VPI's FTB Answers
 

I'm a 32 year old IT guy with a wife (Nikki) and two kids (Morgan & Evan). I graduated Virginia Tech in 1997 (hence the username) and in my spare time I enjoy FOF, FM & playing board games with the kids.


I first came to FOFC way back in the Sidelines days, but my attendance was sporadic and I remained a lurker for months until I finally registered to post an answer to a QuikSand puzzle. My attraction to FOF was due to the fact that after spending years playing various soccer management games, a random search brought up the information that there was one for American football. Seemed like Christmas when I found that out. Been here ever since.


I work in IT for the North America branch of a global chemical company based in Helsinki. I guess officially my title is "Manager of Software Development, North America", but in normal terms, that means I handle most of what comes through the office when it comes to analysis, design or coding of our in-house applications or external interfaces. A typical day for me is about 25% meetings/email, 50% architectural design (processes, not hardware) and 25% coding. I have a few guys that I manage and I report directly to the head of North American IT. It's a cool job. Plus, I get to travel every once in a while.


I got lucky and knocked her up before she turned 21. :)

Seriously though, Nikki and I met in seventh grade when she moved to Virginia from Ohio...we were friends all the way through high school graduation (as well as our parents being friends) and there were plenty of nights when I would be driving home from football or wrestling practice when I would see Mom & Dad's cars in Nikki's driveway because our parents were having an impromptu party on a weeknight. So, I'd just pull up and watch the proceedings...more often than not, Nikki and I would get sent out to Little Caesars for a pizza run. After high school, I saw her occassionally when we were both home to visit our parents (she went to East Tennessee State), but it wasn't until my brother's wedding during my junior year that I finally worked up the courage (i.e. worked up the blood alcohol level) to make my move. After that, everything has been great...I proposed around six weeks later, we were married the following year and now, tweleve years after that night, it still feels like that first night when we kissed. I've been blessed to have her in my life.


In case you're interested, here's a link to a blog she updates once or twice a month:
http://countrywalkdr.blogspot.com/


After a year or so of on again/off again problems with her vision, hearing and general numbness, my wife was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis last March. It took a year to figure this out because our insurance company wouldn't pony up for a MRI until her doctor made it seem like a life threatening event. Anyway, has there been a silver lining to it? Nope. You see movies and such and when this sort of thing happens, it always causes the family to pull together and fight the illness or whatnot, but Nikki and I were very close to begin with. It's not like there was any room for us to grow closer. There's no silver lining to it because it sucks. It sucks watching her cry and ask "Why me?" It sucks having to give her shots three times a week with medicine that you're not really sure what else it's doing. It sucks having to hide things from our daughter because we don't want her to worry about her mother. It sucks not knowing what the future is going to be like since there hasn't been much research done on MS (as compared to other illnesses). It sucks knowing that there's a possibility that your wife may be in a wheelchair in just a few years if this thing gets worse.


There's no blessing in disguise...it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me.


I don't know of any 'serious' physical struggles, but the psychological struggle with the cravings was the worst thing. You know that smell of smoke that non-smokers detest? Smells great to me. Smelling smoke is probably the biggest trigger for a craving that I've experienced. I think I coped by removing myself from places where I would expose myself to that kind of trigger. I put on a little weight after quitting, but luckily, I lost it all when I charged jobs. I used to work 50 miles away from home and with that much time on the road (and with a tendency to work late), I'd end up getting fast food for dinner a few nights a week. Now that the office is only 15 miles away, it's led to a healthier diet and more time at home with the family.


I don't really know...I love working in I.T., so I never had dreams of anything else. Well, never any realistic dreams. When I was in school I spent some time as a DJ on Virginia Tech radio and I really enjoyed that, but I don't think I could live with the type of hours I imagine those guys are required to maintain. Maybe a teacher...one of my big influences in school was my high school math teacher and I know that he would have liked for me to go in that direction.


