Prologue

Everyone has a story.  Too many people's stories are about all the turns, right or wrong, that have led them to why they are unhappy.  This rings true to me even with most happy people.  Others, their stories aren't stories at all--just a resume of sorts: a list of accomplishments, a wallet of family portraits, times, places, and so many facts.  Facts are good, but if you want to truly know something, you must be about to understand the "why" and "how" of all of those facts.  I'll try to provide you a little of both.

I grew up in Malvern, AR, pretty uneventfully.  Great parents, two older sisters who found their place in life as my torture.  Amazingly good in academics, below average in anything athletic.  I do remember being the youngest person to finish the 1 mile "Fun Run"--I think I was 4.  Not certain the age, but I remember I got my name in the paper for being special.  First of several times.  In a small enough town, you get to be main front page article and photo if you try just a little bit.

School was laughable for me.  I understood without being taught, I tutored others in classes I was in or had not taken yet, I even was set up to be the inspiration to read for a class four grades higher than me.  I just never was challenged.  At all.  It was years later that I began to see that as a bad thing.  Until then, I joined and captained our school's Quiz Bowl team to compete against other school districts.  There's one of those front page news photo ops right there.  We even won district and regional before we got pulled from entering state competitions.  We weren't taking it seriously enough, it seemed.  I filled the rest of the time playing Tetris on a graphing calculator.  Oh how I wish we had iPhones back then.  It may have eased the boredom some.

By the time I was a Senior in high school, I was totally going through the motions.  The year I decided to not practice at all was the year I made it to All State Band as an alternate on saxophone.  I had one teacher who knew I was always tired, so she occasionally let me sleep under her desk where I wouldn't get caught.  My final research paper I did on quantum physics (half as a joke and half because I knew I needed some form of challenge).  I did all the research, had all my notes, but refused to write the paper because everything I had found was based on some very flawed theories that were 80 years old at the time.  When it came down to the option of writing and turning in a paper a month late or repeating my senior year, I decided to wing it.  The teacher still said it was one of the best written papers she had seen.  Oh, I need to find a copy of that paper.  Now, fifteen years later, it looks like some physicists are proving I was right.

I had all of this, plus test scores to back it up: 34/36 composite ACT with perfect Reading and Science; 1480/1600 SAT with perfect Mathematics; similar pSAT and ASVAB scores as well.  I was definitely socially awkward though.  I had friends, that was never a problem.  I wasn't popular, but most people liked me.  I had a girlfriend through most of high school.  Even if we really didn't like each other, we still liked the idea of having someone else there.  And of course, I had an unshakable crush on a girl for at least 4 years but never asked her out.  I haven't spoken to her since graduation, and don't even know where she lives now, much less what she is doing.  I did, however, end up marrying her cousin though, and didn't know they were related for a long time.  That will be a future tale.