David's Personal Pages

About Me (in a nutshell)

I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. I lived with a very close family. There was my mother (Margaret), my two sisters (Marsha and Bobbye), my grandmother, my great-grandmother and me. I went to several elementary schools, Train Elementary, South Lincoln Elementary and Mason Elementary; George Norris Junior High School and Central High School. I quit high school at the end of my junior year. I did get my GED two years later. I started working at a family owned grocery store at the age of twelve and by the time I was sixteen I was working full-time as a short-order cook. I had many different "jobs" until I went to a Computer Programming School, when I was twenty-five, and then I had a career. My life seriously changed after that.

I left Omaha when I was twenty-nine and moved to Colorado and went to work for a securites software firm. I began to travel for the company setting up computer systems all over the country and in London. I went to Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Tampa, Cleveland, Hartford and New York City. I worked on a project in New York from 1984 to 1988. I also set up a system in London in 1988/89.I loved traveling to all these cities but my favorite was New York City.

I learned about the world in New York City, and about myself. Who I am, and what I wanted in life. I learned how to LIVE! There are a lot of stories about New York City and many of them are about me. If you ever have a bottle of wine and some time, I'll tell you about them (hummmm). The four years I lived between Denver and New York have been the best years of my life and I don't regret a thing about them. I cherish them all.

Anyway, in 1989 I quit my job at the software company and went off on my own as a computer consultant. I got to travel around the country even more, only this time I moved to these places to live: Chicago, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Memphis, Boston, St. Petersburg and Austin.

In 1993 I was diagnosed with diabetes and my health started to go downhill. I became severely depressed and attempted suicide in 1994. The depression became so debilitating that I wasn't able to work and went on permanent disability in 1996.

I moved to Hemet, California in December of 1999, I couldn't afford San Francisco anymore. Beginning in Spring of 2001 I started to become restless and became bored with all the things I had been doing. So I figured it was time to try to go back to work. I contacted the Social Security Disability Office who pointed me in the direction of the California Department of Rehabilitation. Working with them would keep my Social Security Benefits while I train and find work. The first thing I did was decide on a new career, Graphic Design, and checked out schools that taught it. I decided on Riverside Community College and to obtain an Associates Degree in Graphic Technology. I started school in the fall of 2001, traveling six hours a day on the bus to get to and from school. I knew that it was going to be difficult, but I was ready to handle it until I moved to Riverside when my lease ran out at the end of November 2001. It turned out I wasn't able to afford to move, so I wound up dropping my classes. I am going to start again in January 2002 and take online courses until I can move in June.

To continue with the on-going saga of David Carlson please visit my Journal.