Derek Johnson:
CLASS OF 1987
Cole High SchoolClass of 1987
San antonio, TX
Lassiter High SchoolClass of 1987
Marietta, GA
Derek's Story
Life
Let's see...where to start? I currently live about 40 miles southwest of Denver, Colorado, at about 7000 feet in the foothills of the Front Range. I own about 5 acres in a gorgeous area overlooking the South Platte River Valley. It is a fairly remote area and we can't see any of our neighbors. We're surrounded by Pike National Forest and in a great spot for mountain biking (when there isn't snow on the ground). We definitely lead a rustic lifestyle, and lack trash service or cell phones. Frankly, though, neither is a problem. The remoteness also means that it makes good sense for us to have a woodpile for our fireplace, so I spend much of my summer free time cutting and stacking wood. Who would have guessed that it would be so much fun to run a chainsaw?
I am not married, and never have been, and currently live with my girlfriend of the past 3 years. We have no kids, but we do have two large dogs who basically have their run of the house. Jake, the older of the two, is a chow/lab mix and has been with me for over 10 years now, since around the time I started graduate school at Duke. He's getting up there in age now, but the rural life certainly seems to agree with him. Scrappy is 7 now, and is an akita/retriever mix, with an insatiable appetite for fetching just about anything one would care to throw.
We get a variety of wildlife visiting us. We have a few gray and red foxes that come around looking for handouts, which, I confess, we are all too willing to provide. As you might imagine, there are large numbers of birds, chipmonks, squirrels, deer mice and so on. Lately, we've had a big bunch of wild turkeys passing through on a few occasions; a group of 20-25. We frequently have deer passing through the yard, but we try to discourage them from hanging around so...Expand for more
as to keep the cougars away. We've seen one of the big cats on one fleeting occasion, and that was enough. We also get black bears visiting every now and then, like when I accidentally leave the garage door open and all that delicious trash available for picking through.
During the week, I make the commute into town where I work as a manager in the software engineering department at Comcast. I've been there for four years now, and they treat me pretty well, so I think I'll stick around for a bit. Some of you may recall that my college education was in paleontology and anthropology, so it's a bit of a fluke that I ended up in the tech field, and even flukier that I've been able to be successful. Go figure.
In my free time, I enjoy mountain biking and alpine skiing, depending on season, of course. This past summer saw my first serious mountain biking crash...led to a dislocated elbow with about 3 miles of downhill riding left to go. I had to pop it back into place myself while on the trail. I always used to cringe when people would relate stories of having to relocate a serious dislocation, but I can now tell you in no uncertain terms that having it back in joint feels SOOOO much better than having it out. Needless to say, I walked the rest of the way back to the car.
Let's see...I have also been playing guitar for a bit over 10 years now, and have just taken up drumming in the past couple of years. I can't profess to be exceptionally good at either, but I can do a pretty convincing job if the listener doesn't know any better.
Other than that, I read a lot, watch plenty of movies, and am pretty much a video game junkie. Not sure what else you folks might be interested in, so I'll wrap it up there. Drop me a note if you feel like it at derekj1969 at gmail dot com.
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