STATS
BORN: May 28, 1970 Springfield, Tennessee
PARENTS: GEORGE WILLIAM NEWCOMB (1935-1986), MARY LOUISE NEWCOMB (63)
SIBLINGS: TERESA (43), DONNIE (39), JANICE (36)
NIECES & NEPHEWS: CHRIS (24), TABITHA (20), BRANDY (20), APRIL (19), JOE (12), HEATHER (9), DEREK (8), BRANNON (3), BLAKE (3), BRITTANY (2), BROOKELYN (1), TYLER (0), AND CASSIDY (0)
EDUCATION: Watauga & Greenbrier Elementary, Greenbier Middle, Greenbrier High, Austin Peay State University
DEGREE: B.S. Computer Science & History 1993
Let's see....I was born on May 28, 1970, the fourth child of George and Louise (unplanned but a pleasant surprise). I lived in the same house in Greenbrier, TN, from time I was born until the time I went to college (and my mama still lives there). By the time I was ten, my oldest sister and brother were married and out of the house so grew up mostly with my sister, Janice. At age 10, I already had four nieces and nephews, so tended to get lumped into the kid mode long after I grew up. I was a shy, introverted kid and liked to read. I loved sports from an early age and still do today. I was always the skinniest kid in my class and kind of short. When I was fifteen I started a growth spurt that didn't stop until I was 25. Now I'm up to 6' 5" and way taller than all my friends and family (some say I look like the milk man). My family was lower middle class but I always had everything I wanted. I definitely got spoiled and had more advantages than my siblings. No one in our family had gone to college and I was determined to do so and have a successful career. I became fixated with New York fairly early and thought I'd end up living there someday. I wanted to be everything from a geologist to detective to lawyer growing up and then settled on becoming a history teacher by the time I finished high school in 1988.
I entered Austin Peay State University in the fall of 1988 as a history major. A month after I started college, my nephew, Joe, was born. I'm not sure what it was, but when I held him for the first time I felt a connection like I'd never felt before. I still feel that with him today and he's the closest thing I have to my own son. After two years, I decided to double major in computer science (and I'm glad I did). It took me a while to adjust to being away from home. I was pretty much a mama's boy my whole life (some things never change) and tended to go home quite a lot that first year. By the second year I was going home less, and by year three stayed at school most of the time. My third year was when I met my best friends, Rico Hall and Bubba Hoskins. That year was a turning point for me. It was probably the happiest year of my life and I was surrounded by tons of friends that are still in my life today (Ronnie, Aaron, Connie, Gabe). Maybe it was getting older or maybe the great friendships, but my self-confidence grew to an all-time high and has been pretty high ever since. My communication skills also improved tremendously and I really grew up. My college buds and I teamed up and made a home movie - "A Rage in Harvill" (as in Harvill Hall) that we still watch today. The last two years of college were filled with lots of computer classes and lots of thoughts about what life after school would be. By the time I graduated in May 1993, I was prepared for adulthood and ready to take on the world.
I worked at Laidlaw Environmental Services for several months after college before I landed my first REAL job and moved to Nashville. My sisters worked there and Teresa brought me breakfast every morning. That meant a lot to me (probably as much as anything anyone's ever done for me). I met Mark Burson there and we became great friends and still are to this day. I started at Cigna Healthcare in February 1994 as a Fee Schedule Consultant and quicky moved on to Technical Analyst. I really enjoyed that job and all the people, especially Steve Schmidt, who is one of my best friends. By 1995, I was thinking about leaving Tennessee. I had always planned on moving to New York and begain seriously thinking about the move. Because my friend Mike lived in San Jose, I ended up choosing the California Bay Area, and began preparing to move. The first few months of 1996 were filled with preparations and planning. By May, I had finished my job at Cigna and on the 17th left Nashville (with Mike) for California with nothing but what would fit in my Mazda Protege.
I took and apartment in Sunnyvale, CA for about six weeks and then moved into the worst place I've ever lived - an apartment/room in Milpitas. It took a few months to find a job in Silicon Valley and my savings dwindled fast (my mama really helped me out during this time). In November, I landed a job at Sun Microsystems and things started to really turn around for me. I moved to El Cerrito in 1997 with a fellow Tennessean, Rob, and my transition was pretty much complete. Rico came to visit for three weeks in July 1997 and after that I began to feel at home finally - having a job and home life that were enjoyable. In February of 1998, I moved into a house in Oakland with John. It was a great place and felt like home. I bought a satellite dish so that I could watch all the Falcons games and totally loved it. The Falcons had their best season ever and went to the Super Bowl. I've since lived in Union City and then back in Oakland, where I've been since January 2000. My mama's been in CA to visit the past three summers and I hope this summer is visit #4. Life is great and so much has changed, but I plan on staying grounded and being the person my parent's raised me to be and a person my family and friends can be proud to call their own.
