Who is Mookie?

I’m a child of the 70’s and a teen of the 80’s.

I was born in Richmond, Va. The day the first men on the moon landed back on earth in 1969. My Dad was a manager at the Charlottsville A&N store making decent money and my mom worked for one of the local newspapers. We lived in a trailer in a local trailer park, but as my Dad’s alcoholism grew worse we ended up moving the trailer to Louisa, behind my Granny and Papa’s house. There was plenty of land and I had a swell time exploring and riding horses, kind of neat for a kid save for the alcoholic Dad.

The summer I turned 5 my parents divorced and we ended up moving in to G&P’s basement. My mom, newly arrived sister and I lived there for several years while my mother tried to get her life back on track again. I was already close to my Papa and with that arrangement I really grew to look at him as a father figure. He is, by far, the best man I’ve ever met and I try to model my life and attitude after his. My mom dated every now and then but I did a good job of scaring most suitors off…I was mean and nasty when I wanted to be. Then came Russ…

My mom worked with Russ at the North Anna nuclear power plant for several years and he wasn’t scared off my me. That wasn’t for lack of trying on my part. I didn’t like him and sure as shooting I wasn’t going to let my mother date him. Well, that didn’t work out and they dated for a few years. They ended up married when I was 9 and we moved, lock stock and barrel to Massachussetts. Leaving the only life I knew was difficult but leaving my Papa and Granny was the worst. Life for a 9 year old is tough when drug and alcohol abuse and divorce are the main topics of daily life…but now was a 9 year old with all those issues and a southern accent…which made me a target in school.

School life was very tough for me as a child and as a teenager. I just got by early on and decided not to participate when I got older. It was a really tough learning experience that I had to go through. In the beginning of the 7th grade my stepfather’s company sent us to Italy for 2 years. The first year I hated Italy and the last year I loved it…but school was an exercise in failure and taught me the bad habits I took into High School. After failing out of the all Italian school in Italy my parents were given the option of holding me back when I started school back in America. While the decision was what I wanted it probably was the wrong one and I started my freshman year of high school when we got back from Europe.

Probably not the best of moves. I did horribly in school for many reasons, least of which was hard work, but suffice it to say it didn’t get better. I pretended for the most part that I was doing fine…I was involved in the music department, Football, and other class sponsored events. Great skills to have, they just didn’t help me in High School. At that point my personality was pretty flawed. I wasn’t being myself and I was trying to be everything everyone wanted me to be. I was desperate for attention and didn’t realize how much more valuable I was if I were to just be myself, but those were lessons I would learn in the future.

I floated around after H.S. wasn’t really making it. I had a roommate, a car and was out on my own but just getting by when I met my soon to be ex-wife. It was a normal dating relationship and we were together about a year a half. A lot can happen in a year and a half, including a baby. On June 13th 1991 my son Alex was born and it has been the one day of my life that I remember the most. Shortly after Alex was born I realized that I wasn’t really making it on my own, much less with a pregnant girlfriend in tow. I decided that the best thing I could was to get married and join the military. We did, and I did…I got out of boot camp when alex was a few months old. Things were initially great because I was doing what I thought everyone wanted me to do, but the reality of the situation was sinking in.   My time in the service ended shortly before my divorce and I was back in the same position I was in after high school…not much going on and I wasn’t really going anywhere.

I was an HST (Health Service Technician) in the Coast Guard so I transitioned that experience into a civilian job as an EMT. I really enjoyed that work…it gave me a sense of purpose, importance, and it boosted my ego that I was saving lives…and I did. It was at this point in my life that I started to grow up. I had nothing, was nothing, and offered nothing to those that loved me but I was a fucking super hero to the transient and poor. I loved it. Unfortunately it paid only $7.50 an hour. I met a great woman during this time who was to be my ambulance partner and eventually my girlfriend of 8 years, Gail.

Since I had been a hacker for as long as I could remember I decided to ply my computer skills and find a new job. I applied to a local ISP and started from the ground floor, working my way up over 2 years to become the manager of Dedicated Digital Services, which was a big deal at the time. I remember getting my first salaried check and swallowing hard when I realized I was making 25k a year. That seems silly now…but then it was a huge amount of money for me. Eventually TIAC was bought out by PSINet and lessons learned with that experience were bound to serve me again in the future.

When we all realized that our company was not going to be utilized by PSINet and instead dismantled I started looking for a new job. That brought me to Abuzz.com and the fantastic people there. When I was hired we had around 25 employees and when it was finally dismantled we were about 80 strong. Abuzz is the best job I’ve had, bar none. It was at the height of the internet boom and money was out there waiting to be claimed…and we rode it hard. Unfortunately the year 2000 arrived and caused the internet bust to smack us all in the face. The enormity of the bust hadn’t really hit me…and I wasn’t phased, thinking my next job would be better than Abuzz, so would the money…I’d be fine. This year “off” was very hard on my relationship and probably planted the seeds that would ultimately end my relationship with Gail. I even passed up a few offers because they didn’t surpass Abuzz in salary or challenge.

Big Mistake.

I ended up unemployed for almost a year and eventually had to take a job stringing cable for a comcast contractor. Very humbling and very hard work. It really made me reevaluate my way of thinking. I worked that job for almost 2 years and at the end of year two my relationship of 8 years had ended badly. I was a wreck, with no money and no sense of self worth. The past few years had drained me of any confidence I had that I would be ok.

So, without someone who cared for me and without a job I didn’t have many options. The great thing about not having many options is that your choices are narrowed significantly. I moved in with childhood friends of mine with the intentions of starting our own business. So, I took what few belongings and what little pride I had and I moved in with Jim and Rich. They had just arrived at a shitty apartment with a storefront attached way out in the boondocks of western Ma. That was the perfect place for me to start rebuilding my life. I was doing something that I could be proud of and we ran a great business that really, honestly served the community. For the 4 years we were open we help a lot of people for less money that we should have…that led to our realization that the model we were using wasn’t as sound as we thought it was. We learned quite a few lessons from the endeavor and if I ever open my own business again I’ll utilize those lessons.

Shortly after we closed the business I got a call from my old boss from Abuzz. A group of them had started a new company and Dan wanted me to consider working there as a Customer Service Manager, much like my experience at Abuzz. I’m there now and it’s indeed a great job that pays more than I’ve ever been paid. Of course I’m not naive to think that it’s going to last forever, but I’m enjoying it and not making the same mistakes I made when employed at Abuzz.

1/10/09

I’ve been working at Tabblo now for about a year and half and I’m proud to have kept this blog going for as long as I have.  I’m still in love with my job, which I’m surprised to still have given the economic circumstances.  Many people don’t have jobs so I’m very lucky to be working at a job that I love and that affords me so much.

There have been some BIG occurences in my life in the past year, as you can tell by my blog.  I’ve fallen in love with a completely wonderful woman, who really fufils me in so many ways.  I love you J.  So, I’m still here and if you’ll keep reading I’ll keep writing.

MiH