I picked up SQL back when I was in high school when my dad asked me to write some things for the DBase system he was using for his business. Before that, I had really only played around with BASIC code on the Tandy 1000 my parents bought my brother and I in '84. Once I saw the fun in manipulating data, it realy piqued my interest in programming and databases. But when I started college, I decided for forgo a Computer Science major and instead, the big decision was whether to major in mathematics or in one of the engineering disciplines. I ended up choosing Industrial Engineering (out of respect for Homer Hickam - see later), but after three semesters and a summer spent co-oping as an engineer, I really felt bored and decided to try something new. After making the switch to a curriculum that would later be called Business Information Technology, I ended up graduating from VT with a double major...one of which included an emphasis on Decision Support Systems (i.e. database stuff).


As for languages, I've had formal training in about a dozen different languages and I've been though classes for about a half dozen different flavors of databases. At this point, I don't think there's any struggle to learn something new. If you can understand the logic of programming, trying a new language is just a matter of syntax.


Heh. I considered a few other colleges before I made my decision to go to VT, but ruled out schools based on a few reasons. Ones that I didn't think would have the technical curriculum that I wanted (UVA, WVU, William & Mary), ones due to location (Georgia Tech), ones due to money (Ivy league) and the final cut were those ODAC (Old Dominion Athletic Conference) school that fell off the list once I ruled out the idea of being a varsity athlete. Once the smoke cleared, Virginia Tech was the obvious choice. It didn't hurt that I have had relatives that graduated from there (my uncle played football at VT) and that they offered me enough scholarships that I ended up getting money back every semester. Virgina Tech was a quality education in my field of choice and it was essentially free. Can't beat that.


Drink.


Drink and go to football games.


Drink and go to football games and go to one of the bars to play that TV bar trivia game with all the professors.


That's about it.


I think I've told that story a couple times, but didn't think anyone remembered. Anyway, back when I was in high school, I was invited to go to Annapolis for a summer to participate in some Science and Engineering 'seminar' with a bunch of kids from all over the country. Basically, we lived the life of a rat by getting up at 5:30 every morning to do physical training and followed that up with our days spent in classrooms and labs around campus. It was a great experience (I loved the submarine simulation lab), but along the way I realized that I didn't like being in a situation where I was told what to do and when to do it. So when it got around to my senior year of high school and I had met with both a senator and a rear admiral concerning the USNA, I ended up turning down an appointment to Annapolis for that reason.


Do I regret not going to the Academy? Maybe...sometimes I think that I should have went just for the experience. But considering how my life has turned out since, I don't see how I could have any regrets about the choice I made.


Heh. I don't know if I were to explode if Foster decided against waiting for Beamer's retirement and went somewhere else, but it that occurred and he ended up at either WVU or UVA, that's the closest I'd come to exploding.


I know I bash WVU and the Big East from time to time...well, all the time...but that's only because I have an interest in those teams and that conference. I guess it's better than not caring about them at all.


Actually, I grew up a WVU fan and attended games for the majority of the 80's...we had season tickets in the 3rd row on the 50 yard line, right behind the WVU bench. As a result, a lot of the players from that era would recognize my brother and I during games. Guys like Jeff Hostetler, Gary Mullin and Renaldo Turnbull would come over to the wall and toss wristbands to us. We always had a good time. Almost always...quick story:

In 1989, we're sitting there in the stands as the Mountaineers rolled up a 31-9 lead on Pitt (the big rival). But you can see the guys on the sidelines start yukking it up and such and sometime in the third quarter/early fourth, Pitt starts a comeback. After a couple scores, my dad says "If we don't win this game, we're never coming back here again" This coming from the guy who had overcome his aversion to flying to go out to Tempe for the WVU/Notre Dame Championship game the previous year. Anyway, WVU ends up folding down the stretch and Pitt kicks a last second field goal for the 31-31 tie. Living up to dad's word, we didn't come back for any more games that season and he cancelled the season tickets prior to 1990. Two years later I enrolled at VT and we became Hokie fans.


Talk about VT-Syracuse football games and how Donovan McNabb is super-cool.


I've been lucky to meet a few FOFC'ers in person (including a breakfast with MIJB#19 in Amsterdam), but I don't think I'll ever live down that night. A few guys from the Atlanta area (Buzzbee, GrantDawg & SkyDog) came over for a night of grilling steaks & playing cards and amidst all of the fun of sitting on the deck talking, I neglected to remember the steak fries that were sitting in the oven. Next thing you know, the kitchen is filled with smoke and I'm scrambling to not appear like the dumbass that I must have looked like :) It all worked out, though...everyone was able to have a good laugh and Nikki didn't kill me afterwards.


