My First and Likely Only Personal Blog Post

I keep this blog more as a news ticker then a "blog". I nearly only post news stories that are politically charged or breaking technology news I find interesting. A place where people can find news that they would otherwise not stumble across in everyday life. I do not post about my life and struggles or whatever as I find my audience would not really be interested. However this post will likely be the only exemption as I have very exciting news regarding my rl.


I have just received an email from Tom Edwards (Managing Editor of MaximumPC) confirming that they would like me to intern for them this summer! I will be moving to South San Francisco and be working part time (as it's not paid and partime) and interning for them this summer; I am floored by the opportunity I achieved ^_^

WARMING: Personal and typical let me tell u my thoughts 'blog' writings follow this disclaimer.

As listed in my bio, this is what I would like to do for a living; write for MaximumPC and become a professional journalist.

For those interested in exactly how I landed this position or why and when I decided to become a journalist one day.... well read on.

I have always been interested in computers and technology, gadgetry, pushing buttons to see what they did and messing with stuff I shouldn't be. I got into college not really knowing what I should study. Computer Science had just about as much math as physics and by my damned genetics I was born to be absolutely HORRIBLE at math; from concepts to simple multiplication. I tried business, but one accounting teacher managed to single handedly stomp all over any interest I had in the major.

It basically hit me one day, no matter what I do in life whether (yes it is probably the wrong weather or whatever but I don't care this is a personal post so AP styling can suck it) it be veterinary school, business, computer repair, no matter what I do for my '9-5' I will always come home and fiddle with computers and tech stuff. I decided I should just do that for a living and be happy with what I do in life. Yeah not hard to realize but the hard part for me was figuring out exactly how to transcribe my interest in computers and gaming into a job, and even b4 that into an educational goal and major.


Well I still have not figured out if I am going to take any extra formal educational classes in computers or not, but after my dad died I had a strong desire to produce, yield, create, stand out. Do SOMETHING that would separate me from the herd, something that people could say i accomplished or created once I died. Not that I showed up to work on time everyday and did my part for capitalism, I mean do something truly unique and create something that I will be remembered by.

I have a very strong interst in music as well so I decided to DJ for the schools radio station KSUN. That went well, but after a continued disagreement with the teacher and actually realizing that the DJ's for professional radio stations do not choose the music they play (call me ignorant but I had no idea this was standard operating procedure for stations to have every second of every day and every song planned out days ahead of time while the DJ is just the voice behind the station, found that out after taking the class) I decided DJing wasn't for me. I still retain an interest in music and will likely take classes to learn to design beats and techno songs sometime.

During the time I was DJing (sophomore year) I always read the Star. I realized that I had a pretty profound amount of thoughts in in my mind that would go along the lines of "GOD only if I could point this bullshit out to everybody, its driving my insane!" it was then I realized I should try to write for the Star. I knew I could not DJ and write at the same time so I decided to stop DJing and try out the Star. At the time only Communications majors and juniors were allowed in the Star newspaper writing class. At the time I had quit business and was still undeclared. I looked into majoring in communications but realized that the deadline for applying to the major had passed. I was a second semester sophomore and would not be able to even take the intro coms class until second semester junior year (assuming I was accepted the following semester.) This would mean if I wanted to graduate with a major in coms I would have to do the coursework for the entire majors' cirriculum (every single required coms class to graduate with a coms degree) in just 3 semesters to stay on track for a 4 year graduation. Well this is damn near impossible (for me).


I had to major in SOMETHING and being as I was getting letters from the school saying I could not register until I declared, I had to decide fast. I chose Sociology. I found the intro class I took in sociology from Elaine Leeder to be thoroughly interesting. Will I end up using the major? I am not sure yet but we shall see, for the time being I am loving the classes and doing well in the major.

After declaring, my next obstacle was getting into the Star class restricted to coms majors. With the help of Casey Pomicpic I was able to talk with he teacher and eventually was let in with one slot left. The following week I had my first article due.

It would be important to note that to this point I have had absolutely no profound writing skills developed nor any upper level training or education in writing (to this day everything I have really learned about writing has been in the Star class). I have never excelled in writing nor ever been the 'oh of course he got an A' type of student in any type of class except Biology. I actually kinda sucked in English in high school but i sucked at most everything in high school due to a lack of motivation. Basically I was nothing special when it came to writing just a normal guy with ambition plans for my future. This ambition drove me to spend nearly 5-6 hours on my first article for the paper that was as I recall around 600 words. (I spent more time on this article then I have on any previous essay including some that were 5 page minimums.) It was rather amazing to see what I was capable of once I actually cared (not to mention the fact my name will be on these words for the entire student body to critique).

I liked it. This was something I enjoyed doing. I started getting more involved and wanted to learn everything and anything I could about journalism and how the paper was run. In the second semester of the class I was promoted to the editorial board and given the rather exclusive opportunity of having my own column to write for in every paper that would be guaranteed to print.


During this time I had been reading MaximumPC for a few years and could not think of any other magazine I would like to write for. Literally no other magazine. Getting hired by them would be analogous to a high school student being accepted to the one single college they had applied to. It was either their dream college or nothing at all and they had not even looked into any other colleges. (I actually mentioned this analogy in the interview I had with Tom Edwards and Will Smith of Maxpc, whether that is good or bad move on my part u decide).

I received an email survey from the magazine asking for opinion on their new site offering prizes to people who filled it out. Course I filled it out but the surprising part was that I actually won. I was called to come and visit MaximumPC at their FutureUS headquarters in South San Francisco to attend a focus group regarding their new website.

Screw the prizes, (which was a $50 gift certificate to Newegg and a copy of Supreme Commander among random Maxpc shwag) I had literally just won the opportunity to get my foot in the door. I got the meet with none other then Will Smith, the Editor in Chief of the magazine. Although he was primarily focused on my input regarding the website, I was sure to slip in that I was interested in an internship so he would see me in a different light from the get go and I could start to impress. He gave me his card and who to contact regarding an internship.

From this point on everything fell into place just as you would expect. Utilizing my new title at the Star and a generous recommendation from the Star's Manager Chip McAuley (haha I linked his Youtube account where he has some rather interesting videos, hope he doesn't mind) I had a pretty slick resume. I was able to get a lot of experience (legitimate official experience that u can list on a resume and make it look good) in that one semester of writing for the Star and was able to really build a rather appealing resume for MaximumPC. After submitting my resume (which I made about 20 times redoing it over and over and over and over and over again) I got an email back from Tom Edwards saying he would like to schedule an interview. The interview went great, and by now Will knew my name which was awesome to find out.

The rest is history as they say (so far ! )


Wish me luck and look for my name on MaxPC articles soon enough
; )