Takin Care of Business

As I had said earlier, I have always been in love with technology. From as far back as I can remember I would want to play with it. It didn’t matter if it was a VCR, a microwave, or a garage door opener. I wanted to know how it worked, and much to the horror of my mother, how I could make it better. When I was 7 we got our first computer. It was a Commodore 64. I loved that thing. This “state of the art” personal computer barely had more power than a solar calculator, but it was enough to get me started. Today I run a much faster system. An AMD Athlon 64 quad core 9750 with 8 GB RAM, running Windows 7 RC1 as the main OS.

In 1996 while I was starting my TSB career, I started putting together a personal website. This little piece of the internet was horrible. It was loaded with bad code, bad graphics, and even worse content. But I kept at it, honing my skills, and my abilities. One day I realized that I could maybe make a couple bucks doing this for others. That was the seed of something that would grow into a full fledged career.

On August 28th 1996 I founded Blind Eye Productions, get it? A company whose sole purpose in life was to develop websites for people and companies. Now, the internet at this time was not the internet of today. We didn’t have the complex development coding or platforms that are so common on today’s websites. Back then there was only HTML and JAVA.

When I graduated high school, I went to college and majored in computer science with an emphasis on programming. When we moved to Johnson City, I dropped the classes I was taking, but I would eventually go back, this time via online training. I attended the University of California at Berkley and again majored in computer science with an emphasis on computer programming. This time I graduated with a Masters Degree in computer science, and a Bachelors Degree in graphics design.

In 2002, I changed the name of Blind Eye Productions to 3D Digital Media Design. We operated as 3D Digital until 2004 when I met a man that would revolutionize the way I did business. His name is Frank Contreras, and he is the one most responsible for my success.

In April of 2004, I was giving a presentation on the history of the internet, something you can learn more about on my videos page. While I was giving this presentation I noticed a young man in the front row listening very closely. Later that day I was sitting at a booth to hand out trinkets, flyers, brochures, business cards, and other promotional material when he came up to me, handed me his card and said he would like me to give him a call. The next day I did just that. I called him and we began laying the foundation of a friendship turned business partnership that has continued to this day.

At the time, Frank owned a small computer repair and network support company called Data Network Ninjas. In 2006 3D Digital Media Design and Data Network Ninjas Inc. became just Data Network Ninjas, Inc. In January of 2009 we changed the name to VotaIT inc. Vota is Latin for promise to God. We use it in the name of the company to emphasize that we are a Christian based company with strong morals and righteous faith.

In 2006 I was finally able to finish my work to receive a most prestigious certificate in the computing field, MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer). This certification lets the world now that I am proficient in the maintenance and setup of Windows 2000/2003 based servers. Along with that I am currently working on MCSE for Windows 2008.

I have been doing the IT thing for almost 15 years now, and it is one of my most enjoyable careers. I have ventured into other areas, such as cooking, something I immensely enjoy. I have done call-in tech support; I have even done sales, and marketing. But I always come back to my first love.

1. A Small History Lesson	2. Congratulations It’s A Freak
3. The First Five Years	4. It All Goes Up In Flames
5. School Daze	6. Say What?
7. A New Hope	8. Becoming A Sophisticated Redneck
9. A New Beginning – Literally	10. Back Into the Fray
11. They Like Me, They Really Like Me	12. 10011001
13. Let the Music Heal Your Soul	14. Taking My Sister to the Prom
15. My First Love, My First Broken Heart	16. From Zero to Hero
17. Livin’ On a Prayer	18. Moving On
19. Going Full Circle	20. The Rockford Files
21. Faith of the Heart	22. Partner, Friend, Lover, Wife
23. Turns Out She Was Right	24. A One-Legged Bear
25. Another Victim of the Game	26. Payin’ Bills with my Skills
27. A New Revell-ation	28. A New Page, A New Day
29. R We There Yet?