05/21/07

A little about Steve - well, maybe a lot...

I started my live in the booming town of Alice Texas.  From there we spent some time in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Attending schooling up to Elementary school here.  We then moved to Pineville, Louisiana.  I attending from Elementary to High School here.  Many good times! 

Got involved in Scouting in Pineville.  Did all levels of scouting (Cub on up).  Got my Eagle Scout with Troop 8 in Pineville, LA.

I attending high school at Pineville High School.  Joined the Army Jr. Reserve Office Training Corps (J.R.O.T.C) while I was there.  Was active in the Precision Drill Team, Cannon Crew, Rifle Team and the Orienteering Team.  During my senior year, MSG Charles Wilson and some of the students decided to start a program called the Pathfinders.  It was a program made up of a lot of military elements from test of knowledge, feats of strength, mental toughness, to physical stamina.  Many tried out, but only 3 past that first year.  I was one of the that pasted.  The other two were Phillip Raines and John St. Andrea.  All were seniors, all were on the Precision Drill Team and all of us were close friends.  All during my years at PHS, I wanted to be a veterinarian.  I took all of the biology and science course I could.  During my senor year, I had a couple of class spots open.  I decided to try a Computer Science class.  This class changed my life.  Thanks to that class, I knew I wanted to work with computers.

After High School, enrolled in Texas A&I in Kingsville, Texas (now Texas A&M in Kingsville).  I continued my R.O.T.C training and later became a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  I started my college career with an Electrical Engineering (EE) major, with a Computer Science (CS) minor.  The engineering college didn't have pure Computer Science major.  Lets just say, that was a mistake.  EE and I did not get along.  Fortunately, in my second year, a pure CS degree was added and I switched to that!  Spent many a fun evening / night working on programs, hacking the college mainframe and basically searching the University computer for stuff I shouldn't.  Even with all of that, I still graduated with a CS degree.

While at college, I met my lovely wife to be.  Dora and I both attended Texas A&I.  She was in the College of Agriculture, while I was at the college of Engineering.  She says we first met at a party that the dorm we lived in was throwing a party for freshman.  I was a Resident Advisor at the time and was running the sound system.  Why was I doing this, well, it was my equipment.  Anyway, she says I was rude to her and asked her not to get so close to the table that has MY stereo gear on it.  Whatever, it didn't happen.  I was a saint in college and would never do something like that.  I was kind to all!  I do remember the time she crashed one of our D & D nights.  She came into the room and everyone except myself and a close friend stopped playing and greeted her.  I viewed this a huge interruption to an otherwise fun evening and just sneered.  Anyway, with all of this in our past, you'd think we would have never have hit it off.  Well, the fact that she was dating my college roommate, helped.  Yep, long store with a good ending - I got the girl!!  ... sorry Frank ...  <Steve is now doing the "I've got the Girl" happy dance - white man version -- its not pretty.  Be glad this is in print>  More on Dora and I later.  Have to build the anticipation...

After college, I took a job as a contractor to the Federal Prison System.  I took a job teaching inmates a Computer Technology course.  I had 2 other folks reporting to me as instructors, I managed them and I taught one course (they each taught 2).  This was at FCI Three Rivers.  FCI Three Rivers has 2 prisons right next to each other.  Once is a medium security and one is minimal security.  The class I taught was in the medium security.  This was an interesting job and one I didn't care for that much.  It gave me an interesting prospect on our prison system.  One of the other instructors was ex-Navy and spent some time on an aircraft carrier.  One day over lunch, he said, "you know, this reminds me of my days on the carrier.  You have everything you need right here and you can't leave."  He said its really not that bad.  I would have to agree.  The cells were a lot like my dorm room in college, the gym was awesome, the food was good (we ate lunch with the inmates every day), the library was very big, and well stocked.  All in all, not a bad place.  Now the people that were there, yep, they were bad.  All in all, I did NOT like this job and continued to look for something better.

Dora and I started dating a bit more while I was working in Three Rivers.  Spent some weekends together, etc.

About a year later, I interviewed for a job with the State of Texas.  I was hired and started working with the State of Texas - Child Support Enforcement Division as a Computer Programmer.  I moved to Austin, Texas.  Met some good folks, learned a lot.  After a couple of years the manager that I was working for switched to another state agency.  We continued to talk and I was told that he had an opening and wanted me to apply.  The only problem was that I was "white" and there were some black candidates that had applied and HR was pushing him to hire one of them.  Well after several interviews with him, HR, other managers and about 3 skills test, I was hired.  Luckily, I really was more qualified for the job!!

