About Me

    As you may have guessed my name is Adam Koch, and I live in Spartanburg, SC.  I am 32 years old and work for GHS as an I/S Desktop Analyst.  I am dating the love of my life, Kristen, and we've been together for over 2 years.  We recently took a trip to Buffalo, NY (my hometown) where I proposed to her (at Niagara Falls!) and she said yes!  I am blind in my left eye due to a birth defect, but it hasn't ever held me back in any sort of meaningful way.  While I am originally from Upstate New York (Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres fan!), we moved to the south when I was about a year old, and have lived down here most of my life.

    Technology has been my life's passion since my family got our first computer, a Packard Bell 486 running Microsoft Windows 3.11, back when I was 12.  A couple of years later we were able to upgrade to a Gateway desktop running Windows 98 SE.  It was on this machine that I first began programming and web development.  The first language was Microsoft Visual Basics 3.0 (16-bit), where I wrote addon software for the popular internet chat program AOL.

    My first foray in to web design was using the personal web space that AOL provided each of their members.  I created a website dedicated to my favorite band at the time, Metallica (they continue to be my favorite band of all time).  It was an assault on the eyes, but being my first attempt it got the job done.  Eventually I branched out to use Geocities, as well as Angelfire.  Soon thereafter I started making my own money and was able to purchase my own domain and carve out my own little slice of the interwebs.  PHP has always been my first love in terms of web-based languages.  There doesn't seem to be any middle ground regarding PHP, you either love it, or hate it.  While I have always found the syntax to be a bit clunky and inconsistent at times, but it was easy to learn and really powerful.  I was able to write some pretty cool scripts with it that accomplished a wide array of functions, depending on what I needed at the time.

    Also, around the time we got the Gateway desktop I really got in to gaming.  It first started with the classic first-person shooter Wolfenstein 3D, and then eventually Doom and Doom II.  When I was finally able to get broadband internet is when my love for gaming really took off.  It all started with Battlefield 1942, and then Desert Combat mod soon thereafter.  From there, it blossomed in to so many other games: Unreal Tournament 2004, Counter-Strike: Source, Battlefield 2142/2/3/etc., various Call of Duty games, and now Rainbow Six: Siege.

    I won't ramble on and on about every last detail of my life, but overall I am extremely fortunate to be where I am now.  It has been a struggle to be sure, but in the end it was worth every last second and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  If you have any questions just contact me.