I have loved computers and programming ever since my dad showed me that they can be used for more than math problems in school. We were at Sears one day and they had a TI-99 on display and he wrote a two line BASIC program:

10 PRINT "MATT"
20 GOTO 10
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I was drawn to the box that could be "taught" to do whatever I could imagine.

I started checking books out at the library on computers and programming. I started writing BASIC programs on notebook paper in hope that I'd get some extra time to try them out after school in the computer lab.

It didn't take very long for me to grow thirsty. Extremely thirsty actually and the only beverage that would quench that thirst was knowledge. The library had an almost endless supply of knowledge just waiting for me to pour a glass. So I continued going back for refills. I had tasted power early on and I had liked it.

Over the years, I found different sources to quench my thirst and then I found Perl. By this time, I had already been tainted by the likes of JavaScript and Visual Basic. Perl cleansed me of those evils over the course of a few years. My ever expanding knowledge of Perl has increased my thirst though... I may never eat again.