About Derek:
March 9th 1983: Total Pisces, 26yo, 5'10" Blond Hair, Hazel Eyes. Quazi-Autistic, Artistic, Alteristic, Autodidactic, Hypergraphic, Animal Whisperer, Philosophical, un-political, not-spiritual, semi-superficialistic, enigmatic,..
Family & Early Life:
I was born in the city of Big Bear Lake - California. Which is interesting because my last name is Bair. My parents couldn't be more different from each other in both stature and personality, my Mom being 5'10" with blonde hair and blue eyed and 1/2 Norweigan. My dad coming in at 5'3" and being 1/2 Itallian. Having almost a dozen different racial ancestory makes me esentially a hybrid or as some would call it - a "mutt." With some of my family coming to America only two generations ago, from Norway and Itally and others being traced back to William Bruster who was one of the first pilgrams.
Both of my grandpas were in the Navy and fought in World War II. Hazen Bair (my dad's dad) sold, raced, and built motorcyles. He helped to build one that held the world speed record. He married my Grandma and they had my dad, another son, and one daughter (Rip Robin!)
Orville Marvick is my mom's Dad and is still alive at 91. He worked on missle guidance systems for the navy and later was a highway patrol man. On my mom's 16th birthday he was working under the hood of a car and the carborator backfired and he caught on fire. His heart stopped for 7 minutes. He survived but retired. My Grandma Suzie also worked in the navy and died recently. He's had a girl friend since and is always, always, the life of our christmas parties. They had four children. My two uncles, my mom, and one aunt.
My Dad worked in construction. We moved from Big Bear to San Diego where we stayed, in various cities for about 6 years. My parents divorced when I was 9. He moved back to Big Bear and I went on to move from Ramona to Ocean Beach to Laguna Niguel and finally Lake Forest, where I currently recide.
Education:
I've been to 11 different school throughout my life, starting in Pre-school and then a private monesaury school and then a preschool yet-again. I went on to attend a variety of schools, some of which I only spent half a year at. It led me to being the "new kid" many times.
I graduated from El Toro High school in the class of 2001. I was generally a B+ student, with the potential and capacity to be an A+ student.
After High school I attended Saddle Back Community College for many years. I took the path to transfer to a UC college (University of California) and was accepted into the Cal State Channel Islands, A few years later, which I abandoned. And probably shouldn't have.
On a whim, I was fortunate enough to be supported and financed to travel to Sydney Australia to attend KVB: Institute of Technology where I studied Digital Media. A major that could be best described as online and digital media. Or art - on the computer via web sites, flash - animations - and photoshop. These newly acquired talents would come in handy for de-coding da vinci's art later on in my life.
Employment:
My first job was at juice stop. I made "smoothies" made of frozen fruit and juice blended together. From there I was enrolled in an ROP class called: Animal Health Care. I saw my first -real-life- surgical procedures of dogs being spayed and neutered. I then applied and was accepted into the very prestigious employment of PETCO, where in less than a year I was promoted to "Small Animal Specialist" Where I was in charge of ordering the various animals that needed to be replenished. I quit soon after, due to the displeasure of cleaning up animal cages.
My next and most significant employment was at my own communities associations’ Club house. I worked at the front desk for almost 5 years. My job was, basically, to scan members’ cards as they entered the club to swim, use the gym, play pool, enter the bar, or use the sauna. It was about the best possible job imaginable for someone in college, as I could study and pretty much do anything I wanted for five hours in a row.
My main job was to greet members and allow them to enter as friendly as possible. Hello! - smile - Scan their membership card - have fun! And if they forgot their card, I would scold them with “please remember it next time.”
But it really wasn't as simple as that. Since I was the main, and only center for the whole association, which consisted of over 3000 homes. I received many complaints and "problems' Such as bee hives landing in a neighborhood, or people not bringing their trash cans in on time, or people not mowing their lawns frequent enough, or as my most hilarious and redundant complaint... I actually had someone call me, mad as hell, and yelling at me, because there were two swans that were "fighting". To which, I said - Ok, I'll send out the lake ranger to help them out.
