According to status updates popping up all over my social networking sites, this is brother week and I should repost the message to my wall if I have a brother I love. I’ll do one better than that… so to commemorate and honor brothers everywhere, I’m going to share with you about my “geeky” little brother and maybe it will inspire you to let loose your inner nerd.
When we were growing up my brother was the smartest kid I knew. When he was 8 he built a kicking machine out of an old shoe, half of a pair of stilts, a rope, duct tape and a tree. It kicked things. As he got older he would take apart his electronic toys and build them into something else. For a science project he turned a remote control car into a “cool air balloon” that lifted off the ground with remote controlled fan. Then video games and computers started booming he was hooked on playing, building and fixing them and he took a job at a local arcade maintaining the machines.
Looking back I was truly the Dee Dee to his Dexter, and I unwittingly thwarted many of his scientific attempts. However, I wasn’t the biggest hurdle in his way to reaching his full potential, high school was. He was smarter than several of his teachers who found his inquisitiveness to be threatening and he was too stubborn to give into the totalitarian assistant principal.
He dropped out as soon as he could and advanced in his position at the arcade allowing him to oversee a team of mechanics. Smart kid that he was, he began buying old or broken games, refurbishing them ad placing them in local businesses. Once every couple of weeks he would check to make sure everything was working and pick up the money the game had collected.
After a while he decided fixing games wasn’t enough, he wanted to make the games people would play. He got his G.E.D. and with the help of his fiancée (now wife) he attended Full Sail University and graduated 2nd in his class and ahead of schedule. After graduation he taught classes at Full Sail and was hired on as a project leader for a different kind of video game company that designed tactical simulations for military projects. Basically he made a simulation that showed how military technology could work before it was built, or at least that was all he could tell me without having to kill me.
His talents there shined and he was asked to come on board with the team for America’s Army, “the Official US Army Game (AA), [that] provides young Americans with a virtual web-based environment in which they can explore Army career opportunities within an entertaining setting that is tailored to their interests and aptitudes.” Since then he’s helped with game design, set up a virtual educational facility, and traveled all over the world. Now he’s onto his next project, super secret right now but something he's always wanted to do. It just goes to show what you can do if you have a passion to follow your dreams no matter what obstacles may arise, even big sisters.
I love you little bro and I’m very proud of you! Happy Brother’s week!
By Heather Fairchid - Heather is a multimedia develpoer, business owner, and work-from-home mom.
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