In the Beginning . . .
     After the strands of DNA from my dad and mom got tangled, I immediately set out to create cells and divide them continually until I had achieved signifcant biomass.  My operation achieved and even exceeded projected goals for aprroximately nine months, when due to difficulties with a certain property owner, I was forced to relocate.

Childhood
    I found myself in Fairbanks, Alaska, a surprisingly nice place with a savagely variable climate.  Upon my expulsion, I immediately set about chewing on things and soiling myself(skills that would be sorely tested in college).  Growing up in the Arctic was not exciting to me until the motion picture "The Empire Strikes Back" was released.  After that momentous event, my friends and I busied ourselves nonstop digging out every snowbank we could find to make our own "rebel bases."  Sadly, these ice caves were prone to collapse, and that winter Stephen King could have created a whole new franchise about the droves of missing children.  Spring was not much better, either.

'Country' Life
    Even though I was living in the 'Last Frontier' as Alaska is known, my family occupied a nice two-story home in a suburb in the Aurora subdivision, across the street from the town's first 7-11.  Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I didn't live the rugged, romantic life of the cabin dwellers, who only ventured into town if they needed corn meal or bullets.  Then I remember how much I love a good, reliable flushing toilet and anti-bear measures such as S.W.A.T. teams, and laugh at the plight of the goofy bastards in their cabins.  Telephones are nice, too.  Combined with the Internet, gathering pornography has never been easier for so many people.

On to high school . .
    After my 'child' status was revoked, I was assigned to a (relatively) large high school, Austin E. Lathrop High.  To this day, I still don't now what Mr. Lathrop did to get a school named after him.  Nor do I care--let's end that thread.  Lathrop is the dumping ground for all the urban kids and military brats, and thus had the most violence, drugs and football trophies of all the schools in the region. I remember being very annoyed at how quickly trends from television(break dancing, cocaine) were adopted by my peers, but didn't become really depressed until I realized that it happened everywhere.  Highlights of my high school days include being editor of the school paper, sleeping through an awards assembly where they gave me a letter for academics, and single-handedly beating the blackbelt-Apollo-Creed vice-principal, Charles Scott, in single combat using my deadly "crotchtear" technique.  Actually, that last part is made up.  Or maybe it's true.  My memories are fuzzy since the coma.

    Radio Days . . .
    Fresh into college, I was working at a local supermarket photo counter when a guy asked me to be on the radio.  Usually when this happens, I picture myself tied up in the back of a van, but this time it turned out the fellow was on the level.  He got me a job as a Disc Jockey at the local AOR/Dull FM station.  I was grateful until I found out that my 'show' was on between midnight and six in the morning, when sensible people are sleeping and the crazies turn psycho.  Actually, the show was pretty popular--who knew that Fairbanks had such a thriving population of cab drivers, angry loners and alcoholics?  Well, everybody knew about the last one.  It was a sweet gig, until some lady decided that I was the antichrist and took it upon herself to try and apply scissors to my innards.  Fortunately, the police are very swift in their responses these days . . . It was time to get a day job.
And college . . .
    Immediately following the high school graduation ceremony, I was deluged with offers from colleges and armed forces, all offering me attractive jobs and opportunities to work with various radioactive materials.  I politely declined by throwing all that mail into the trash, and instead went to the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, which is famous for its lack of parking and having been voted by Playboy magazine as having the least attractive women in the United States.  While avoidng any hard classes by changing my major every other week, I was able to participate in some theater productions, psychology experiments, and argon laser tests.  Strangely, I nearly lost a finger during each one.  Eventually, the registrar explained that I would be graduating with a degree in Psychology, a vocation just slighty less useless than philosophy.  I signed papers, paid fees, and walked away in the summer of 1995 with a certificate, a huge collection of cds, and absolutely no idea of how poorly people with bachelor's degrees in Psychology get paid . . .
Stereos and such . . .
Just before I turned 21, I began working at the town's premiere audio/video store.  It seemed like an easy gig to help pay for the things I was doing while skipping my engineering classes, and I found that I made a great deal of money working on commission.  It was a job I could have done for many more years if only the owners weren't such complete basket cases.  I won't slander them with specifics, but there are ways to treat people that are just wrong.  They ONLY used those ways.  Other than that, it was thrilling to manage a business that allowed me access to all the grooviest, high tech audio/video gear on the market.  Maybe one day I'll open a little boutique and rap with old hippies about their stylus's and tube amps . . .

   Working with our (troubled) Youth . . .
I don't want to sound like a nazi, but there are people who need to be gassed.  I'm not talking about people who worship this or practice that, but people who do so much damage to their offspring that I get attacked with knives, broken bottles or even teeth.  I went to work for a nonprofit organization whose mission was to generate mountains of paperwork for Medicaid.  In between filling out forms, I also had the responsibility of seeing that emotionally disturbed children didn't kill themselves, their family, their friends, other counselors, or me.  I was a good sport, despite the paperwork and violence, but the whole experience made me want to develop a skills test that people would have to take before breeding.  It's harder to get an email account than it is to create a life.  Starting life out with no trust and a lot of rage is a crummy intro to what should be enriching and potentially meaningful.  Wow, this part is not fun at all.  Well, it was a rough gig . . .

 Back to school (business, that is) . . .
Unsatisfied with the weather, the job and the town, I decided to move on to bigger and better things.  Of course, doing so ruined my credit, cost me my stereo gear and left me with a dry skin condition in my ears that . . . well, you're probably not interested.  For two years I attended the Arizona State University's College of Business.  For the entire time, I managed to avoid playing, discussing or thinking about golf, getting tan, networking with my classmates and giving in to the depressing fact that most of the people who go to business school are fake assholes who are about as deep as soap dishes.  A lot of effort goes into making MBAs think that they're learning difficult material, but to be honest, a monkey could be trained to perform many of the same tasks (without all the buzzwords, of course).  My favorite memory is that during orientation, everyone had to stand up in the auditorium and describe what they did before b-school.  Many people were "executive assistants"(secretary), "form process engineers"(data entry), and "MLM managers"(Amway).  When it got to me, I stood, faced the 180 or so American Dreams and told them that I had been a night watchman at a cranberry silo for eight years.  I sat down after the long silence confirmed that nobody got the joke, or at least that those who did were too afraid to laugh.  Sigh.  I had really hoped to meet interesting people, not these androids that Phil Hartman mocked so well.  Maybe if I go to law school . . .