Used to...but that was back in school when my sleeping patterns were more extreme. Back then, I normally only slept five nights a week and did the 'up all night' routine every third day or so. Occassionally, I'd go to bed and wake up 20 hours later, but that was a rarity. Nowadays, I get to bed nearly every night for at least a few hours, but there are some nights where I end up falling asleep on the couch around 11:00 or so and accidentally getting eight hours. Typically, though, bed time is around 2:00 or 3:00 and I get up around 7:00. I don't know why those types of sleeping habits seem to suit me, but I just have a really hard time going to sleep unless I'm mentally exhausted. My mind races too much for me to just fall asleep...I tried a sleeping aid a few years ago, but that just made me too groggy in the mornings.


Well, first of all, it wasn't the Baltic Sea...it was Lake Rautavesi in southwest Finland :)


Last summer, I made my first trip to Helsinki for some corporate meetings and a part of the week was a global IT function that took place in Vammala (northwest of Helsinki). While there, I had the opportunity to take a tour of St. Olaf's Church (orginal construction began in the mid 15th century) and the group also did some 'team building' exercises, including one that involved rowing across the lake in a traditional Finnish boat (I received compliments on my ability to keep up with the Finns). Dinner that evening was a cookout on the banks of the lake where we had dishes of venison, bear, sausages, etc prepared by a chef and wine was provided by the local vineyard. It was going along splendidly until someone mentioned that everyone was invited to join in with the Finns for a tradition smoke sauna. According to those guys, the steam sauna you'll find in most places isn't as good for you as a smoke sauna (my lungs would disagee since it seemed like I inhaled the equivalent of 100 packs of Marlboros while in the sauna), so I ended up experiencing the sauna the traditional way...with smoke and without clothes.


The sauna itself was in it's own wooden building right next to the lake and after spending a good amount of time in there soaking up the heat and drinking Russian beer, I'll admit that the whole process turned out pleasant. But I found that, due to the smoke, you tend to get soot all over yourself during the process. When I exited the sauna, I asked about cleaning up and they just kinda smiled and pointed to the lake.


So that's how I ended up in the middle of Finland, jumping into a lake naked.


Three best:

- The people - I've been able to spend a good amount of time socializing with both the Finnish guys from the company, as well as some of the locals, during my two trips over to Helsinki and I have to say that they've been far more welcoming and friendly than I expected. I know that there's a big perception among Americans that Europeans don't like us, but every Finn I was able to spend time talking to made a point to say how much they like the U.S. I think some of it stems from the fact that they correlate Finland's independence from Russia to our independence from England. I didn't realize it, but Finland only became a country in the 1910's...before that, they had historically been a part of the Swedish kingdom or a part of Russia. It wasn't until the Russian revolution that the people of Finland saw a chance to break away from a distracted Russian government. Being that the split was less than 100 years ago, many of the locals still hold a lot of resentment towards Russia and, conversely, a lot of love towards the country that was historically opposite of Russia...the United States.


- The sights - The first time I went over in June, I had a free Saturday to spend around town before flying back Sunday morning. Instead of spending it wandering around downtown, one of the company guys and his wife took me on a trip out to Suomenlinna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suomenlinna)...an old Swedish/Russian sea fortress that's located on a couple of islands in the bay. I had a fantastic time as we sat on one of the hillsides and enjoyed the view...and a couple bottles of wine, while talking amongst ourselves and were joined by other who came by and wanted to say hello. Just a great way to spend a day.


- The hockey - Maybe that's not really a 'thing', but it gives me a chance to share my hockey experience from my last trip. I went over in November and the company took me out to the Finland-Russia game that was a part of the Karjala Cup. Russia may have won 3-2, but when you're in a private suite and getting to talk hockey with Heikki Riihiranta (former NHLer and former G.M. of the Finnish National Team), it's a pretty good time despite the loss.



Suomenlinna


Three worst:

- The variance in daylight: My trip in June was during the period in which Finland experiences around 23 hours of daylight...and the other hour really isn't dark, it's just dusk. That's a hard thing to get used to. The day we went out to Suomenlinna, we stayed out there until 9:00pm (it looked like it was mid-afternoon) and I really had to scramble to make sure I was back at the hotel in time to get packed up and get a little rest before leaving for a 6:45am flight back. When I went back to Helsinki last month, the sun was setting at 4:00pm, so it seemed like I was experiencing the exact opposite. It would play with my mind too much if I lived there full-time.


