Well as you might have read in the About Me section, I was born October 27, 1977 at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland. So I'll be real honest here... everything from 1977 up until the start of the 80's is about as close to being blind as you can get. I know that I lived in Lanham in Prince George's County.

Probably the one big thing I keep hearing and probably the only real highlight of my first couple of years, besides learning to talk and walk, etc. etc. etc., was that when Pope John Paul II came to D.C. in 1979 I believe, I went down with my parents. So I got to be in the same vacinity as the Holy Father... kick ass!!.. err... I mean butt :)

Ah, ya know what? There was another highlight I think I remember. I believe that when my Mom was working for the government during the Carter administration I got to go to the Easter Egg Hunt on the White House grounds. So I guess there was some cool shit in the early years. Let's move on...

Ah, my first full decade of life got off to a rip-roaring start with an addition to the family. My sister was born on July 14, 1980, although I remember very little of my parents leaving to go to the hospital or my sister coming home from the hospital or the first year or so. Somehow I have a feeling that my memory of life finally kicked in around 1982 cause that's when all hell broke loose.

In that year, not only do I remember beginning Kindergarten, but I also remember getting pulled out so damn quickly. Turns out that my Dad was going to take an offer for a work-related trip "down-under" to the country/continent of Australia, and surprise we were all going along.

So we got to slowly make our way out including stops in Arizona to see the Houghton clan, and then a brief trip to Hawaii, which looking back on it was so long ago that I really should go back for a vacation! But we made into Alice Springs I believe the day of, or right before my 5th birthday. And we ended up staying there until July of 1985. So almost 3 years in a foreign county.

During that period of time I re-started up schooling at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish School, fondly remembered as OLSH. I also began playing sports while down there with soccer and t-ball. We were able to take a few vacation-type trips while down there to see Ayers Rock, the Great Barrier Reef, etc. etc., and I also had my first accident in Australia by breaking my left arm getting pushed off the top of a bunk-bed. Damn kids!

Most of my memories from Australia were media-related: the radio program "Take 40 Australia" and such great TV programs like Doctor Who, Pot Black (type of billiards game), Playschool, Aussie Rules Football (Jocko was a f^%$in animal!!). I also got to see two classic films at drive-in theaters. ET and Return of the Jedi. Let me tell you. Return of the Jedi under a clear, starlight sky in 1983... absolutely kicked ass!

So in 1985 we left the land down under, and began the trek back to the states, which included stops in Singapore, Hong Kong for a week (that was cool) and a quick stop in Tokyo. Then it was on the Los Angeles and the trip back home to Maryland. In L.A. I got to get my first Disney experience going to Disneyland. Pretty sweet, I got to make out with Minnie Mouse, probably gross to me back then, but looking at it now, it was pretty sweet. However, Space Mountain sucked wookie. Note to parents: if your 7 year-old isn't allowed on roller coasters, probably not a bad idea to leave them off of Space Mountain. But anyway, I digress.

Following L.A., Mom and Dad decided that we'd do a cross-country trip in a car to get back home to Maryland. So we drove all through the southwest, into the midwest, up into the southeast and finally up through Virginia and back to sweet ole Maryland. Along that trip was a stop in the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest. There wasn't a whole lot of stopping, but a helluva lot of driving.

So we finally made it back to Maryland by the end of July 1985. From there, we returned back to our home in Lanham and I restarted school again at St. Matthias, which fortunately was only a 5 minute walk from home, that I realized coming back. I continued school there and picked back up playing soccer and baseball with the Lanham boys & girls Club. Soccer was a blast, especially beating the New Carrollton teams :) By fifth grade I started up basketball, and my first year in the league we ended up winning the championship!! Very proud moment for me, even though I played my ass off in the semifinal game only to suck ass in the championship game... but hey, it was a team win nonetheless.

The end of the 80's marked a time of change for the family, and a move from out of Prince George's County into Howard County and the town of Clarksville. The Johnsons had moved out a year earlier and raved about the area, so we followed suit. I did my first dose of public schooling at Clarksville Middle School as I moved out there just prior to starting 6th grade. And to be honest, the first year couldn't have sucked anymore. Definitely had some growing up to do quickly.

But by 7th grade all was pretty good, and that carried through into 8th grade. I continued playing soccer and basketball in theWestern Howard County League. Umm... ah yes... we also finally got our first true pet by the end of the 80's with a kick-ass Brittany Spaniel dog named Bingo. He'd certainly provide a ton of entertainment and companionship for the entire family over the next decade, which we'll move into right about now.

