It's very difficult to write this because I don't remember the dates so it's largely guess-work. If I forget anything or get any dates wrong, I ask my family for corrections.
I was born in July 28, 1977 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. In 1980 I moved to Kentwood, Michigan with my family. In my early education I attended Southeast Kelloggsville Elementary School in the Kelloggsville School District. I spent one year at Kelloggsville Middle School and the resources for children with special educational needs (such as my Asperger's syndrome) were not up to par at the time, so my mom went through a hard-fought legal battle to get me into the Grand Rapids School District of Grand Rapids, MI, in spite of the fact that I was not within Grand Rapids' borders. It was a longer bus ride each day but the resources were better at the new school. I spent two years at Westwood Middle School (and in the school band, playing trumpet) before moving on to my freshman year at Union High School, where I continued playing the trumpet and attended US Army JROTC (Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps), a military program intended for teaching discipline, physical skills, and survival skills to high school students. I was promoted to sergeant.
By this time, my parents were divorced, and my mother met a new man, and we moved about half an hour north to Rockford, Michigan, around 1993. I transferred to Rockford High School, in the Rockford school district, and the facilities for children with special learning needs were even better. However, Rockford High School did not offer JROTC, and I made the now-much-regretted decision not to continue in band (for any kids or teens in a music class who may be reading this, DO NOT QUIT. I quit because I thought it got boring, but I find now that NOT having pursued band, and NOT having my trumpet anymore, is what's boring.)
During my first semester in Rockford High School I also got bussed every day down to Kent Career Technical Center, which is a facility offering outsourced classes to schools in the area. There I took Computerized Accounting and learned the Peachtree Accounting software. But don't ask me to do your accounting, that was 24 years ago. The software is different now, computers are different now, and I don't remember any of what I learned about accounting.
I also got my first job through a program at my school that partners with local businesses to provide job training through the school district. I was assigned to a local McDonalds. I urge all school districts to set up a program like this, as the most valuable thing you can teach a teen with special learning needs is how to hold down a job well.
After I graduated from Rockford High School in 1996, I moved down to Plainwell, Michigan, near Kalamazoo, to attend Michigan Career Technical Institute, a vocational college funded and run by the state for people with special needs. I took their Electronics Technology class. My two years there were my first two years pretty much living away from my family (which is always the case with your early college years). Those two years were full of mistakes, but I value them because it's our mistakes that give us things to learn from.
Upon graduation from MCTI in 1998, I moved back in with my family in Rockford and worked at a company called CompRenew in a town called Belmont, about a 10 minute drive away (which became a 30 minute drive during those bad Michigan winters). CompRenew took donated garbage computers and kept them out of the landfill, selling the ones that still had some life left in them and dismantling and recycling the parts from the ones that did not. I was the dismantler, but also spent some time packaging orders. Times were tough, and I was laid off in 2000.
Starting in 2000, I worked at Meijer, a chain department store in the Midwestern United States. I was at the Grandville, Michigan location. I worked there while living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Up until this point I had lived in small towns and in suburbia, and this was my first experience living alone in an inner city, with roommates instead of my family.
In 2006, my mother got married again, to her current husband, and they moved to Reno, Nevada, United States. I didn't care to stay in Michigan and was getting wanderlust. I briefly considered Los Angeles, California before settling on following my family to Reno. In Reno I lived in the Meadowood Apartments by Meadowood Mall for two years and then moved to my current apartment at Green Pines Apartments. During this time, I have worked a job at Target, a chain department store, collecting shopping carts off the parking lot, I attended school at Truckee Meadows Community College for a two year program in website design, and ran my own design business, Lundholm Design. Upon going out of business, it was time to get another job, so in September 2016 I began working at Sak n Save, a grocery store formerly owned by the Scolari's chain, now owned by the Raley's chain. I worked at Sak n Save until September 2021, when I left to work for a company owned by a friend of mine, called Sierra Foods Market IGA. Sierra Foods Market closed in March 2021, and I got a job at Office Depot, where I start a week from Friday.
There are a few wisdoms I've picked up over the years that I would like to share. First, some people say people with special learning needs will never be able to live alone, but that's not true. They CAN. It's all about teaching them the things that matter, and having parents in the picture who matter, and sending them to schools that have the proper programs in place. Second, music is life. Without it there will always be a hole. Third, if you want something, pursue it doggedly. DO NOT give up. BE PERSISTENT! Fourth, if you don't get it right away, there's nothing wrong or shameful about settling for less temporarily, as long as you keep pursuing what you want. If you later decide to take your life in a new direction, that's fine too, but do it because you really want it, not because you gave up on the last thing. Giving up is the same as dying a little.