While I was in Austin and working for the State, the dating between Dora and I became very frequent.  Well, as frequent as it can with her living in San Antonio and me living in Austin (about an hours drive apart).  This meant that we would see each other on the weekends.  Her mom didn't say much to me.  Dora explained to me later that she felt I was just "using" Dora and seeing other women during the week when Dora was not with me.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  I was very happy spending late nights with my other love -- my computer.

After about 3 years, one of my co-workers and a good friend, left the State to work for a small start up company.  We talked about the company and I liked what I heard.  I too applied and was hired.  It was an fun computer programming consulting firm.  I was employee 21.  The company grew quick and did well during the High Tech Boom.  The board of the company purchased a lake house on Lake LBJ in Texas.  The got all of the cool stuff to go wtih it - a nice boat, a supper fast jet ski, etc.  Now, the nice thing about this was that you could "sign out" this lake house for the weekend.  I was the 3rd person to get to sign up.  I got to use the place several times while I worked there.  Some other nice items were things like the game room downstairs, the daily LAN Doom parties over lunch or after work, the family oriented outings, etc.  One year they even sponsored a Quake Tournament.  This was a good ride, but then the Tech bubble popped.  They has to sell the lake house, cut back on office space (bye bye game room), etc.  During this time, I was contracted to Dell Computers in Round Rock Texas.  Did some good work for them.  Six weeks to the day after the contract was up, the manager at Dell called me and offered me a job.  I took it.

I proposed to Dora while I was working for the General Land Office.  We mere married in Nov of 1996.  I remember that wedding day like it was yesterday!!  The wedding was outstanding due to the fact that it was shorter than planned...  Dora was late to the wedding.  Not a real good feeling for me.  Seems the limo when to the wrong address.  When we discovered this, I sent several relatives that had big cares (like Lincoln Town Cars) to the CORRECT hotel to pick up Dora and crew.  During this time, the Father came to me and asked if I would mind if we cut the services a tad short.  Seems he had another engagement to get to.  What else could I say then, "yes Father, that would be fine".  After the wedding (and a few million pictures) we finally made it to the reception.  One of our best friends was a DJ and her present to us we to be the DJ for the reception.  She did an outstanding job!  A good time was had by all.  For our honeymoon, we went to Montero Bay, Jamaica!!  What a trip!  Sorry, no details about that... 

For our one year anniversary, we spent the week in New Orleans, about a block off of the French Quarter.  The weather was overcast and raining, but that didn't slow us down.  We did got out of our room from time to time to take in all that the French Quarter had to offer, but those times were few and far between.  Let me put it this way, our first daughter was born almost 10 months to the day later...  Yep, Makayla Fogle, our first daughter was born!  There is no way to adequately describe Parenthood to a non-believer, but I'll try... its like a huge rollercoaster that you can't get off of.  There are tons of ups and downs, but the ride is well worth it!!

I've been working with Dell since 2000.  I have survived 2 lay-offs, a mandatory week vacation for all employees with out pay, stock price drops (boy what drops), etc.  But its been one hell of a job.  I work with teams from all around the globe.  I have had teams in India, Ireland, Brazil, China, Panama, etc.  I have spent time in Brazil meeting folks down there - man, talk about nice folks and outstanding bar-b-que!  I have taking a trip to Ireland - I spend St. Patrick's Day in Dublin.  I spent a week and half in Ireland.  For the weekend, I rented a car and drove from Dublin, to Limerick, to Cork and back to Dublin.  I spent Friday night in a B&B in Limerick, and Saturday night in a B&B in Cork.  Talk about some pretty country side and nice folks.  The only negative, you drive on the LEFT side of the road.  Yep, nearly had 2 wrecks while I was driving - both would have been my fault.

About 4 to 4 1/2 years after Makayla was born, we had our second daughter.  Faith Fogle joined our family.  I can tell that Faith will be our problem child.  She already has an attitude and picks fights with her OLDER sister and usually wins.  I can't count the number of times I've heard, "dad, Faith is picking on me", or "Faith won't leave me alone".  Awe the joys of multiple kids!!!