SPINOFF: Personal destiny stories
 

Spinoff of FAX's fascinating thread. Let's take it from the abstract to the concrete.What are the seemingly small subtle events that have directed your "destiny"?

1. Learning the back stroke. I used to get sick to my stomach thinking about swimming lessons. I feared them all day. My folks arranged some private lessons and I have been at home in the water ever since. I not only overcame my discomfort in the water, but overcame the fear of my swimming teacher. Very big confidence builder.

2. My dad encouraging me to stand up to another kid that was picking on me. We were on a hike during our conversation. This kid was an issue in my life at the time. Standing up to him was a real confidence builder.

3. My 7th grade math teacher uttering the words "Between you, me and the gate post, I know you can do better than this." I was in the bottom 4 students in my math class at the time. For some reason, those words got under my skin. I raised my grade from an F to a C in two weeks, was best in my 8th grade math class, and was in accelerated math classes by 9th grade.

4. My dad encouraging me to confront a Jr High teacher about an unfair punishment. I was supposed to write sentences for an infraction that I did not commit. I confronted the teacher and he relented on the punishment. I am master of my own universe.

5. Al Gore invents the internet, leading to me wasting untold hours on Chiefsplanet.

6. I lock eyes with a girl at a party/dance club as a freshman in college. Favorite song gets played. I ask her to dance. Leads to my first date, and future wife.

7. Recession of '82-83 coinciding with my graduation from college. No jobs to be had, but I need an income so I can get married. I read a description of a research position that I think I can do, even though it would require a slight change of discipline. I decide to go to grad school.

8. On the day I defend my MS thesis, my advisor tells me I should really consider going for a PhD. I go to work in the real world, but these words gnaw at me. I relent and go for my PhD 2-1/2 years later under the same adivisor. He later moves and recruits me as a faculty member at my current university.

9. I am introduced to a new colleague. Our skills are complimentary, and we get along. By working with him, I revitalize my research career. Good things happen in my career, including meeting my best graduate student ever who is now a very good friend as well.

1. I had my first beer

2. The End

Good lord, you want me to reflect back on my life? I don't think I can even start on this right now. Of course, now my mind will be racing as I go to bed. There's been so many good and bad things. Bad things that lead to better things. Things I thought were good that practically tore me apart.

It's all brought me to where I'm at today. My life isn't perfect. It's not even what I thought it would be. Everyone's got things they wish were different, but, overall, I really can't complain.

I tend to focus on the positive. I've been very fortunate and I owe a lot to other people. I'm at a point in my career where I can start paying that forward to the next generation, which is extremely rewarding. Family life has posed many challenges, but I seldom share that stuff here.

Age 7 - My dad's friend Larry asks to come to our house to see a football game involving his favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs. I'd seen a little football before, but with company over, I watched the game seriously and thought, "Wow. The Chiefs."

Age 11 - My friend Mark shows me a new type of game, "Kriegspiel". It introduces me to wargames, which become a primary hobby and source of friends all through high school.

Age 18 - The University of Kansas loses the paperwork to my scholarship, leading me to abandon my dream of being a KU student and choosing UMR, which then affects ... everything.

Age 25 - My boss is told to transfer a person to a new project. He tells us it's between me and Gordon. Gordon is a buddy of his, and I'm not. I get sent. My future wife eventually gets assigned to the next cubicle, and the project eventually gets canceled, resulting in my layoff.

Age 27 - I'm about to go to law school, and wander to the building next door for the public affairs program, which I've never heard of. They have a notice up that the Foreign Service Exam is coming up, and I decide I want to work in an embassy. I stop the law school process and go to the public affairs school.

Age 29 - An alumni of my program puts a flyer up at my school for a consulting job in Denver. I see it and think, "Hey, that sounds cool."

Age 32 - We're househunting, and as we're looking at a house, my Realtor says, "Y'know, I'm thinking about selling my house, and it's only two blocks from here." We look at it and think, "Hey, this house is cool". 14 years later, we're still here.

There have been far too many fortuitous events in my life to innumerate, Mr. cdcox. All my life, I've experienced odd, seemingly coincidental situations. It seems as though everything from how I met the beautiful and witty Mrs. FAX to my business to where and how I live have all just either fallen into place or been associated with incalculable odds ... like a series of fortunate accidents that, in retrospect, seem somehow strangely planned or arranged.

FAX

If I hadn't done any one of the dumb stupid things in my life or not gotten involved with any of the whacked out, ****ed up, lunatic women that I did then my 2 kids wouldn't be here in this world. There are no mistakes. It wasn't about me. It was about them. My questions are answered. No regrets.
Posted via Mobile Device

I was driving back from my final (courtesy) interview for a marketing position at DiamondBack bikes. On paper, the ultimate job for me (combined Marketing and cycling). The one-hour drive home down the freeway I kept seeing the WORST billboards ever and thought "I could beat that". I decided to call the company and remove myself from running, and continue my ad school to become a copywriter. The next night class started and I met the girl who would eventually become my wife.

