The ever awkward personal bio page. These are often the hardest thing to write and post on your website. Do you be factual, friendly or funny? Or do you just pour out your heart and hope no one treads to heavily on it?
Who am I?
- My name is Peter Awad and I was born a Blue Noser (from Nova Scotia).
- I only have a high school education because I don’t think people can learn anything useful reading a textbook in a classroom.
- I have had a number of technology focused careers including a couple years as an AV geek, a computer geek, an alarm installer and an entrepreneur.
- Presently I work for a local church as the Director of Technology (aka the wizard of things that beep and blink).
- I’m married to my high school sweetheart.
- I have no kids of my own, but my wife and I are foster parents to a bunch of awesome teenage boys.
My thoughts on education.
I tried college for a while, it didn’t work for me. I’m one of those guys that takes things apart to figure out how it works. showing me pictures in a text box is useless. I will always advocate that our foster kids complete their high school education, but where you go from there is as unique as the person. I think the most important thing you can learn at any leave of education is your own learning style and how to teach yourself. The technology world is accelerating at such a pace that what they teach you in first year of college is out of date by the time you graduate. If you can’t learn to feed your own learning, you wasted your time.
How did I get a job in a Church?
I went to church as a kid because my friends did. On a thursday night the only place to find friends to hang out with was at youth group, so I joined. From there God and I crossed paths a few times, but I never considered myself a Christian. When I got married we wanted a church wedding, so my wife and I started going to a local church. It was just what we had to do. After 13 years with my wife and no kids, God and I had some choice words and parted ways again. It wasn’t until my career was going sideways that I decide to talk to God about it. We walked and talked every night for several months before I was willing to listen. This was when I surrender my life to God and acknowledged that He was in control not me. A couple years later when the entrepreneur thing wasn’t going as planned and I was doing a lot of volunteer time at my new church, the Lead Pastor came to me and offered me a part time job doing IT and tech. About 6 months later it became full time and I have to say it is the most rewarding job I have ever had.
Foster Parenting is easier then you think.
I know this is a tech blog, but let me take a moment to veer off on a tangent. I have no kids of my own and a few years back my wife and I decided to become foster parents. Our specialty is teenage boys. I don’t pretend to know why God lead us down this path, I have never been a patient person, but there is something about raising kids that have had a rough ride that makes me very tolerant. I encourage any one who has ever considered being a foster parent to do it. Take the plunge! There is no better feeling in life then knowing you helped a kid get back on his feet and helped point them in the right direction.
Technology and the Church.
There are as many view points on this as there are variations on denominations. My high school drama teacher used to have a saying “If it’s tech for the sake of tech, your wasting your time.” It really is a very profound statement and I have applied it in various ways to my life over the years, but I think the best place it has ever applied is in the church. Forget the whole “Of the world not in the world” debate and ask your self this “HOW does it bring the people in your church community closer to a relationship with God?” If you can’t give an answer to that your wasting your time.
I don’t like education, but I love to teach.
It’s hard to believe that someone like me, that has such a strong views on eduction, would love to teach; but it is this passion that drives me to do this blog. I want people of all ages to see technology as a tool that they can comfortably use to better their lives. I also like to make sure people know their options, OpenSource and other free applications or services are often over looked because they are free. But I hope to shed some light on the options to help people make informed decisions.
I think Douglas Adams said it best: I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
