Scott Hammel:  

Life I new what I wanted to do with my life by the time I turned six. I wanted to be a computer technician, engineer, or programmer on an interstellar spacecraft. So, moving from a suburb of Atlanta, GA, to a farm near Bonnots Mill, MO, was a bit of a bummer for me. It seemed, somehow, lightyears in the wrong direction. But I'm glad we did, the whole experience of living 10 of the most formative years of my life in the wrong environment made me a much stronger, well-rounded person. It probably didn't matter -- I mean, I clearly haven't lost out on any opportunity to serve on an interstellar spacecraft. I didn't like high school. I didn't fit in. I think because my family didn't own a combine. I was a little weird, but I wasn't fat. My parents offered to buy me a used car when I turned 16. I asked them to buy me a computer instead. I didn't join FFA. I always had a knack for writing, so I wrote poems and short stories. Dark, moody poems like all adolescents write. Oh, and I played Sinistar a lot at some little diner near the high school. Remember Sinistar? I think I harbored a fantasy that if I got really good at it, space aliens would come and ask me to lead their rebel fighting fleet like they did that kid in the cheesy 80's movie called, I think, "The Last Starfighter." I haven't met any space aliens, though I do look up at night a lot. When it comes to space aliens, my life has been more like Ryan's in "Doin' Time on Planet Earth." I did share one thing in common with the other guys in high school, though: an adolescent attraction for the new math teacher my senior year. What was her name? Fork or something. I...Expand for more