Hi, I'm Mark Becker. I'm glad you're here. Let me tell you a little bit about myself.
I was born on the 8th of December, 1972 at 12:08 a.m. I've always thought it was neat how it happened at 12:08 on 12/8! Needless to say, the numbers 12 and 8 have been very important to me since I figured that out!
I was born at U of M Hospital, in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, and grew up there.
Ann Arbor, that is. Not the hospital.
I attended Pittsfield Elementary School for Kindergarten through sixth grade, and then Scarlett Intermediate School from seventh to ninth. (Yes, they did it weird there back then.) I then went to Huron High School for tenth through twelfth grade.
My childhood was actually somewhat dull, as I was not particularly popular. Actually, that's an understatement--I was the favorite target at school for a long time. It was only in third grade that I finally made a significant friend; Avery Leckrone. (Unfortunately, he doesn't have a home page.) Luckily, I survived, and things started getting better.
After graduating from high school in June of 1991, I frantically looked for somewhere to go to college. I had applied to the University of Michigan about halfway through my Senior year, but they had filled up by then. Over the summer, I applied to Calvin College, and by the grace of God, was accepted at the last minute!
I moved up to Grand Rapids in the fall of '91 to begin my Freshman year. I started out in the Chemistry department, because I thought I wanted to become a Pharmacist. (They gave us interest tests in 11th grade, and one of the things it said I might be interested in was Pharmacy, so I grabbed it and held on.) The intent was that I would take two years of preparatory classes here, and then transfer to some other school, most likely The University of Michigan.
HOWEVER, late in my Sophomore year, I finally realized that I loathed Chemistry (labwork, actually), and decided that a change of major was in order. Despite the help of the career counsellors, I decided to investigate Computer Science, since I have always had a fascination with computers, and found that I liked it, and was good at it, so I switched.
I officially declared my major in the fall of '94, and for a while, I was intending to complete a double major, with German as the second one. I started taking classes in German Language in 8th grade, and had at least one German class per semester up until Spring '94! I had completed a German minor as of Fall '93, but since I had no desire to stop taking the classes, I decided to go for a major in it. Unfortunately, I didn't have any time to take any German classes my first Senior year, so I sort-of got out of the swing of things, and dropped it back down to a minor at the beginning of Fall '95.
Q: If you were a Freshman in '91, what the heck ware you doing still in school in Fall '95?!?
A: Thanks for asking that. 8^)
Since I wasted two years in the Chemistry Department, I could not graduate on time. I started taking Computer Science courses in my Junior year, and there's just no way on Earth to take all of the classes required for a major (at least, not in the concentration I wanted) in just two years! Plus, I added another major, for a while, which needed some time too! And, on top of all that, I hadn't taken enough core classes in those first two years either, since I was anticipating only being there for two years! Add all that up, and you need a fifth year to graduate, despite losing the second major!
So all that meant that it took me a little longer to get out of college than I had originally planned. Of course, nowadays that's nothing special. I'm just glad I finally finished when I did, 'cause I was getting really sick of the class scene!
After graduation, I found a job with a small marketing company in the Grand Rapids area, despite a long-term desire to get the heck out of this zarking state! (Michigan, that is.) In November of 1997, I left that company. Basically, they couldn't afford me anymore. It was a small company and seemed always on the edge financial trouble. In addition, they hadn't really had a lot for me to do, so when they had to cut some costs all of a sudden, I was the first one on the chopping block.
That cloud did end up having a significant silver lining, though. Since I was having difficulty finding a new job in the Grand Rapids area, I started looking around back in my home town of Ann Arbor, and happened to find a job doing Web Design. So I moved back to Ann Arbor, and stayed at my mom's house until I could find an apartment of my own.
Various things kept me busy through the rest of that year, so it wasn't until January of 1998 that I found myself a new apartment. I moved in there, but started having problems immediately, and I decided that I wasn't going to stay in that apartment any longer than the lease I had just signed. I did find a new place, and moved in halfway through May 1999.
Somewhere in beginning of '99, I also managed to acquire a new girlfriend. (I had been without a relationship for approximately three-and-a-half years, a fact which somehow has never made it into that section above...) The story of how we got together is far to complicated for this narrative, but the short version is: We met at a roleplaying game a couple of years before, and eventually started going out. We got engaged in late 2000, and married in May 2001, and it's been a good five years as of this writing. Susan Cross Becker (She doesn't have a website, though she does have a web comic . I'll put up a picture when I get around to scanning a good recent one... 8^)
During this period, I also went through a number of jobs and unemployed phases. The Web Design job mentioned earlier came to an end not long after Susan and I started dating. I found another job in Ann Arbor around the time we got engaged. (Not really coincidence... 8^) That one ended shortly after we got married -- about a month after we got back from our honeymoon -- approximately two weeks after SHE lost her job too. We ended up spending about the first eleven months of our marriage unemployed, hanging around the house together. I'd say the fact that we didn't kill each other is a very good sign. 8^)
She found a new job first, and I did some IT consulting work from time to time. I spent about a year-and-a-half as a Legal Courier, but that ended in late '05. (It was something to pay the bills...) Finally found another programming gig in February 2006, and that is where I am as of this last update...
So, to sum up, I'm (um, let's see, last birthday was 8 Dec 2005 so 2005 - 1972 = 33...) a thirty-three year old, tall, skinny, blond, intellectual Computer Programmer with interests in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comedy, reading, writing, gaming, and toy collecting. (Yes, I still collect toys. One of my life's mottos is, "It's never too late to have a happy childhood.")
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