Welcome to the thoughts and photos of FLYDDW. Texas, New Jersey, and Arizona living.

I've always wondered about fate.  As much as I've tried to "stay" the course, something always seems to pull me another way.

One of those things is friends, classmates, and co-workers.  I've always been a bit advanced for my age.  I was one of those kids that my older sisters and brothers came to understand something complicated.  My family were VERY impatient, and would not read anything.  If they couldn't understand just by using it, well, forget about it!

That translated into teachers also.  In the fourth grade, I took a typing class, using manual typewriters.  The teacher and I learned together - almost at the same rate.  I would run errands for her, like getting stuff she may have left in '70 Ford Thunderbird.  Boy, I loved that car!

I remember taking computer classes, using a teletype terminal connected via acoustic coupler, and learning BASIC.  The teacher, I am sure, was pretty advanced in mathematics - and that's why she taught the computer class.  After soaking up whatever she could teach and more, I asked for whatever manuals she had.  I quickly surpassed whatever she knew at the moment. 

This came to a head one day, when she was trying to debug a program, that no matter what she did, failed.  I took a look, found the problem, she fixed it, and was dumbfounded that I solved it.

I remember having so much free time that - in elementary school mind you - I would leave class, go to the science room, play with the video camera (black and white at the time), play on the computers, and - I still have a hard time believing I did this - go into the teacher lounge unfettered.  I would go there to get sodas - while everyone else was drinking milk.  All of this DURING CLASS TIME.

I did similar stuff in Junior high (only two years because of the transition of grades between elementary, jr and sr high).  I was on good terms with the principal and most of my teachers.

In Sr high, things were a little bit different.  My older sister was three year older, and as soon as I entered a school, she was leaving.  Since Sr High school was four years, I was in the same school as she.  When I joined the tennis team, I actually played with and knew students much older than me.  I took some advanced classes, which also had older students.  The principal at my high was more stand-off than the other schools, so I didn't get to be friends with him.  And, there was now vice principals - they had to enforce orders. Didn't get to be friendly with them either.  But, some of the teachers were cool, and I still talk to them this day.

So, fate - finally!

I'm a friendly, personable guy, and I am that way with everyone regardless of age.  But for whatever reason, I've always "clicked" better with older people.  This was my fate it seemed, and when it came to women, the same held true.  But, as to be expected, older women wanted older men, not younger.  So, there was always a certain level of friendship I could attain.  This was frustrating, but I always wondered which was better?  Being with someone you didn't click but was interesting in you, or someone you did click with, but had other thoughts.

To this day I still wonder.