There are a group of people I guess I would consider my geek forefathers. Without them, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't enjoy the things I enjoy now. I definitely wouldn't be in the career I am now. Steve Jobs is definitely one of those people. While the first computer I ever used was my mom's monstrous IBM that my dad sat me in front of before I could even read, the computers that actually planted the seed that would bloom into the geek I am today were the Apple II's in the computer lab at my elementary school. I learned simple BASIC programming and graphics creation using LOGO. I played hours of Lemonade Stand, Oregon Trail, and Gertrude's Secret.

When I was in 4th grade, I was finally old enough to use the shiny Macintosh that actually had a modem. It was so special it had its own desk at the front of the library. It was on this computer that I first connected to an educational BBS and sent my first email. In high school I played my first LAN game on a Mac Performa. My fellow geeky classmates and I had managed to sneak in a copy of Marathon and install it on a bunch of the computers and we would play over the AppleTalk network during our computer class and after school.

Fast forward almost twenty years and even though I've never actually owned an Apple computer, I'm still being influenced by the creation of Jobs and Wozniak. For this, I am forever grateful.