My abbreviated life story…1970’s Pink Pool House, Backwards Air Jordan, and The Duplex
I was born January 1st 1980 in Louisville, Kentucky. After spending a few years traveling around the Northeast with my folks I ended up in Bronxville, New York. After attending elementary, middle, and high school in one building I graduated from Bronxville High School in 1998.
In August of 1998 I enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan University where I played on the football team for a year. After a year of football, I spent the next several years majoring in Politics, taking almost enough theatre classes to have minored in the subject, and working at a variety of local restaurants as a server and bartender. It was at this time I purchased the less than sporty burgundy Chevy Malibu.
After graduating with from Ohio Wesleyan in May of 2002, and on a total whim, I moved to Columbia, South Carolina just 2 days after my graduation. Packing all my processions in my burgundy Chevy Malibu I drove the 9 hour trek to sleep on my brother’s couch for a few months. At which time he moved out, and I scored a roommate, that was about to start a pursuit of a graduate degree in Speech Communications. With little tolerance for an office job, and no formal experience in public speaking, I decided to join him, and enrolled in the fall of 2002 at the University of South Carolina’s Speech Communications program.
In the spring of 2003 on a sunny day a few of the people that would often gather in my kitchen to eat my food and drink my cold beverages decided it was time for us all to upgrade to a place where they could have access to the kitchen twenty four hours a day. On this day we were able to find a landlord desperate to rent out a home that had been at the zenith of architectural design in 1976. Thankfully not a single upgrade had been done since that point, and thus the pastel pink walls, and shag carpet made the house so unrentable that the landlord gave us 5 twentysomething trouble ridden guys a chance. The disco hall 4 bedroom had a pool and a basketball court. 1 year and countless parties later it was time to leave. This was the first and only time I have ever shed a tear when moving out of a house. I still miss that house.
It was during this time that I started to make friends in the southern parts of India and importing what to my knowledge at the time was authentic surplus shoes and apparel. Truth be told, after just a few short years of business, the best selling surplus Air Jordan sneakers that I had been importing were spotted as less than real when a friend noticed the iconic logo of Air Jordan dunking a basketball was in fact backwards. This business, while lucrative, was too Mafioso to stay in, and thus had to be dropped.
In December of 2004 I graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Masters of Arts Degree in English with a concentration in Speech Communications. It was at this time I felt that people wanted to spend $200 on jeans, so I opened a store to give them the opportunity.
Two years later with no money left in the bank and a dresser full of $200 jeans the store closed. Out of sheer despair I decided to start marketing my services online. A ghostwritten e-book here, a ghostwritten article there, and next thing I knew I was making enough money to get the power turned back on at my house.
Startled by the opportunity I had found online I began testing the waters and creating different online businesses that sold affordable services. This led to my first website, GuestProfessor.com, and then a slew of other websites.