About Me
Basic History
I was born and raised in a small town in West Virginia as the second of four children, and lived there until the age of nineteen. Following high school I spent a year at Shepherd University (WV), and then left to serve a two year full-time mission for the LDS church in the Nevada Las Vegas West Mission.
School
Since returning from my mission in August of 2009, I've attended Brigham Young University-Idaho, where I'm currently a junior studying computer information technology. I've had a good time learning about the basics of networking, programming, and website and graphics design. In the next several semesters I plan to take quite a few higher level courses, so I'll be learning more about object-oriented programming, operating systems, database design, network security, and other topics. I also plan to have an emphasis in web design and development, so I'll take some additional art, business, and visual media courses.
Interests
My favorite hobby is to play music, especially the drums and guitar. I bought my first drumset at age sixteen and began playing with friends, and have picked up the guitar and other instruments along the way (see more). I also obviously have an interest in computers, whether it be programming, graphic design or creating websites, and I enjoy watching and playing all kinds of sports and spending time outdoors.
Where it all started...
Computers really have always been and interest of mine. As a kid I would spend hours on the computer playing games, and also creating my own designs, stories, newsletters and other projects. There was just something about using the computer to create things that really grabbed ahold of me.
As the years went on I continued to find more exciting ways to use the computer, and I began to grow into more complex projects. While in middle school I had my own little business selling books, CDs, and other items on websites like eBay and Half.com. Around the same time I taught myself html and began creating websites for myself and others.
As I got into high school I became interested in things like skateboarding and playing music, so of course I found ways that the computer could be involved. My friends and I would film our best skateboarding tricks and then use programs like Microsoft's MovieMaker to create skate videos, and later on we built a little recording studio and woud write and record our own songs and create music videos.
Also during my high school school years I started taking some programming classes, and I remember looking up online tutorials during my first year of QBasic programming so that I could teach myself to write more intricate code for creating video games. The first game I ever wrote was a multi-level arcade-type game called "Shades", where you played as a red pac-man looking character wearing sunglasses, and you had to battle swarms of evil square-shaped bad guys. Good times!
And onward!
Since then I've come a long way in developing my programming and design abilities, but there is so much more I would like to learn. Luckily there's a lot of talent here at BYUI, among both the students and the faculty, so I believe there's plenty opportunity to learn from others. In my next couple years of schooling I hope to glean as much as I can from them. I also plan to develop my programming and design skills and build up my portfolio by working some smaller freelance jobs, so if you or anyone you know is looking for help with web or graphics design, let me know!
