My father was a mathematician/physicist, tinkerer and a voracious reader of litereature. In the mid 80's (in eastern europe) he had a lot of free time on his hands to experiment with computers and to build a personal library of books. I vividly remember the day he brought home a sinclair spectrum clone that was running basic and two tapes of games for me to enjoy. I got bored with playing games rather quickly and started dabbling in basic attempting to make my own games. My fascination with computers grew tremedously. In the early 90s my father emmigrated to the US and ended up as a programmer for Bell Atlantic after stumbling upon a few odd jobs. Though he had a hard immigrant life he kept me updated with books and faster and faster PCs at the time (x86, x286, pentium, etc) and really long vivid letters about his experiences in the US, explaining school math and programming to me. We were separated by distance for 10 years and yet his infuence was stronger than ever. He also made sure I was also learning other things as well and that I wasn't glued to the computer screen all the time. Fast forward to early 00s when I and the rest of the family emmigrated to the US as well, my dad taught me a bit of SQL and VB6 after which I landed a job as a junior dev. I was an intern first then the company hired me F/T. I've had to quickly upgrade from VB6 but SQL had remained in my toolkit and proved a good investment. Unfortunately he passed away a year after my arrival. It all came as a huge shock, he had a massive heart attack due to stress, I think he was too old to adapt to the fast paced US, he was 55 years old. RIP Dad. I ended up supporting my family for years to come and and if it wasn't for his guidance I don't know how all would have turned out.
