I was born!
and then something strange happened...
I was ALIVE!
(no, I don't think this is gonna work... OK, let's go for another try...)
I was born in Aachen. This is in GERMANY (or Bundesrepublic Deutschland). In a very tender age I was relocated to Greece, first in Thessaloniki and right after to Athens. Five years after that we moved again, this time to a small multi-culti city located in northern Greece called Komotini, where I finished school. But we never stopped moving around, even then.
I returned to Athens as a student and started working. Returned briefly to Komotini for two years and after that settled to Athens.
(your text is VERY BORING my friend... who cares about all this???)
OK, OK... let's give it another try... third time is the charm...
You know... working is fun! (yeah, right!)
I started working as a DJ, back when I was just 16. In parallel, I also worked in a record store. It was 1981, in the middle of a "revolution" that people called the new wave right after. It is what they call now "the 80's".
finished school, had to study, left home...
Moved to another city, worked briefly at the biggest record store in Athens. Moved again on spinning records and then, it fell from the sky: I was to TEACH in a private highschool for the overprivilleged!
This is one of those things that can only happen in Greece (or any other 3rd world country, now that I can laugh about it...)
I was just 20, just a student (a damn good one, but who cares...) and I was already teaching, and I did it for 2 whole years!
In 1989 I moved on to greener pastures, to work full time in a up and coming software house. If I only knew that this one would be the ONLY one remaining after 20 years, I would NEVER quit.
Anyway, way back then, I first connected to the internet (back then, no WEB, only chat forums).
In Greece one HAS to go to the Army, so I did this too. And at the same time, I kept working as a teacher AND as a DJ.
Army was over sooner that I expected. I learned there to trust myself and my feelings and I understood why Greece will allways be a backward country. This is something you learn in the Army: don't do anything, keep down, avoid work at any cost.
Not for me, thanx
The next 2 years where the most productive of my life: In the morning worked in a computer shop, doing everything from selling to coding to supporting. In the evening I kept my teaching hat on and in the night I had my own late night radio show.
...and on my own time I teached myself 3D animation and computer graphics. I also had time to mountain bike.
Two years of this and I had enough. I couldnt bear anymore the life in the small town, so I moved back to Athens and made a clean start. I started working in a television post production company as a 3D artist but I found out that I am really not as good as I thought. Moved promptly to a computer support company.
Made my first WEB page in 1995 and got into the Greek internet community with heavy strides. Got some awards too...
In all that time I was searching for better things. I applied to almost every big advertising company in Athens as a web designer, had an interview with almost everyone of them, but there just wasn't a market for it yet.
For a brief period of 3 to 5 years I had a famous webplace called "XtremeF1". Back then, it was more popular than a magazine. Suddenly, it was occupying most of my time. Was fun, but had to let it go.
In parallel, I got into web design. This was a horrible time. People didn't pay nearly enough to have a webspace designed and Greek internet was bandwidth plagued.
So what can someone do? I changed...
A couple of years later I got my big break: another post production firm offered me a "cloudy" job that involved anything I could do, from supporting their computers to making simple CG work to produce part of a show.
Best part of that period was that I got to know many famous people and really be a part of "show biz" as it is defined in Greece
I also became one of the few DVD experts in Greece, when the firm opened a DVD replication facility.
Unfortunately, the firm closed in 2000.
I moved back to my computer support work, setting up networks and "stuff". Here I did most of my webdesign work, mostly cheap stuff. Happy as a fly on a shitpile! No worries! Until 2004, when the company split up and I was (once again) forced to make a new start.
Staying unemployed for a whole year had me going in a panic mode. I was searching for a job in the morning and worked as a moonlighting computer expert the nights. Made some good money too, but it was too much work and really too much stress
Hey, I was getting too old for all this! For the first time in my life I had to pull strings and call in favors to get my current job, that I will not disclose, so I can have plausible deniability when they come to break down my door...
Whatever... I moved to a better neighborhood (now that I can afford the rent), got married, got divorced...
And in life, as the rainmakers say, we "move in small circles".
I came full circle once again, once again at the same point in life as I was 10 years ago
Difficult to see the future is... everything is clouded.
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