats pretty amazing son.
Haha, not quite. A little over a year after the injury I had full use of my arm again. The scars aren't that crazy, but I should take a picture just for posterity.
Good, I will go over your resume and have word for you tomorow on wether or not you got the job. "btw: i jk, it was so long, it looked like a resume."
It's definitely a give and take thing, but she handles it amazingly well. She knew that it was a big part of who I am when we started dating, and that has helped immensely. The other key is my own commitment to not letting it dominate my free time. Spending time with her is far more entertaining than killing nameless zombie/alien/terrorist #3,141,592,653,589,793,238,462,643. Actually, I think my resume is more concise.
Cool. Very interesting to get to know the guy who's been on my friend's list awhile. You're not just another name anymore! lol That's very important. Same thing for me and my soon to be wife. Oooo, and I co-founded a chess club at my highschool. We did tournaments and everything. Doesn't sound as cool as your KGB though.
Yeah, it's hard to really get to know people on your friends list usually. And to think that I had simply been another name all that time... When are you and your fiancé getting married? Also, you must have gotten all the chicks at the chess club. They sure didn't flock to the gaming nights (read: LAN parties) we held.
March 19th. I think like only 36 days away! It'll be great! 'Course I'm more excited for the honeymoon than the actual wedding ceremony. lol :squirrel_rocking: And you're right, strangely enough the chess club was pretty popular with the girls at my school. Something I had never expected. But the bad part about it was it only attracted stupid girls who wanted to feel smart. And the one smart girl we had was a *******, so it never got me anywhere. I'll post my introduction thread later today, so keep an eye out for that.
Awesome, where's the honeymoon? I think I'm going to have to forge a wedding chapel for you two and let you walk through it. :squirrel_giggle: About the only women that we attracted at our events were girlfriends of guys that were attending. My own girlfriend at the time wouldn't be caught dead there, though. We never made a point of catering towards the male population (hell, there's an infamous quote about sausage pizza from one gathering), but they certainly gravitated more towards it than women did. Gaming has become more and more mainstream, and with the advent of the Wii, it's probably much easier to get females to attend these days. Anyways, I'll check out your introduction when you post it.
I rented a cabin in Helen, Ga. Oh, and a forged wedding chapel? Awesome! lol. Even Sarah (my fiance) laughed and thought it was cool.