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Hey what's up! My name is Zachary Bukolt. I'm a 25 year old guy from Pennsylvania. I am a father to a dope little man. And love music and technonolgy if you couldn't have guessed that. Ever since I was young I have loved messing with computers. I was a military kid so I never got to really have a dedicated friend group. About every 3 years I would move somewhere else. Once we even have to move over seas and spend 3 years living in Italy. So my phone, social media, and video games were how I made and stayed in touch with friends. So technology had a fairly big impact in my life. As a kid I always wanted to have my own website, make my own programs, and even make my own computers. When I was a kid I learned how to take apart my laptops inorder to clean the fans when it started getting hot and slow. I was a kid I had no money for someone else to do it for me. And I don't think my parents would have even wanted to take the risk of taking a computer apart considering the cost if it didn't boot again. However I was a kid of course that wasn't gonna stop me cause adults are just silly I watched like 2 youtube videos I am an expert now. Now obviously I didn't know everything but cleaning a fan isn't hard. So of course little Zach just had to sneak some screw drivers into my room and get to work.
As I got older and started thinking about the world and what I may have wanted to do with my life I loved playing video games so as the old saying goes "If you do what you love you'll never work a day in your life". And that became my play I wanted to make my own games. When I got into highschool I had the option to pick my classes obviously now looking back I wish I would have taken Networking and Ethical Hacking over Computer Science but back then I had a different plan in mind. Which is ok. We all grow and change and so do our plans. But back then little Zach wanted to be a Video Game Developer. So I took the Computer Scince course. All 3 that I could. Computer Science 1 and 2 were both half year course so I took those in my Sophomore and Junior year (I moved in the middle of my Sophomore year otherwise I could have smashed both into one year). And Computer Science 3 a full year of computers for me to mess with in my Senior year. We covered lots of material. We learned how to 3D model using a few software (3DS Max and Auto CAD come to mind we may have used 1 more) and 3D printing. I remember making a chess set where we modeled every piece with the excpetion of the knight since it was quite litteraly our first project of the class. One I was 1000% in for the ride. I get to make something on a computer then be able to hold it and use it crazy. Not only that but I get to messing with this technology and our teacher would tell us about how these technologies could be implemented in real life scenarios. Another project we used 3D modeling and print in was a hybrid car and boat 2-in-1. The car would have to be able to operate on land and in the water with minimal tinkering. We were given certain pieces like options for body material (I believe there was 2), a solar pannel, and an motor I believe. Then we were told we could use anything we wanted to bring and use what ever filament material. The catch was we had to stay under a budget. That was that major catch. Then he just let these groups of 4 clueless teenagers to start researching. That was mad fun. We based a lot of our budget off a very lucky timing as our teacher had just recently received some carbon fiber filament and my group was all game for basing most of out budget into 2 carbon fiber pontoons we 3D modeled and attached to the base of the car when I needed to go into water by simply velcroing it on. The wheels were only half solid with think rubber bands to allow for traction on the road. However remember it was only half made like that. Well the second half had paddles extend off the spokes of the wheel to propel it across the top of the water.
We made a few games. I vaguely remember 3. The first game I ever made was a ball roller. Use the arrow keys to control the ball. Collect the spinning cubes and the clear the level. It was super simple but if I was mind blown by the chess pieces you should have seen how long I spent playing that silly game. I just couldn't believe I had made a game. The next game was made was focused of building and designing the level. Most of the scripting was already complete for us. We had to build the level. You played as an alien that had to collect fuel for his ship in order to escape the planet. Or something like that. But we design the layout and details for ourselves this I was meh interested in. However the coding part I loved. Being able to make my own scripts to make the computer do what I wanted it to was super cool. The last game had a mix of both. Most of the character models were completed for use. Howver the coding and the layout of the level was all up to us. It was a shooter game where you were chased around by zombie stuffed animals. We had to create spawn points for enemies. Create health for the player, the ememies, and damage for both of them as well. I had even added a harder difficulty to my game where the lights were out and you could only see with a flash light. Spawn rates were increased so was the speed and health of the ememies in this mode.
