Mark Welch:  

Not sure how many will remember me - as I was a loner in Fulton High School. Went to Montgomery County RII Middle School - I remember most of those from there. I was always doing something to the computers, and turned that into what I do for life. I tried for a year after graduation to get into the Navy, but was too fat (go figure). I managed to get in after a little over a year when I managed to loose 30lbs and spent the next 5.5 years wandering the globe - from the West coast to the Middle East. Part of the fun wandering the globe was I was on a ship that performed war games with the Mighty MO - and I have to say she is an impressive ship, even on the horizon. I spent my last 2 years out of Sasebo, Japan. My last trip out to sea was to chase a Typhoon. It was funny - we are leaving one of the most naturally protected harbors in the world to rock-n-roll on the sea. The Japanese, who were sailing into harbor, were laughing at us as we were leaving. I got to see over 30 ports in over 20 countries. Ecuador, Mexico British Columbia (Canada), Many of the islands in the Pacific because we celebrated the 50-year anniversary of WWII. I got a tour of Kuwait a year after Desert Storm. And managed to go to Australia 2x. Hong Kong (again 2x) was very interesting at Christmas - they had light displays that went across several buildings. I went to the Philippines before and after they shut down the US base there. Singapore was the cleanest city I've been to - you would be tossed in jail for spitting gum on the street. In 1995 I moved to Kansas City and went to work at Gateway 2000. From there I jumped ship to work at a GM Assembly plant supporting the computers, servers, and eventually the network - all at once! I met some characters at Gateway and we ended up having LAN (Local Area Network) parties - playing computer games, pre-internet games. 2004 was a memorable year in that 3 major incidents happened that I've ne...Expand for more