- The cold: Don't get me wrong...I love the cold. But last month's trip was just brutal, one day I decided to go find some headphones for my phone, so I walked from my hotel to one of the electronics stores across the street and despite the wind not being strong, my hands like blocks of ice in just five minutes. I can't image what it's going to be like when I go over there in one of the actual winter months.


- The food: A lot of the local food is very good, but there have been times where I thought I was ordering something 'safe', but upon arrival, the dish seemed inedible. The hotel had boiled bacon as a part of their breakfast...boiled. Ugh.


That's like a misleading question because it assumes that I know I'm the "right man" now. When dealing with the different schedules and personalities, there are only a few times when you can get everyone on board when it comes to making a decision. I doubt that I've ever made a decision that everyone agreed with. I guess I felt most comfortable in that role right after we finished the first season...it was more a feeling of relief that I didn't screw up something along the way that would have left us scrapping a few months of gameplay and having start over from scratch.


I don't really know what to say except that when it comes to most games, it feels like a 'hit and run' style of gameplay. You start the game...finish the game..and while you may have some thoughts about the experience later on, you're more or less done until you start playing again. With the right multiplayer league, it invades your thought all the time. You get to know players...not just on your team, but around the league. When playing single player FOF, it's rare that anyone really knows much about the team that's next on the schedule...but with MP, you've got three days to anticipate a matchup with IHOF's David Conti and the North Plainfield Plague...or how to stop the Bert Jones passing attack in the GEFL...or how you'll survive a matchup with the machine that is the Hell Creek franchise in FOFL. There's so much more time to soak in the ambiance of a MP league that sitting down and pulling a SP all nighter (as much fun as it used to be) doesn't compare.


No idea. It's been nearly three years since the league kicked off and I'd have to say that there haven't been too many days when I don't do something IHOF related. If it wasn't fun, I wouldn't spend so much time doing it...I'm lucky that it's a good game and that the league is full of good people.


Doubtful. Most of the data collection code (HTML parsing) was a part of a FOF utility I put out a few years back for FOF2. But all I really took from the experience was that I don't have the patience to troubleshoot the problems that occur when running an application on many different environments. At work, I can control the choice of hardware, operating system, browser, etc of all of our users, so it's rare to have conflicts when releasing an application...not so when writing for the general public.


Beyond that, the code that creates any html output or accesses online databases is specific to the leagues I use it for. There are no options other than the ones I create by modifying source code. The time it would take to modify things so that it would be customizable is time that I just don't have.


No comment on who I would kick out...I mean, Hell Atlantic is already gone ;) But if I could pick anyone to join the league as expansion teams, the first would be Bill Simmons because after seeing him write about Madden, it's high time for him to experience something like FOF...it would seem that it's the more engrossing game for people who want to put thought into football. The second would be Jim Mora, Sr. C'mon, like you wouldn't get a kick out of him posting "Playoffs?!?!" Plus, we could get him thoughts on Ike Settles being a coach-killer.


Hells yeah. I'd love to be in control of a league. It's funny, but when I was in high school and college, I'd play games like EWB, FPS:Football & FPS:Baseball and spend just as much time with the fictional aspects of a league (names, locations, etc) than I would with the games themselves. I even remember going to the library to copy pages out of an atlas so I could diagram tv coverage maps for a fictional baseball league...I used a protractor and everything. The amount of time I took planning certain aspects of league creation is what earned me the nickname of 'The Commish' from a few of my high school friends (I'm not kidding...and that was 15 years ago).


In a lot of ways, trying to be the guy who oversees things fits in with, what I call, my version of OCD. Even at the office, I have a hard time assigning work to people because in most cases, the only person who I have faith in getting something done right is myself. Relying on people to do things the right way (i.e. my way) is a major source of stress for me.


One leaves you with alternating experiences of euphoria and headaches and the other involves pints of Guinness


Just name a time and a place and I'll be there. As long as Nikki gives me permission first.


Ummm...

