From geek to hustler
(I took this picture today of two university dorks playing the Nintendo DS)
I’m going to tell you something funny.
When I was in high school, I thought I would go to university, and get a good and secure job as computer network administer by day, and hacker by night. Kinda like Neo from the Matrix. I read those thick 500 page Unix manuals in high school and tried to be a hacker wannabe. I was more of a closet geek, because I was socially adept and had a couple of girls ask me out on a date.
But the more I educated myself outside of school, I realized that school was a nice spring board for kids to go to college and become a life long civil servant. So I said, nah. I dropped out of high school in grade 12.
Then somehow I went from computer geek typing on the keyboard to a soldier carrying a gun and enough ammunition to wipe out a small town.
I remember during boot camp in the army, my friends and I went to five different strip joint that night. One stripper – a fat goth girl who didn’t dance but waddled around – stood out in mind.
Then we went to another strip bar / brothel ran by the Hell Angels. Those tattooed bikers were sitting the table next to us and for some reason I keep thinking we’re going to get robbed.
I also started playing brick and mortar poker while I was in the army, playing at the casino all week. And definitely the Chinese Triads where there, not to mention some black gangster guy at this ghetto casino downtown.
The poker room was upstairs and it was friggin shady. I immediately analyze the room for escape routes and such, if a robbery was ever to occur.
The army was fun; we had bar brawls, guys going AWOL and getting charged, and I remember one guy who was a crack head who I shared the room with while living in the military base. He changed his pants on time and I saw this massive crap stain on his white underwear.
I was … “WHAT THE HELL DUDE ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE UNDERWEAR?!
And he was like, “No.”
Then and there I knew it was time to get out of the army.