DiamondBack! Successor to Mongoose! That's so 80's, brah! :thumb:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAkfHShATKY

I had visions of wealth, stardom, greatness

















then I found ChiefsPlanet. :banghead:

I gave in to my youngest son's obsession since he was old enough to talk and bought him a guitar. Then I gave in to the lessons, then the other equipment and then the encouragement and so on and so on.....

Now my family is about to have our lives changed forever.

Yeah, sometimes fate will totally jack you up but then other times, it provides a gift.

In Prescott Arizona (2 hours north of Phoenix) the 4th of July is a big deal. They have the country's? world's? oldest rodeo and a big fair. They also have a city wide water fight. (I think has since been curtailed to just downtown wide water fight but i digress) People line the beds of their trucks and fill em with water. You are told to avoid downtown if you do not want to get wet.

I was 19 and working the front desk of a hotel. The lady owner I worked for was walking down the street towards the hotel. I was standing outside because it was a beautiful day and I was watching her walk towards me. The hotel was on a side street and this lady was pushing 80. Of couse she was coming back from the bar and had a blue wig on but still! Pushing 80. A truck full of kids came careening by, water sloushing over the sides of their truck and just nailed this little old lady with every super soaker they had stuffed in that thing.

She was drenched. I was doubled over laughing.

I moved to Phoenix the next year. Moved into an apartment next to my NOW psycho ex. We were hanging out one night sometime around the 4th of July and he started telling me a story about how he went to Prescott for the first time last year and saw some poor little old lady in a blue wig get drenched by a bunch of hillbillies in a pickup.

I knew then that for whatever reason I was supposed to meet him.

I was going to skip school and go with a couple of guys on a road trip. But I had been caught skipping so much that if I got caught again I would get expelled, so I didn't go with them. During the road trip they got pulled over by a cop and one of the guys pulled a gun on the cop and the cop shot him paralzing the guy. Sadly it didn't even scare me straight. But at least I did survive that period in my life.

amazing thread. Keep it up everyone, hopefully i'll contribute along.

Age 12 or 13...

My Dad taught me that art is about personality and that all great artists had really powerfull personalities. At the time I remember thinking I had no chance of becoming an artist because I was so quiet and withdrawn compared to my art-idols at the time (Van Gogh). Quiet and withdrawn are not the social traits I wish I was blessed with, but 30 years later I make powerfully quiet art.

I have the life I now live because of the narsty broad that sat in front of me in High School Science.
~~new kid in school, not bad looking, walks into 7 period science. The narsty chick in front of me says something like damn he’s fine! I’m gonna get me some of that. To which I reply, cold day in hell. And her come back was something along the lines of “wanna bet?” I had his class ring by the end of the week.


I won my Ex-Husband, in a bet, in high school. Because of that I have a wonderful child. And if it wasn’t for that wonderful child, god only knows what would have happened to me. I guess I should thank that narsty slut.

hahaahahahahahahahahahahahahah

badass.

yea, true lust.

Is it possible not to have a destiny? I think I am one of those people.

Maybe that is your destiny!

When I was 20 years old I was heavy into drugs (meth to be exact) and I was always hanging out with the kids who would get into trouble in my hometown. One day I decided to join the Air Force and spent the next 6 months losing weight (with the help of Meth) to get into the Air Force. I left for basic training and two weeks later I get a call from my parents. My best friend's house (that I was over at ALL of the time) got busted by the cops and they found all kinds of meth, cocaine, pot and illegal guns. He's still in jail as we speak....and I haven't touched any drugs since then.

I was in the bath one day when I realized I was destined for greatness.

Cuz you realized you could breathe through your ears?

Two big ones come to mind.

1. freshman year of college, I'm enrolled as a computer science major. First day of school I go to class X (whatever it was), Class Y (whatever that was) and then Calculus I. I sit there for an hour or so. Class ends. I walk directly to the registrar's office to change my major and decide I'm going to law school because I didn't understand a single word out of the Professor's mouth. (it was only later that I learned that many CS majors squeak by with Cs and Ds in calculus because calculus isn't all that critical to a CS degree. I'm thinking I'm going to fail, but apparnetly nobody fails calculus...)

2. I'm a week or so from leaving for law school, which means moving out of Boston for the first time. I decide to write to some people that I had lost touch with, and regretted doing so, so that I could have some correspondence buddies while away at school (this is just at the start of the internet/email age, and it wasn't widespread yet). I felt weird about it (guys writing "I'm going away, write me back" letters doesn't fit well within my man-code), so I pocket the letters for a while, but then, literally as I'm driving off to college, say screw it and drop them all in a mailbox. One letter is to a nice girl I had worked with who I thought was pretty cool. We start writing. A few years later she's walking down the aisle while I wait for her so we can join our lives together forever. Writing that letter is the single best decision I ever made.

So did you actually yell "Eureka!"? I think that's de rigeur for discoveries made in the bathtub.

I actually yelled, "Hoover!"

