My dad worked at Rubber Urethanes, which was a company that produced rubber products for a number of industries, working as the lead Maintenance Supervisor. Starting in the middle of 1994, my dad started spending 2 and 3 weeks at a time going to Texas, to help get a new building prepared for the company, located at the crossroads of a major North-South interstate (I-35) and major East-West freight corridor (US-82). This location was much more shipping-centralized than the location in California.

In 1995 we moved to Texas, along with about 20 other families who were in the higher ranks of Rubber Urethanes. For the first 3 weeks, we all lived out of the Holiday Inn at the intersection of California Street and I-35 because the Moving truck hauling all of the families’ belongings had (for some inconceivable reason) decided to take a 3 week long Detour. I still remember the move, but because I was so young, only a partial bit of it. My mom was driving her 1965 Mustang, while my dad drove the Race-rig (dually + trailer, all fully loaded) and I would switch who I rode with every few stops. I remember when we stopped at one hotel which had an all-glass elevator out in the desert somewhere, but not when we blew an outside tire on the dually in Albuquerque and had to halt progress for 2 or 3 hours to put a new tire on and repair/temporarily mend the fender damage to the truck (this I have been told by my parents). I estimate the complete rolling rig was in excess of 5.5-6 tons, as the truck (1977 GMC 3500) alone is 7,000 pounds and the trailer and race car combined were another 4-5,000, plus the many daily necessaries we had in boxes in the race trailer. Also in the mustang, was a gold fish that we had in the 10 gallon aquarium, in just enough water that it wouldn’t slosh around but could still live.

Our first house in Texas was a rental unit in the Southern section of uptown Gainesville. Mom and I frequently would take Carrots and apples to ‘Star’, the horse which lived in the property that backed up to our back yard. Also, due to city ordinance and security, we added a metal gate which went between the fence and north edge of the house, and we kept the race trailer and equipment stored behind. At this location, I attended first grade at McMurray Elementary School and spent afternoons at the Cooke County Youth Center and a Daycare facility, where all I ever did during recess was sit at the fence and watch anything that would happen to be going on at the Cooke County Electric operating facility across the street.

The Following year, in June to July 1996, we moved from the rental house to a better-fitting house just outside Gainesville

However, there was a cost to the family. In California, we had a multitude of dragways nearby- Irwindale, Pomona, Sears Point, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and a few others I can’t remember anymore. However, in Texas, the nearest ¼ mile professional track was in Ennis, halfway across the state, while there was a 1/8 mile bracket/amateur track about 30 miles away. This led to our decision to sell the racing operation. The trailer was sold quickly, so we used a rental flat bed to take the car to the local 1/8th mile a few times just to keep it in running condition. It was finally sold a year and a half later, or so. Somewhere in this window as well (possibly with the race car money), we bought a late-1980’s suburban.

In 1999 I believe, we took a family vacation down to Corpus Christi with the suburban for a week. It was here that we learned what jelly fish looked like, but none of us were stung.

In 2000, my dad bought me an off-road go-cart, and we spent the following year and a half, if not two years, finding and fixing the weak links of it's original design. The fixing finally ended in 2004 or 2005, when we finally did a complete teardown and rebuild of it, making the frame a 1 piece welded unit rather than several bolted joints that rattled loose from time to time. This is where I got my first major lesson in welding. Of major modifications, the 318cc flathead single cylinder Tecumseh engine had the governor and torque-a-verter re-worked, new drive sprockets installed which were 3/8" think rather than the stock 1/4 inch, a straight pipe "zoomie" header installed (no muffler or spark arrestor), and the cylinder head milled 0.030 of an inch plus a DIY port and polish job. The front spindles were also upgraded to 5/8 inch diameter hardened number eight bolts and the frame was painted chrome orange. We’ve still had to replace the Left-front spindle once, after I got too overzealous and got up on the right side at speed, snapping the left spindle when it came back down.

I would also estimate that it was in 1999 or 2000 that the 65 Mustang was totaled. A man was driving on the wrong side of the road on a cell phone coming up a hill, when my mom was on the other side. The collision sent the mustang into a tree, totaling it unrepairably. Thankfully, we had kept every receipt for every nut and bolt that was used in the restoration of the pony, and got what we deserved after fighting the insurance company.

We used the money from the Mustang to buy a boat and 1987 Camaro Z28. We still have the boat, although it is not often used anymore, but the Camaro was sold in 2008 in favor of a 2002 Firebird.

In 2002, fresh off the September 11 attacks in New York, my Grandpa took my Cousin Danny and I to Washington DC and the surrounding areas. We spent a week in D.C. proper, as well as a week touring the country side, going to the many Civil War Battle sites. We received a tour of the Capitol Building, as well as went to the Smithsonian Museums, all the major monuments, and the other things worth seeing. Danny and my Grandpa then stayed in Texas for 5 days afterwards.

My junior year in high school, I was in Agriculture Shop, where I learned how to Oxy-acetylene and arc weld. I was supposed to learn how to MIG weld, but elected to help the teacher with some side projects while a majority of the class was on the wire machines. Starting right after Christmas break, the class started on a 16 foot welding trailer project for the school. After 6 weeks of in- and out of class work in the shop, I was chosen as well as one of the lead fabricators to take it down to the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo, Shop Fabrications judging show. On judging day, the lead fabricator never showed up at the trailer, leaving me with the trailer for 16 straight hours, without a lunch break. While it was a lot of work for me, it earned us the Showmanship award, which had $3,000 in equipment for winnings attached.

Also in my Junior Year, I was concurrently studying for the FFA Ag Shop Skills Competition while working on the trailer. While mostly based around small gas engines, it also focused on proper tool usage, basic home electrical systems, Farm equipment servicing (for this year, it was a round baler), and a multitude of other skills. At regional, I took first place with a large point separation to second place- mostly because the small gas engines section was a heavily weighted section. In the Texas-wide competition at Sam Houston State University, I took 14th overall of 200 some odd competitors.

I am now in college at the University of Texas at Arlington studying for Mechanical Engineering, while running SCCA Autocross in my Dakota.

I am an avid race fan, of several sports- drag racing, NASCAR/circle track, and more recently road course racing. I have attened better then 20 racing events in texas, countless more if you count the races in california in which we competed in. I had my first website on angelfire's free hosting service (owned by lycos) in 7th grade and owned "magnethead794.com" for the first time in 8th grade through a quickly-defunct 1 dollar hosting company. This was also when i first learned HTML. In school, I took BCIS (Business Computer Information Systems) in 8th grade, Webmastering in 9th grade, CMAT (Computer Multimedia and Animation) in 10th grade, Computer maintenance in 11th grade, and am currently in Computer Science this, my senior year. The Web/Tech Development part of this website will go into further detail of my computering skills. I have been accepted to the University of Texas at Arlington for college, and I intend on majoring in mechanical engineering. The AIRT (Artificial Intelligence Robotic Transporter) Project is my way of helping to build my engineering skills beyond what K'NEX (knex.com) allowed me to do. I have been a part of NT BEST (North Texas Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology; ntbest.org, bestinc.org) since my sophmore year in high school, and was essentially the team leader the last two years. BEST gave me the ability to build AIRT through learning how robots and remote communication by radio works.