Shaun Long:
CLASS OF 1987
Ulysses High SchoolClass of 1987
Ulysses, KS
Texas Tech University - Arts & SciencesClass of 1996
Lubbock, TX
Shaun's Story
Short version:
Spent 3 years in the army, spent the next 9 years at Texas Tech, let a great girl find me, married her, left college a little earlier than I planned for a job with IBM, had 2 gorgeous daughters, and now just trying to keep on keeping on.
Longer version:
I guess I had seen too many rambo movies in the 80s, so I didn't get as much out of the army as I might have in another field, but it was a good experience, I made some lifelong friends, and it forced me to grow up fairly quickly. After tours in Ft. Lewis, Washington and Baumholder, Germany, I was eager to get back "home" to west Texas, so I went to Texas Tech to study pre-med.
I was always interested in medicine, but I found out I wasn't all that interested in all the pre-reqs. I slogged through the courses for a while until I found psychology, which seemed to really motivate me. I switched over and discovered a good field called human factors psyhology that could be used to get a job in the IT industry using all the learning and cognitive background to help make products more usable for consumers. Because I really liked technology and computers, the human-computer interaction specialty seemed like a great fit, so I took some senior courses working for a professor and ended up going to grad school there at Tech. Although I was in the phd program, once I obtained my masters, I got a very good job offer that I didn't think I should pass up, so I took the job with IBM and found out finishing your phd long distance from Connecticut was more difficult than it sounded.
Along the way, I met and dated several girls, but while working my way through school at a hospital, I finally found one that I knew was special. She's one of the only people in this world that I truly never get tired of being around. We dated for 2 years, and then got married in Lubbock. It was a very nice wedding, even if we, or our families, did almost all of the work!
The job with IBM took us to Connecticut for my first 2 years with the company. It really was beautiful up there with all the trees and fall foliage, but the people are a little different. Everyone is very nice, but not all that friendly. It reminded me a lot of how the Europeans interact, living in such a small area altogether. I don't think they knew what to do with my teasing Texas humor. For example, I bought a small Texas flag and stand for my office, claimed it in the name of Texas, and issued visas to my co-workers to enter my "embassy".
While in New England, we went to several state and national parks to hike and enjoy the outdoors. The air must be fertile up there because our first daughter was born in Connecticut. We don't like to announce that very loudly now, as being a yankee in Texas can give y...Expand for more
ou a stigma, and why do that to your little girl! We also went into NYC, "the city", a few times with visitors, but I never really enjoyed myself all that much. I was always too worried about being mugged, so spent much of the time looking over my shoulder.
One big memory of the time up there was sitting in my office in Southbury, Connecticut on a Tuesday morning when the news of 9/11/2001 broke. I had just gotten coffee with some of my co-workers and we heard along the way that a small plane had accidentally hit one of the towers, but the buzz around the building grew more and more. By the time we got back to our offices and tried to find any news, the network seemed completely down and there was no way to get the info. As we were only 75 miles from NYC, and finally found out there was a terrorist attack, the building of about 3000 emptied out and most people went to work from home. I remember watching the news as the 2nd plane hit and then the long delay before first one tower then the other fell. It was a very strange time around NYC for the rest of the time we were in New England.
We got permission to move back to Texas in December of 2003. So, my wife, my 6 month old daughter, and I loaded everything we owned into a 26 foot moving truck, attached the car we were hauling to the back, and made the 4 day drive back to Lubbock. We decided to stay with my wife's mother while we bought a house, which is a decision that I have come to regret, but we lived through it. Now, we are in a house that we like, in a town that we both grew up near, and surrounded by lots of family. Somewhere along the way, we had another daughter, and if you have 2 kids or more, you know that somehow, in defiance of all logic, multiple kids are actually more work than the sum of each kid individually. It's like the mystic force that steals a sock in the dryer or places lost shoes separately in different rooms.
To sum up, I work for IBM in my basement office and my wife teaches at the elementary school that the girls attend. So, we are a pretty close family and get to spend a lot of time with each other. To be honest, I've accomplished everything that I think I've ever wanted out of life: a family I love, a job that I like and pays enough for us to be comfortable, a house that I can see myself retiring in, and all of it close to extended family. So, all that's left is to enjoy it without worrying about losing it all. :) Don't get me wrong, I really wish Tim and my brothers were closer so we could play basketball in the driveway and there are always little emergencies to work through, but all in all, I'm fairly blessed with how things have turned out and I wish all of my classmates the same contentment, should that be their desire.
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