One Friday at work about a year ago, I was trying to talk a co-worker into going skydiving that Saturday. He couldn't go (neither of us ever had), but agreed to go the following weekend. The next day, on the news is a story about a first time skydiver killed during a tandem jump at the place we were planning on going. Maybe destiny, maybe random ass luck... but I don't think I am gonna jump out of a plane.

nice word, very nice.

Mnt. Vernon?

1. A man by the name of Derrick Thomas was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs. Favorite team became quite apparent to me. (I was 8 by the way).

2. Moved to KS from PA. I was shy when I first moved, because I had never had to make friends and now I was forced to. Basically, said have fun in high school or don't. I chose the former and now am very outgoing.

3. K-State for college. Went there for Architecture, met many people had a blast.

4. Father lost his job at Sprint after 29 yrs. They decided to move back to PA because our family was here. Dad no longer was a workaholic, and much happier...Big PhillyChiefFan and Lil PhillyChiefFan became closer.

5. Went to complete college in PA, met many people had a blast. One night, when the cops broke up a party I was at, I met a gorgeous girl that I had been checking out at my work in the mall, we met hit it off...and are getting married this year.

6. Said girl found incriminating evidence against me involving an ex in KS, worked it out, and realized that I wanted to marry her.

Yup

Maybe not all out failing, but they don't let you move to the next level of calculus with a D or lower. You'd be surprised at how many people at UMSL, by the time they get through Calc III have taken each class twice. One kid in my class, he passed Calc II, and then got a D in Calc III, at which point they noticed that his instructor actually gave him a high D instead of a low C in Calc I, so he had to start all over. Though they did reimburse him for superflous coursework.
And Calc I ain't got shit on the middle of Calc II, integration by parts and substitution.

I've enjoyed the entries on here so much I decided to do my own.

I always joke that I am a "one chance" type of guy, and these are the reasons why:

1. Senior year of college, this one girl was obsessed with my best friend, who I happened to live with. She would always stop by to hang out, but he didn't like her at all. I guess to make it not so weird, she brought her friend with her one time and the four of us went out for happy hour to meet friends. I thought said friend was cute, so I made sure to sit next to her at our big table. Someone pulled out a deck of cards to play a drinking game called "suck and blow" (basically a spin the bottle-type game with cards). I tried to pass the card to her, it dropped, we locked lips, I saw fireworks, and that was it. We've been dating for 5 years now and will get married this September. Also, found out later a friend that was there liked her and was trying to sit next to her. I messed around with girls all the time in HS and college but never seriously dated one until her.

2. A couple years after I graduated college, I realized I was bored at my job and wanted more of a challenge. I had initially planned to attend law school after college but didn't end up going through on it. My first job out of school was in finance and it was my first exposure to investments. I really felt I wanted to take a big step in my career to land my dream job, so I decided to apply for business school to get my MBA. I knew only a top school would give me the chance to land my dream job, so I had to nail the GMAT. I took it the first time without studying and did well, but didn't score high enough. I studied my ass off for the next few months and took the test a second time, but my score didn't budge. I was crushed and wanted to just give up. But after a couple days, I knew I could do better and I couldn't live with myself if I gave up, so I studied for another few months before taking the test a third time and getting the magic 7 handle on my score I needed to get looked at by the top schools. I applied to five, interviewed with three, and was accepted by one.

3. Started my two year business school program in fall of 2007 at the height of the economy. Companies were handing out top jobs left and right, but slowly the economy began to tank. I missed out on a summer internship with the top finance companies, but I kept networking and interviewing. I wasn't going to give up. However, by this past fall it looked like it was just going to be bad timing on my part, as the job market in finance was essentially frozen. I had taken a few networking trips to NYC, but I decided to take one more this past February. On a whim, I decided to extend my trip by an extra day and visit some people in Boston. This required a bus trip in the middle of the night and I didn't get to my Boston hotel until 4 AM. On my last meeting of the Boston trip, I met an alum who told me to contact her friend at XYZ elite bank. I called the woman, hit it off with her, and a week later she emailed me about a position that the company was trying to fill that was exactly what I wanted to do. After two months and 11 interviews, I received my one and only job offer last Friday, and it truly is my dream job. This was probably the biggest moment of my life so far and I feel it will have a monumental impact on my future.

Losing my Dad at 23. It just isn't replaceable. i knew then i was truly on my own, and had to find my own way, knowing he'd never be there from advice or an encouraging word to seeing his grandaughters shine while playing violin or singing in Master Choir. I'm now the age he was when he died and have been without him for half my life. Life goes on...lesson learned the hard way.

I had aquired some management experience, but was tired of making my boss rich..I started my own business doing commercial art..I made up signs and called any and every art related number in the phone book..to no avail..I FINALLY landed a job painting a Dodge Viper on the side of a Car Stereo shop and three people hired me during the process...work died and there was another worling artist in town painting a 50' by 30' mural...drove by several days, finally caught him on the lift, he was waiting for another artist to show up that day and he thoight I was him..the guy never showed and he hired me..we worked for chilis and on the border and it took me form shore to shore doing on site BIG Mouth Burger and Flying Buffalo Wings murals..

to be continued..duty calls.