Rocket Boys (book)/October Sky (movie) - It's the story of Homer Hickam...he grew up in a small West Virginia mining town named Coalwood (just 10-15 minutes from the small mining town where I grew up) and when he sees Sputnik racing across the sky, decides to build a rocket. With a few of his friends, they go through the process of finding out about rocket propulsion and and up winning the National Science Fair. From there, he accepts a scholarship to Virginia Tech and ends up working for NASA in the 80's. I knew of this story when I was growing up (before the book and movie) and it was inspirational for someone like me who came from the same background. If you haven't had a chance to either read about Hickam or see the movie, I would recommend it.


Movies? I typically like mysteries. The Usual Suspects was worthy enough for me to buy the DVD. I really enjoy a lot of Asian action movies like Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I'm looking forward to seeing Curse of the Golden Flower when it comes out. Other than those, there aren't many recent movies that I can watch over and over like older ones. When I was a kid, we'd watch war movies or westerns on TBS during weekend afternoons, so a lot of those are ones that I love. The Great Escape, The Guns of Navarone, Sergeant York, The Magnificent Seven...those are ones that I'll watch every time if I see them on television.


Bands? I usually stick to the same music that I listened to in college (Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, Ben Folds, Radiohead), but based on cthomer5000's recommendations, I've also started to listend to bands like Death Cab for Cutie & Sufjan Stevens. Great music. Beyond those, I still give a lot of time to a few British bands that I loved back in the 80's/early 90's like Stone Roses, The Charlatans, New Order & Joy Division.


Food? No preference...I like lemon pepper wings (so does Nikki), so we order those from a small place around us fairly regularly, but other than that, there's nothing specific that I have to have.


No matter what you do, the most important things is to make your future wife happy. If you disagree with her opinion of something that has do do with the wedding, state your case in such a way that doesn't piss her off. Those six months (three before and three after) will be ones that you guys look back on and remember most due to the significance of the wedding. Don't do anything that will cause those memories to be anything but pleasant.


It's corny, but I'd say Blacksburg. I loved the time I spent there and both Nikki and I still talk about moving back there and getting a house in this area just down the road from the stadium. We both prefer the climate in the area (you actually have seasons) and it's a safe place to raise a family. Being with walking distance of VT games doesn't hurt either.


I don't know if there's any 'best' drunk story from anyone. Whenever someone is drunk, they're bound to do something that will piss someone else off and my exploits are no exception. But let's see...there's the time I was drunk off my ass at the '96 VT/UVA game and ended up dragging Nikki onto the field afterwards to celebrate with the team. That experience ended up with our top wideout, Shaun Scales, saying "Dude, you need to get home and go to bed". The next morning I woke up covered in mud and laying on our couch...Nikki said that I couldn't make it up the hill from the field when we tried to leave the stadium (hence the mud) and that she was too pissed off at me to deal with anything when we got home (hence the couch).


Many times. I actually have pieces of code sitting around that could resemble the inner workings of:


- a gladiator sim (think FM, but with teams of fighters)
- a horse/dog racing sim
- an auto racing sim
- a football sim


Sports are what got me into computers in the first place...when I was a kid, I used to spend hours with a copy of Earl Weaver Baseball and my mom still has reams of computer paper that I had put into binders with stats from the teams. Heck, I wouldn't even play most games...just CPU vs. CPU sims so that I could have the stats from the game to compile on my own.


I don't know...maybe someday one of those projects will come to fruition, but the time is never there to commit to anything. That and my aforementioned aversion to doing customer support for the general public.


Probably Virginia. I love the Illinois album because of how he was able to mesh bits and pieces of the state with a great musical style, but I think a combination I would most appreciate is one involving the Commonwealth. Plus, if he focused on the colonial aspect of Virginia or the rural aspect of the western part of the state, it would fit right in with the folksy musical style of the Illinois album. In short, I wanna hear him sing a song about Natural Bridge :)


I realize that you're just being a smartass, so I still like you.


Actually, when it comes to FOFC and the FOF community, I would like to think that people remember me from all the times I've either helped out other MP leagues in one capacity or another, or helped people on the forum in non-FOF ways. ...or if I'm lucky, they remember me from the 'Click Me' post I made years ago during FOF:Survivor :)


Your mom.


