Who Is This Dude?
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My name is Rob Page.
I’m a ‘work-at-home-dad’ living in Kennebunk, Maine with my new bride Erin, my daughter Novalee, Tiva the pitbull, Loui the black pug, Preston the white rat dog, and an actual rat named Niles (after the character from Frasier).
I was born to a 14 year old mother and a 16 year old father who put me up for adoption when I was 5. I was adopted by a well-intentioned, caring family that had no idea the hell they brought upon themselves.
I am naturally inclined to buck the system. I had a heavy handed father who would whoop my ass when I got out of line, which is to say very often. My mother was in the middle of finding herself as we all are in our thirties (right?). They were doomed from the start.
I was a problem child. I was put into juvenile hall for joyriding in my moms car at 15, and stuffed in just about every program and institution for troublemakers in New England. I experienced 1 year of high school before finally being placed in a controversial private school that would be my home until the day I turned 18 and got the hell out of there.
3 credits short of graduation with my class, I opted to get my GED than go through the hell that was formal education. But I knew I wanted to do something important with my life, so I needed to get moving somewhere.
I started building computers for my uncle, who owned a PC business in New Hampshire. I learned the principles of computing, the working parts, networking, client relationships – the good stuff everyone needs to know to start their own business.
One night, in my dingy little $125 a week apartment I saw a cartoon (I later learned was Flash) and I wanted to know how to design them. So I studied, every night I would get home from work with a flask of coffee brandy and a pint of whole milk… I would catch a warm buzz and work and read, ask questions and build movies.
I was hired by my first start-up company in 1999, building Flash templates for one of the very first dynamic website creators around.
I moved on to a career as lead developer at MLM companies all over the country over the next several years.
I met Erin right around this time of my life. She was a beautiful woman dating a friend of mine. I couldn’t help but flirt with her when he wasn’t looking, which was apparently a lot.
We were together shortly after, because I am simply irresistable.
I got a good job with a company in Texas that required I move there. Erin was graduating high school in the summer and needed to stay behind to complete her senior year. She wanted to go to prom badly, so I flew back home to take her. It was one part of high school I missed so I was glad to be able to go.
Erin moved to Texas with me after she graduated. A year there was more than long enough.
On September 11, 2001 we woke up to the twin towers falling, my van had been broken into and the cd player stolen. My neighbors car was stolen. An 18 wheeler literally blew up 30 yards from our home and a crack whore was hacked up by an angry wife with a butcher knife outside my front door. And we lived in a nicer part of Houston. This was all on one day, and it was the day we decided to leave the city and move home to New England.
Later, Erin and I split for a while as we both grew in different directions. 2 years and many changes later we got back together.We picked up where we left off like we had never been apart.
About a month after that I found out she was pregnant with our daughter, Novalee. We were both thrilled and it seemed my lifes path was now planned for me. I was a lot less scared than I thought I would be.
On the career front, I was building my own business from scratch after selling out of my last one. I put a months advertising on eLance.com and got hooked up with a couple clients that yielded and still yields referrals that are my lifeblood.
Erin and I have been together for almost 10 years, and on September 27, 2009 we got married. Novalee is now 2 years old and growing like a weed.
I work with a fast growing international wireless network provider, oddly enough out of Houston Texas… although I live in Maine.
I love my New England home. I love the smell of rotting leaves in the fall, the burning of wood in the winter, the smell of mud in the spring and cur grass in the summer. It’s home and I’ll never leave it.
This blog went from being a marketing tool to a journal to a therapeutic outlet to whatever eclectic mix it is now. Thanks for reading, and if there’s something you want to know about me, ask me!
