Welcome to my website

Thanks for visiting my website. I have gained much from others experiences and my hope with this website is that others will gain from mine. Take your time and see the whole site, my experiences and poetry. And then, if you would be so kind, please leave me a message on the GuestBook page or Contact me.
-Thanks
      Peter Vaughn Hooper, UT

 

I have a basic philosophy about life experiences and about how mine relate to the internet. My story about how I got invovled with computers is one I have learned a lot from and hope others can relate to or identify with. I HATE COMPUTERS.
In 9th I had the required computer class. Back then, all I knew about computers was how to load games like JumpMan and Space Taxi on the family Commadore 64. This class was held in a tiny room in an unknown area in the jr high school that seemed to be made into a class room from a janitorial closet with the paint scraped floor and a drain in the middle. There's much I could say about the teacher but suffice it to say, he was one of those teachers you could throw a chalk board eraser at and while trying to figure out what just happened hit him three mores times with the same eraser.
Halfway through the course I was supposed to have my failing progress report signed by my dad. Since I had never had an 'F' before in my life I forged my dad's signature. I was really nervous about getting caught and when I handed it to the teacher he looked at it and announced to the class, "This is the worst forgery I have ever seen". I broke out in a cold sweat and immediately turned bright red. Then he turned around and sat down at his desk. He was only joking and I had almost given myself away... I ended up borrowing a floppy disk with all the assignments from Brandon Parker, who had already had the class, and passed it off as my own. I am forever thankful to him for getting me through that required computer class.
Needless to say, after that class I wanted nothing to do with computers ever again. It's not so much that I was AFRAID of computers or technology in general, more that I didn't understand them in the same way that I loved math, but just wasn't any good at it. I finished out high school leaning more toward the life sciences, biology and that sort of thing. In college I tried to stick with science but soon found myself bored and wandering from major to major until ending up in Communications. If it hadn't been for DOOM and DOOM II I never would have survived BRAIN CANCER. Years later, for no particular reason, a friend I had made at the UofU, Travis Miller, gave me a lesson in HTML. Immediately, I fell in love with it. At first, every web page I made was a masterpiece, even the dorkiest table with colored borders and different size fonts. Today it seems I can't perfect any of them. Luckily, I took a job in sales for a software development company which afforded me great quantities of time to practice my newly discovered interest. More of a visual person and definitely not a logic-type thinker, HTML was my 'in' into the computer world. I wanted to learn more and eventually ended up at Stevens Henager Jr High hoping to get formal teaching in the subject of web design. After two and a half years of working toward a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science I never did get those classes. Any one who has gone into that program at SHC knows what I mean. Computer science was a challenge for me, not being the logical thinker. I definitely had to learn to think differently and I haven't slept since starting school. In my dreams there seems to have always been a computer problem I could not solve, which was stressful enough to wake me up serveral times per night and leave me mentally exhausted in the morning. I have enjoyed the challenge, however, and have gained much self-esteem from learning something new, overcoming fears and finally finding something that could hold my interest for more than a week or two. My goal with this website and all my writing is to share my experiences in hopes that someone will be able to identify with them and gain something from them. I think often that we, as human beings, feel like no one understands us or the hardships we have to deal with in our lives. I think we become closer to those with similar experiences because there's an understanding that exists that cannot be made up. Life is hard enough, but to not know who we are or that our goals are worthwhile can make it even more difficult. It's nice to know there are others like us, who have experienced what we have or currently are experiencing. I hope this site is of some benefit to you. Please feel free to Contact me if you have any questions or comments about my philosophy or POETRY.