Only if he changed his name to 'Coolroy II: Electric Boogaloo'


He's the epitome of the type of player that's both overrated and underrated. I think people go over the top when they take shots at him, and as a result, the other side over-compensates by being ultra-defensive about criticism. My opinion is that I'd want him as my quarterback over 90% of the starters in the league (Peyton, Brady and maybe Brees are ones I'd take over him) because even though his passing is average, the yards he gains on the ground more than makes up the difference. People can go on and on about his 55% completion rate, but when you only throw 20 passes a game, that's just one extra incompletion per outing than a 60% passer. Heck, Roddy White usually has a horrendous drop on the first series of the game that would account for the 5% difference.


Yes, I'm biased since Vick is a VT guy, but even when I take that into account, I really can't see the logic when people take shots at him for his accuracy. It's not like the league is full of quarterbacks who throw perfect passes all the time. Everyone has bad throws, it just seems like the ones that come from Vick's arm are ones that provoke people into saying he's not a quarterback.


Probably something in between...I mean, I don't think he's misunderstood by those around VT who paid attention during his entire time on campus. I think all of us understand that he's just a spoiled brat and I doubt that there would have been any problems with Marcus had he come to VT ahead of Michael. It's just that when you combine the immaturity of a high school student with a generous brother who has the fame and money associated with a NFL lifestyle, something's going to turn out wrong. By all accounts, Marcus was hated by the students because of his sense of entitlement and that selfish attitude showed in the decisions he's made.


Did he have the worst attitude of all the players I've seen at VT? No...I know of one quarterback from the early to mid '90's that was twice the jackass that Marcus was...but due to the fame and hype surrounding the Vicks, Marcus is the most visible.


Falcons and Chargers. (I'm a homer)

Very nice job, Todd.

Wouldn't happen to be Jim Drunkenmiller would it?

Its funny, he somehow wound up in Memphis (selling insurance IIRC) and occassionally calls into the local radio shows. The guy basically acknowledged he used to be a jackass and is now a regular guy. Kind of funny.

Good job. I'm impressed with the quality and depth of answers on FTB thus far. If I ever was asked to do this, the answers would not be anywhere near as well thought out or thorough. I'm more of a find a funny answer and move on sort. :) Nice job, VPI!

Rats, my question wasn't answered. :)

More great stuff from the FTB segment. Thanks, VPI.

Okay, me likey the FTB. Great job VPI. So far, I must say I am impressed by how open people are with the questions. Thanks for sharing your story as well as your feelings at the given moment. Very good read.

I'm also very impressed by how open and in depth people are being with their replies. Very nice job answering these questions.

Great stuff, VPI!

ETSU chick, eh?

Too bad there is no more football in the mini-Dome.

your mom


halarious.

I'm loving this feature! Was nice getting to know you, VPI. :)

/tk

The idea of a FM-like Gladiator sim sounds very interesting.

Anyway, great read, VPI.

Absolutely, who ever thought of this should get a medal or something. What a great format for the FOFC gang.

Nice job.

I've had at least a year, but still haven't figured that one out... :confused:

Haven't we already defeated Bert Jones and forced the Redskins to run the ball? :)

Great job, I really enjoyed reading that.

Damn. Even when I'm kidding, I sound like an ass.

Thanks for the comments, guys.

I'm glad he admits to it and isn't of the same mindset as he was then. One of Nikki's best friends during college was a VT cheerleader who went out with Druck for a year and a half. We heard a lot of stuff through her that made his out to be a horrible person.

mildly entertaining.

Ahem.

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...97&postcount=1

Good read VPI...


As much as I want to defend W&M here, any time someone uses the argument that they want a technical/engineering discipline I can't argue.

So what you're saying is that you're a geek who got lucky by snagging a gorgeous woman and having cute kids. :)

Seriously, great job. Glad to see I wasn't the only one who kept reams of stats from your fictional leagues (except mine was from APBA and Strat board games -- in those dark days before PCs).

Naturally, I should have known. Heh, outside of my grandma, it's the best darned thing that ever came out of Souf Cackalacky.

I'm sure a HA FTB would trump it. :)

Late to the party (been out of town) but just wanted to say thanks to Todd for putting so much into this. Good stuff and it just confirms my suspicions that he is the fucking MACK, YO!

Yeah, this is a pretty neat feature.