Well this decade began with the end of middle school and the transition into the next stage of life... the dreaded high school! Atholton High School was my stop in the fall of 1991. Probably the only good thing about that first half of the year was the fact that the Washington Redskins steamrolled their way towards their last Super Bowl championship to this date. It was a rough adjustment for me and I eventually got through it. And each year of high school slowly got better and better. By senior year... thanks to good friends like Adrian, Phil, Lem, Jen Norton, Greg, Stacey Havard, I closed out of high school feeling pretty good, unlike how I felt going in. Probably one of the cool things at Atholton was the fact that I got to get some early media exposure by being the PA announcer for varsity baseball my sophomore, junior, and senior years. Great to sit in our little press box and pretend I was Rex Barney. Damn that was schweeeet! But that was high school in a nutshell, pretty boring I know and that's why those four years don't rank too high for me personally.

Anyways... now we move on to 1995 and the best four goddammed years of my life... COLLEGE! Although, to be honest right out of the shoot, that even took me a semester to get myself situated, adjusted and happy. But, I was fortunate to get a suitemate that I went to high school with, and a roomie that I clicked with pretty quickly. And then clicking with my other suitemate... the four of us raised some hell!!! So thanks to Mike L., Justin and Ben. Absolute fun over the first 2 years.

The sophomore year is when things really became interesting. I met up with a guy that would become one of my greatest friends in Brad Johnson. That would lead to meeting my other greatest friend Adam Caruso. I also met another great friend, Michelle Kaniecki, and the original fab four was born. The fab four became five by the end of the sophomore year with Babe #1 (that would be Katrina Lee to you, Babe #1 to me).

During that time something just seemed to hit me in the creativity part of my mind. I began to just have tons of thoughts that I began putting to music. Probably the best work I'd done ever in that department. Mind you I had tried to write some back in high school, but to this day only one of those first 10-12 originals works I had I kept in my "body" of work.

But anyways... the last two years of college would certainly be interesting to say the least with the addition of two new friends at the beginning of my junior year. Michelle Karl came to Towson from Norwalk, CT, and certainly made an impact on the group within the first couple of weeks. I could go on, but frankly the history is something I don't care to re-live so let's talk about Jen Rohrback :). She was actually someone that Adam had gone to high school with and just out of the blue he saw her at a beginning-of-the-year picnic, and thus we got to know her well as well.

I also met a ton of new people that junior year as well and they began good friends that I still see and talk to this day. Becky Miller, Holly Schaffer (it's now Nevy), Barbara Pittack, etc. But around came the last year and that was a very memorable year as well. I met a bunch of new people that lived on my floor that I became great friends with as well. Becky Higgins, Patricia, Laura, etc., etc. And eventually came graduation in May of 1999. It was such a quick walk across the stage and seemed to be no sweat. But it was a tremendous feeling.

I then took a week off to vacation in California with friends. Brad, Michelle Kaniecki and I went to see the Tonight Show, the Price is Right, etc. It was a blast going down to Anaheim and back to Disneyland 14 years after the first visit. And going around Hollywood was just awesome. But the L.A. traffic... SUCKS!!!! Hehe.

Anyways, after that, I took a family vacation to my first European country, that being England. Got to spend time in the English country as well as spend a weekend down in London. I got to tour the city, and got to see where the Beatles made magic for a decade at the Abbey Road studios. If it wasn't raining and there wasn't any traffic, I would've recreated the Abbey Road cover by walking the crosswalk :) But I got a picture anyway.

When I got back I began hunting for a job, and eventually landed one at The Daily Record, where I am still currently employed and now working for almost a year on their newly designed Website.

The one very sad thing about the summer of 1999 was losing a member of the family. Our dog Bingo passed away a day before his 11th b-day :( He had been sick for about a month and docs just couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with him. I still miss him tremendously to this day cause he was such a great pet and a great friend and I know that my Mom, Dad, and sis all feel the same way.:( Kind of a downer I know, but hey... let's look forward into a new millenium

Well I rang in the new year and the new decade and the millenium, etc. with all my close friends with a big party at a fancy ball in Western Baltimore.

And then I made a big change at the beginning of the new year by moving out from the nest into an apartment with Brad in northern Columbia, where we still are today. It was a small adjustment, but all the living on my own I did in college really paid off in getting me ready for that.

Let's see, since this decade is very young, I'm just gonna summarize what's happened at this point. I've seen 3 of my friends get married over the past year. Our friend Andrea married her longtime boyfriend Brian Stephens in May 2000 and they now live in Texas where Brian is doing Naval stuff ;) Holly Schaffer was married in July of the same year to Rich Nevy, and they live in Odenton, MD. Holly teaches and Rich is a state trooper. And then this April I was part of my cousin Mike Johnson marrying my friend Michelle Kaniecki. I say "part of it" since I was in the wedding, and I also was the guy that kinda set them up and they took the ball and ran super-fast with it. I can say that I'm real happy to have her as a part of my family.

From 2002 onward, my sister has graduated college and with her dog moved back home in the summer of 2003. My cousin Kevin got married, and I lost my one grandfather in Sept. of 2002. At this point, things are pretty much same ole same ole... ;)