I am not the actor. I have never been the actor. I have never used this site to imply that I was the actor. That hasn’t stopped hundreds of people from sending me fan mail though.
My acting career started and ended in 5th grade. I had a non-verbal, yet very challenging role as tooth decay in a Dental Health Week production on oral hygiene. I followed up that success by trying out for the part of Hansel in Hansel and Gretel. My best friend got the role, and the kissing scene with Gretel. I got offered the job as stage manager. I took the hint, and left the stage behind forever.
Today I’m a homeschooling parent, Boilemaker, professional sales monkey, web geek, lifelong Red Sox & Patriots fan, and unrepentant fan of 80s hair metal.
I live in the south DC suburbs with my wife, two teenagers, two dogs, one snake, and a horse. The horse doesn’t technically live with us. The HOA would probably have a problem with that.
I’ve maintained this web site since 12/31/1995. I even updated it frequently and wrote weekly essays way back then. Thankfully, none of that really early stuff survived to be included at Archive.org. I jumped on the blogging bandwagon early too. O’DonnellWeb has been a blog since early 2001.
A chronology of my life
(idea totally cribbed from Kottke)
1967: I was born. I don’t remember it.
1968: I was living in Germany, not that I remember any of it.
1969: The Mets won the World Series, and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. This has nothing to do with me, but I needed something for this year.
1970: My brother was born. I remember my parents leaving me with the neighbor when they went to the hospital.
1971: Got grounded for the first time. The offense was throwing rocks at a car…that happened to be owned by a police officer.
1972: Started kindergarten while living in Spain (Torrejon AFB). I rode a blue bus.
1973: I was still in Spain this year. I spent a lot of time climbing a big tree.
1974: Played T-ball. I learned much later that Greg Maddux was in the same league at the same time.
1975: Played T-ball again. Spent a lot of time climbing trees. My other brother was born. King Franco of Spain died. I remember the increased police presence in the streets after Franco died. I have no memory of my brother being born. Sorry Brian.
1976: Moved to Indiana(Grissom AFB). Played a lot of baseball. Discovered that kids in stateside schools had been writing in cursive for a year. I had not even started yet. Had to stay in at recess and after school to learn cursive. Developed a hatred of cursive that continues to this day.
1977: Played a lot more baseball. Scored winning goal in all-star soccer game. Won role of cavity in theatrical production of good dental hygiene. Tried to build on that success by trying out for role of Hansel in Hansel & Gretel. My best friend got the part. I got offered job as stage manager.
1978: Moved to Panama City, Florida in summer before starting 6th grade. Developed interest in girls. Won school spelling bee. I was and continue to be a lousy speller.
1979: Started Junior High School. Played more baseball. Continued interest in girls. Elected to Student Council and joined a variety of other suck up organizations at school.
1980: Came to realization that I would never be a major league baseball player. Quit playing and spent more time fishing. Spent more time worrying about girls too.
1981: Ran for school president. Lost to guy who is now a lawyer.
1982: Moved to Dugway, Utah. Made high school basketball team.
1983: Moved again – to Kwajalein Island, Marshall Islands. First day there my Chem. teacher Mr. Taylor asked me what a mole was. I replied a brown furry critter that lives in the ground. Came to realization that honors chemistry stateside was a joke.
1984: I plead the 5th on this entire year.
1985: Graduated from high school. Accepted at Purdue, Colorado State, University of Florida. I chose Purdue.
1986: I had a lot of fun. Fun was reflected in GPA.
1987: Met Michelle. Fell in love. Changed majors. Flew back for start of my junior year without the funds to pay for college. Stood in line for several hours at financial aid office and was rewarded with enough money to stay. Grades started getting better, likely connected to Michelle and the change in major.
1988: Stayed in Lafayette during summer between junior and senior years. Worked at college bookstore. Read several paperback novels a day as I sat at cash register for 8 hours without a single customer. Got transferred to warehouse so I could at least work. Frat house was about 110 degrees, and I had a waterbed. Hung out at mall because it was air conditioned.
1989: Made Dean’s list in senior year. Graduated from Purdue. Moved to Atlanta. Got first job, with Westvaco Corp.
1990: Started grad school at night at Georgia State. Proposed to Michelle.
1991: Bought first PC – Packard Bell 386. Got married in Hawaii. Bought house. Continued grad school.
1992: Moved into house. Kept working on MBA. Discovered BBS’s.
1993: Finally finished Grad School, MBA with major in Finance. Interviewed for a bunch of finance jobs. Realized that I was making more in sales. Wife pregnant.
1994: Son is born. Turned down for promotion at Westvaco because my MBA wasn’t from Harvard. Quit job.
1995: Bought second computer – Acer Pentium 120 MHZ. O’DonnellWeb 1.0 launched.
1996: Daughter is born. Got job with Web design start up.
1997: Start up goes public. Unfortunately, we were so busy calculating the value of our options that we forgot about little things like cash flow. Paychecks started bouncing – moved on to another web design firm.
1998: Got call from guy in CT – wants me to move to VA and sell web design. I do it. Pack up the family and move to Leesburg. Company reorganizes and I end up selling Sun servers, not design.
1999: Dot com boom. Life is good.
2000: Dot com still booming. Life is grand. Dot com bust. Unemployed at Christmas.
2001: Selling web hosting for Qwest. Life is good again.
2002: Company lost $2 billion in one year. Celebrates by sending 2500 employees to Vegas for a few days and puts us up at the Bellagio. Life is good. 3 months later I’m gone. Moved to Fredericksburg VA.
2003: Still selling web design. Daughter discovers her true passion in life – horses. Credit cards surrender.
2004: With a small consulting firm that specializes in designing and installing open systems based VoIP solutions. Daughter still wants a horse. Daughter has started her own business to save money for the horse. Business doing well. I may own a horse sooner than I planned.
2005: Still designing and selling open systems based VoIP solutions. Selling Professional Services Automation software. Daughter still riding horses. Daughter starts competing this Spring. Have you looked at the price of formal English riding gear? Son has bridged up to Boy Scouts. I’ll be doing a lot of camping this year. (that’s not a complaint!)
2006: Bought a gas guzzling SUV that could tow a horse trailer, then bought the horse. SUV is a 05 Durango with a HEMI, horse is a 5 year old Paint. Still at same job – no desire to change anything there.Tried out for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. 27/30 apparently isn’t good enough to get to the interview stage, but they did give me a pencil! Daughter won dozens of ribbons at horse shows, son getting much better at fencing.
2007: Bought a horse trailer. Got a call from a friend with an offer to join his start up. Start ups are like a drug to me, I just can’t resist. So I’m back in start up land, except this time it’s going to be different and I’m going to get rich! Towed horse to many shows and drove to many fencing competitions.
2008: Start up fell victim to the recession so I went back to my previous employer. Survived first state 4H Horse show.
2009: Spent the year hauling my daughter and her horse to shows, and my son to fencing competitions. Am now a Jedi Master of the State 4H Horse Show.
2010: Joined another start up. This time it will be different! Eh, maybe not. Laid off the Monday after Thanksgiving. Job hunting at Christmas sucks.
About the Web site
- My primary HTML & CSS editor is gedit.
- What few graphics exist on the site are manipulated in the Gimp.
- It mostly validates as XHMTL. I say mostly because I’m not going though 5000 pages to fix every little ampersand that was coded incorrectly.
- I use WordPress to manage the blog.
- It is hosted with GKG.