All of us had a childhood hero or two, usually some TV character we wanted to grow up to be. Then as we grew older we began to associate how we felt to other TV characters, how much we thought we were like them. I think Mr. Spock from the original Star Trek was the one character I felt closest to when I was younger. He was super smart, great at math and science and the science officer aboard the greatest space ship ever built. Hey I was great at both math and science so I had two out of three right?

So we leave school and go out into the work force. For many of us our dreams gave way to reality of keeping a roof over our head and food on the table, but we still had that dream of who we wanted to be like and we find ourselves in some small part acting as close to that hero as we can. I had a need to be as knowledgeable as possible so I read and I read, I even read the encyclopedia from cover to cover trying to learn as much as I could. I gained a few nicknames in the process even smiled to myself when one day someone asked if I was a Vulcan, although most the names I was called were not so polite. Then one day when our children have grown and have children of their own we look back on our lives. Look at what we wanted and at what we actually became.

Of course looking back I was nothing like Mr. Spock. I had always been quick tempered, where he was always cool no matter how bad the situation. He was always logical, while I used logic I was strong willed and stubborn. I was a real wizkid with machinery, I listened to the experts as to why something would not work then would go out and make it work just to prove them wrong. I was also very fast when working with my hands and many time thought so far outside the box I never realized there was a box to begin with. All things Mr. Spock would never do.
When assigned tasks I never estimated the time to complete the task according to my abilities and speed, I always estimated the time by what I thought others that I worked with could get it done in. Thus I always completed the task well under the estimated time. When others said something we needed was impossible with what we had available the boss would always assign it to me and I always managed to get the item working or create some off the wall, outside the box work around just in the nick of time saving the day.

Looking back on this I was trying to be the wrong Star Trek characters. I should have been watching Mr. Scott more closely!

So who did you grow up to be?