A (not so) Brief History of Dan
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- September 21, 1967: I was born in Plainfield, New Jersey. A few days later, I was taken home by my parents to our home in Colonia.
- December 12, 1968: My sister Debbie was born. This, of course, totally shattered my nascent faith in the universe
- November, 1972: After several years of vacationing there, my parents bought a house, and we moved to the island of St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands. For the next 13 years, I lived there, attending first the Montessori School on the east end of the island, and then (starting with 5th grade) All Saints School in downtown Charlotte Amalie. During these 13 years, we returned to New Jersey every summer to visit with family.
- Spring 1980: After 15 years of marriage, my parents divorced. Since pop ended up living about a five minute walk away, and he drove me to school every morning, I still saw him all the time.
- September 1985 through April 1988: After graduating from high school in June, I attended Seton Hall University in South Orange New Jersey. After slightly less than three years there (and three majors), I decided that I just wasn't ready to be a college student. So I left.
- April 1988: By this time, I had been working part-time for Walden Books in the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne. After quitting school, I switched to full-time, and was made Junior Assistant Manager. I lived in the basement of my friend Georges' family for a while (which we fixed up), and then in my friend David's house.
- March 1989: I transferred to the Monmouth Mall store, and was promoted to Senior Assistant Manager. I moved in with my father and stepmother who were living in Long Branch at the time.
- September, 1989: I left Walden Books, and took a job as a Manager with Software Etcetera, at the Seaview Square Mall in Ocean, New Jersey. This didn't last long (for various reasons), and by March of 1990, I was living in Linden, New Jersey (with my maternal grandmother) and working at Radio Shack.
- Easter 1990: I converted to Roman Catholicism.
- Summer 1992: At the age of just about 25, I officially 'came out' as a gay man. For some reason, this came as no surprise to either my father or most of my friends. They, apparently, had been waiting for me to do this for (in some cases) a few years. Why none of them ever said anything is beyond me.
- January, 1997: I left Radio Shack (finally) and returned to school to finish (also finally) my undergraduate work. I enrolled as a full-time Continuing Education student at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, where I majored in History and minored in Medieval Studies.
- May 20, 2000: I graduated with a BA in History
- June 2000: I took a job with Drew University (actually, there's a number of university graduates who end up working for the school for a few years immediately following graduation. It's kinda weird). I worked in the Office of Telecommunications, as an assistant to the Manager.
- July 2000: Moved into a nice (read: affordable) 2 bedroom apartment in Summit, New Jersey, which I shared with my Drew suite-mate, Brian.
- July 2001: Brian's then-girlfriend (now wife) Katie moved up from St. Petersburg Florida, and moved in. Since this meant I would have to move out (too crowded), I moved into the vacant one-bedroom apartment upstairs. As an aside, at almost the same time, my sister moved from New Jersey to St. Petersburg. I think we won on that trade.
- September 2003: I left the Catholic Church (and Christianity in general). Mostly due to the inherent hypocrisy: Love thy neighbor... unless he's different. That bothers me. Most of Christianity (as a thing) I have no issue with. It's most Christians, and how they practice their faith, that's the issue.
- August, 2004: I flew out to Colorado (and then endured a five hour car ride) to visit pop and my stepmother at their new home in Crestone. An absolutely beautiful place (although once you get done looking at the scenery, you've pretty much done all there is to do if you're not into mountains)
- March 2005: I left Drew University to take a job with the College of New Jersey. I work in their IT department, in the Help Desk. It's a very different environment than Drew (and a much bigger school), but not a bad place.
- May 2005: I moved into an apartment in Ewing, NJ. Prior to this, I had been commuting in to work at TCNJ from my friends Craig and Amy's place in Doylestown. Having an apartment in the same town as my job is MUCH more convenient than a 40 minute one-way commute!
- December 2005: I was accepted into the Master of Arts in Teaching program at TCNJ. Since I work full-time, that means I have to do the program part-time, which is a little difficult to do, because of how the program is designed. It should take me double the usual time to complete, which means that in the spring of 2009 I'll have a Master's degree as well as a NJ teaching certificate.
- December 2007: Three days before my New Years Party, my doctor informed me that I have Type II Diabetes. Way to kill the new year Doc.
- 2008: Health changes (mostly for the better): Thanks to Weight Watchers, I managed to lose 12.4 pounds in the year. I also brought my sugar levels under control (thanks to diet, and medication).
- December 2008: Finished my Master's program. Now the job search begins!
- As of December 2012: Gave up on the teaching job search. After four years, I realized it just wasn't going to happen.
- June 2014: Bought a house in Ewing NJ. Very exciting!
- August 2017: leaving TCNJ. Moving to Birmingham, Alabama.