rka

I grew up quick. I had to: I was an only child in a military family. By the time I became four years old, I decided to travel to Europe. After all, quadrupling one's age in only four years is a difficult task. While in Germany I attended "echter deutscher Kindergarten" (Kinderbiergarden). It was there that I attained my love for the language, culture, and brewing genius of the German people.

When I returned to the states, I was exposed to the wonders of public schooling. It was there where I learned life's most important lesson: grasshoppers can't jump if you pull all their legs off. After the fifth grade, I began attending St. Jude grade school in Rockville, Maryland.

The onset of High School coincided with my parents divorce, and I moved with my mother to Louisville, Kentucky: home to horseracing, bourbon, riverboats, bourbon, rednecks, bourbon, whiskey, incest, and bourbon. While in Louisville, I attended St. Xavier High School, where I played on the football team, participated in drama productions, learned to drive, met and made best friends, and... oh, yeah... got my Diploma.

With High School out of the way, I had to make the choice on a college.  I finally decided to use the U.S. Taxpayers' money towards tuition at Xavier University, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  My first three years were spent as a Computer Science major, until I found out that it would probably take me 17 years to graduate.   I switched my major to German during my second semester of my Senior year, which will allowed me to get out of there in August 1998.

After graduating from Xavier, I was commissioned into the Army, and branched Air Defense Artillery.   I was slotted to work with the PATRIOT missile system, which essentially boils down to shooting SCUDS out of the air (a.k.a. Scud Bustin') and keeping our boys on the ground (who do the real work) safe.  Had a fantastic time during my first war (Operation Iraqi Freedom).  It was almost exactly like that movie "Three Kings" (read: it sucked).

My career in check, I began to dream the American dream.  I realized that in order to morally achieve the American standard of 2.5 children, I would need a wife (and a hacksaw).  After 8 short years of dating, I asked Jennfier Hebenstreit to be my wife.  We were married in St. Louis on the 29th of November, 2003.  I figure it'll take us about 5 years until I can perfect the hacksaw-childbearing method--until then, we've got our hands full with our careers and our Rottweiler-Lab mix doghter, Pepper.

I'm currently stationed in El Paso, Texas, serving the nation at luxurious and exotic Fort Bliss . . .  Thanks for visiting my web page.