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Welcome to my about page. Here I will discuss my life from when I was a child all the way to present day. Below there is a table of contents to help with your visit. Thanks!
Christopher M. Dickens was born on December 28th, 1980 in the town of Bristol, Connecticut. I was born into a very creative & friendly family. My older brother had already shown great artistic ability and it wasn't long before my mother had a crayon in my hand.
As I grew older I was given every artistic drawing utensil there is. I loved to paint, draw, watercolor, and sculpt. As I grew older we purchased our first computer. I was immediately interested in the new technologies available. When it came time for high school my brother Scott, had already decided to go to Uconn for Graphic Design. This paved the way for me to combine the two things that I had great interest in growing up, art and computers. So like my brother I chose graphic design.
I've always been extremely creative. Whether it is writing or drawing, I always found ways to express myself in my work. One of my greatest strengths is the fact that I never really run out of ideas. Good ideas in fact! I bring utmost passion to my work because it's the one thing I am able to create.
When it was time for college, I decided to begin my college career at Central Connecticut State University. They had recently pushed their Graphic Design department to be one of the best in the state. Here I continued my studies in art and design. This is when I chose to focus much of my learning outside class and in class on web design. I felt that my best bet to put my ideas in motion would be to do just that. So I learned every web design program that was available to me. I focused heavy on flash. Then I met a few friends that were very strong in many areas. Networking, business, and among other things, the internet.
Around this time I moved in with my new roommate and founder of Paradoxsolutions, Brian Gibeault. He along with other roommates started working on many projects together including web applications, web sites, brochures, and business applications. I then decided it was time to take my knowledge with web design and create my own small design firm to begin my freelance work. I named my firm, Parabol-Designs. To this day both companies work together with hosting and websites.
Currently my freelance work at Parabol-Designs.com has been put on hold since I have been pursuing a fulltime career. However, I plan on taking on projects once again.
Some say you're born with leadership. Some say it's something you learn in life. For me it's a little of both. Growing up within a strong family with good morals I never worried about who I was or where I was going. I was always extremely confident in whatever I did and would rarely fail. Communication is where it all begins. You can't lead without the ability to express your thoughts and opinions to others. To be able to show people the right way and the wrong way in many situations is very important in being a leader, all the while showing a kind but stern heart. The following are two examples of leadership in life.
Growing up I always played baseball. A few years ago my brother and I decided to start a semi-pro twilight baseball team in Bristol Connecticut. We created the Bristol Knights. Together we designed our hats and uniforms. We took care of everything financially and organized everything from practices to meetings.
Then came time for the on field play and management. While still playing I was also acting manager. I controlled every facet of our team on that field from the lineup to the strategic plays. For example in a close game it was my decision to leave Johnny on the bench in favor of the better defensive player in the game even if that meant Johnny wouldn't play that day. I did all this while batting close to .400 or over every year. My position on the field was centerfield and if you know baseball that is a position of great responsibility. I'm proud to have played/managed the Knights to numerous regular season championships and to the finals my last year.
Next from 2005 till 2006, I successfully ran a guild in the game World of Warcraft. Now I understand you may wonder how I could include a game like that on here. Please let me be the first to tell you that this was more of a job and one of the most difficult leadership positions I have ever been apart of. World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role playing game. What that means is that there's a whole separate world in this game with everything from an economy to content that is only playable through finding 40 people and playing for 4-5 hours a night. In 2005 I decided to create a guild. This guild had its own doctrine, website and rankings. I had various people doing many things of importance such as guild recruitment, guides through the game dungeons, and keeping the peace. I had over 230 people in this guild at one point. From places such as Japan, Australia, Canada, Europe, and all over the United States. It was my job to keep the guild progressing through the hard strategies of this game. It was my job to make sure we had proper class make up (people doing various jobs) and to have everyone show up four nights a week to continue guild progression. All the while creating a fun online community and a sense of home for the 200+ users. Then finally within the last months of me running this guild we defeated the end of one of the hardest "dungeons" in the game.
To me creating, delegating, running, this guild for over a year was a great chance for me to deal with extreme personalities and lofty goals and actually put it all together and complete them. I made hundreds of friends and don't regret it for one second.
In the spring of 2006, I wanted a new challenge and excitement in my life and where I was geographically located.. I had never moved far from home, college was right down the street. My good friend over at Be international told me of a job for a flash / web designer over in Dubai. I was seriously considering that move until in the summer of 2006 I visited my best friend in San Diego. The weather was amazing and I instantly felt drawn to the area. So I decided to job hunt and found a job very quick. It was then that I decided to take my creative career to the west coast.
I've been here in San Diego for a year now and I feel I have learned a lot. Everything from design to just life that has been thrown at me, I have conquered and moved ahead. I am excited for what may lay ahead of me and I welcome it with open arms.
