I don’t really know what to put here, because I don’t know what people want to know. Ya know?
If you’re not sure if I’m the Ben Garland you’re looking for, maybe this information will help. Born in Warner Robins, GA, I lived there for 18 years and attended Sacred Heart School, Miller Elementary, Mt de Sales (Macon), and Houston County High School. At my first opportunity I moved away to Atlanta, Ga where I attended Georgia Tech and swiftly proceeded to nearly flunk out in my first year. This was 1996-1997. I then transferred to Georgia College and State University (Milledgeville) to try my hand at Computer Science and improve my grades. I did. During this time I started a Mac-based web publishing company at macopinion.com, which I ran with a staff of 6 writers for over 2 years before I sold it to another publisher.
Although I made mostly A’s at GCSU, I didn’t like CS much and had been wanting to go to Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro) to study Recording Industry (ie. Music Production) since I left Ga Tech. I was at MTSU for a year and a half until I ran out of money — and parental support — and had to drop out. It was then, in December 1999 that, using connections from my publishing company, I secured a job in Atlanta working for an upstart internet health company as their graphics/web guru. It was my job to work as a liason between the programmers and (traditional) graphic designers to allow the entire operation to work. Although I was paid very very very well (I probably won’t make that much money again until I’m 35), the work environment started to deteriorate shortly before the dot com bubble burst, and I decided to quit my job and moved to Vermont using the money from the aforementioned sale of my publishing company. Within a few months after I quit, half the employees had also left the company.
In Vermont, I spent some time relaxing and enjoying life. I worked for $8.25/hr in an amazing Asian restaurant called the Five Spice Cafe. I met many wonderful people in Vermont… travelled to Boston, Montreal, NYC. It was quite an experience. Unfortunately, by the end of my year in VT I had burned through all the money that I had saved up and had the itch to go back to school. How would I afford school if I had no money? Hmm. I talked to one of my old friends from high school about it and she suggested the US Air Force. Now, if you know me at all, there is no way you could even imagine me in the Air Force much less have the balls to actually suggest that I join. I dismissed the idea at first, but she kept saying it was just like a normal government job and they give you lots of money to go back to school. So I talked to a recruiter and joined.
It wasn’t so bad at first, until September 11th 2001 happened 3 months after I finished Basic Training. Ooops. Needless to say I was sent to Saudi Arabia, hated it (to put it lightly), talked with a shrink when I got back and got out of the military. Due to a paper processing error (is there a god?) I was discharged and promptly moved to Athens, GA with plans to attend the University of Georgia. Spring semester had already started so I worked for 6 months as a cable TV installer, quit my job, and began Fall semester in the Horticulture program at UGA.
During my time at UGA I made nearly straight A’s (only two B’s out of probably 27 classes), spent 3 months in Ecuador working in the cloud forests, 3 months in Costa Rica studying ecology, 3 weeks in Nicaragua travelling and visiting sustainable and organic farms, and another 3 months in Costa Rica studying at Earth University.
Looking back, it’s pretty amazing and sometimes I really can’t believe it happened. But it did.
I graduated with a degree in Horticulture and a certificate in International Agriculture in December 2006. Not sure what to do with myself before grad school (at NCSU) in the upcoming 2007 Fall semester, I decided to ride my bicycle across the country towards Oregon. I made it from Macon, GA to Austin, TX — 1,200 miles exactly — in 21 days. Because of monetary and time constraints, I boxed everything up and flew to Portland a few weeks early.
While in Portland, I worked for Al’s Garden Center. I also met the girl I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. And we travelled together a lot.
To be continued…