We did make a website however we used Wix so I mean yeah it was website building but it wasn't this. It wasn't what I was hoping it would be you can toss coding into my lap say we are gonna make a website then you want me to use a website builder. Wasn't super cool especially since HTML and CSS seem pretty easy to get a grasp on. If we were learning (if I remember correctly) C# we could have learned HTML.
After graduation I went right to work. School just wasn't for me and I didn't wanna waste time and money knowing that it just isn't the path for me. So I worked. And I sucked. I'm gonna be honest when I was there I was a great worker. But I let demons get the better of me. And for years I job hopped and I not proud of that fact. I was stupid. So I worked a bunch of fast food jobs. I would be there for a few months. Work hard get a raise or 2 and then I would become depressed again. I would just disappear. Guess the first real job I took seriously was when I worked at Walmart at the end of 2019. That went well until I'm sure you can guess what happened. Covid hits. At the time there was another illness going around that I ended up getting and had to quarintine. That was already taxing on me but I got through it and returned to work. Only for me who has been there for 3 or 4 months is now the 3rd most experienced employee in the Online Grocery Department. Things were being messed up as the new employees were not properly trained and that fell upon deaf ears. So I made a stupid choice and just left. I was already on the edge and that just pushed me over. I messed it all up again. So I move back home. I have no motivations at all. After months I finally get a job at Dollar General. I am there for a week before the last key holder they had quit. And I was offered the spot. And for some reason I took it. Shake past and all I took it and told myself this time it is going to be different. It isn't just some base level anymore. Now I have responsibilties. I had to learn to close the store (from a managers spot), how to accept incoming truck orders, and how do due manager tasks on the POS. I was at Dollar General for 6 to 7 months before I got an offer to work at Rural King as a Deparment Manager. It was a raise and I was going for the Gun Bar so I would get to sell fire arms as those are an interest of mine as well. I didn't get Gun Barn but I got Sporting Goods. So still something I was somewhat formiliar with and stilll got to work selling fire arms. So through that I got to work on the 4473 form (ATF forms you fill out when purchasing a fire arm) so I handled government paper work and peoples personal information on a daily basis. So aside from just working with fire arms I was handeling things like peoples Social Security Number so saftey and compliance are something very close to me. I worked there for a few months until I met someone and moved away from it.
At this point I have actually started to mature and started becoming the person I needed to become. I was hoping to find a managment position where I moved to however there was none. So after about 2 or 3 months of searching I went back to where it all started. The first job I ever worked. Subway. And that it where I have been the past 2 years. Just plugging away taking care of my family. Although the past couple months I have been starting to make some moves. I will being cutting my hours at Subway to part time as I am starting at ThredUp as my new full time job so that I can afford my IT certifications I started working towards about a month ago at this point. I'm studying for my Comptia A+ right now as well as small repair and upgrade projects to show off my skills. Just started learning Python, HTML, and CSS. Planning to add JS soon for web dev. My plan is to get into Cyber Security. Everything is online now a days. Your bank, shopping, persoal info, and so much more. Things that poeple are actively trying to breach everyday for illegal reasons. And whilst working at Rural King we had an incedent with the at the time Gun Barn manager leaving paper work out on the counter. When I this I'm already mad. But when I see what it is I was fuming. There was a sheet that would print off once the customer completed the first portion on the paper work. We called it "The Cheat Sheet". Now why did we call it this. Cause it had every bit of info you would need for the rest of the paper work. That means full names, phone numbers, emails, ID numbers, and SSNs. How on Earth could you just leave that out. That is when I really began to notice that people really are forgetful or sometimes just unsafe with private data. And that really made me scared for what else you aren't able to control and how else can get that information.
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