When in reality, and in my head I thought: “you’re a fucking idiot, just because the swans are in the lake forest II lake, doesn’t mean that we control their every altercation. What’s going to happen, the swans kill each other in a mortal combat, a roman round of a death match? And, because you’re upset about these swans fighting, you feel the need to, call ME, and YELL at me, because they are squacking at each other, and it’s important enough to rally the troops, to make sure, these glorified ducks – don’t hurt each other… That’s why you’re calling me, and are mad at me… As if, these swans fighting is such a travesty that it deserves special, and associative attention, to make them stop, all because you are upset?”
And that’s what I dealt with.
If I were to compare the problems of my community association, to anywhere else in the world,. I would be ashamed. I lived in, and still do, in a place that has enforceable rules as to what color you can paint your house, and that you have to get approval before you can re-roof your house, or install a satellite dish.
As an example. If you were to re-roof your OWN house, with a material that wasn't approved..then they can, actually force you to re-re-roof your house to the appropriate materials. At cost to you, and additional fees for not doing it in the approved fashion.
WHICH is one of those things where you need to read the fine print. I was eventually promoted to a real life 8-5 job as the "Membership Coordinator" where my job consisted of taking pictures of people and printing off their membership cards. I also was in charge of introducing new members to the association. As well as dealing with the paperwork that was necessary for someone who just bought a home in our association, to be initiated - so to speak. I dealt with the escrow company and made sure the new home owner was aware of the rules and regulation of living within our association. Which basically said,
"you need to be a good neighbor and make sure you keep your house looking like, and matching the houses around you. Keep your grass clipped, and bring you trash cans in, no less than the day they've been picked up. Don’t make loud noises after 9pm, and if you want to improve or change your home or property in any way - you must submit approval, for the Association's committee to approve of."
And thats only a brief summary for the associations rules and regulations.
Working at the front desk of a place such as this, involved me in many trivial, yet essential dilemmas. Being the efficient and aware employee I needed to be, I had to learn the answers to as many questions as I ever heard in 5 years. I eventually was knowledgeable of most of the rules and regulations as I was ever asked.
One of the biggest controversies was about the Jacuzzi. Only those 18+ were allowed to enter. Our security guards' most important duty was to keep anyone under 18 (without a parent or guardian), or anyone under 14 far away from the adult area. I got more complaints about this than any other! The older people just couldn’t stand for anyone too young or rambunctious to interfere with their hot water relaxation.
One time someone came in, who used to work at another association, and was dying of cancer, said;
" it's illegal to discriminate against a certain age group"
Who, from experience, understood and was able implement the "law" that if you didn't have a Jacuzzi that was accepting of everyone, because everyone is equal - even minors, the law of community associations says that you can't discriminate your jacuzzi, and keep out anyone under 18. ...
Seriously. Since the club, was apart of an association, and the association included all ages, it was illegal to not allow a certain age group from going in the jacuzzi.
So, the only way to implement this rule legally, would be to have multiple Jacuzzis, then you could say, this one if for 18+ and this one is for those under 18. And thankfully, our adult pool kept it's 18+ ONLY status because there were two other pools without age restrictions.
I guess the hardest aspect to all of this was trying to explain this to the people who used to complain there were minors in the jacuzzi. I now, instead of calling security to kick out the minors, had to explain to them, I'm sorry we can't exclude anyone under 18 from the Jacuzzi anymore.... - Everyone is created equally in the law, i guess. SOrry. I understand, they should build another 18- jacuzzi. I'll relay your complaint to the board of directors.
Seriously. That was my job..
After being promoted to the Membership coordinator I gave my two weeks and decided to become a writer.
I haven't worked ever since and my life took a very interesting and unexpected journey. What happened from then to writing a book about Leonardo Da Vinci is quite the story. Which I tried to include in the previous versions of my book, but now i'm going to keep the focus on Da VInci and tell my side of the story on here, or in a future book.
Currently:
I'm currently writing this sentence, and working on updating my web site. It's going to be the mediatior between me and the people who will want to buy my book. After four years i'm finally writing it and hope to be done in the next few weeks / months. I'm thankful to have my mom's support which allows me to follow my "Dreams." Well, honestly this book isn't my dream. My Dream is to build a huge zoo or start my own car company.
My life basically consists of writing when I feel like it, reading books, and watching movies/ listening to music, and struggling with my vices. I've eliminated almost everything from my life that would be a distraction, to enhance and focus my modivation in finishing my book - so I can move on with my life. And by "moving on" I mean literally moving. I hope to sell enough books to support myself for the first time in my life, get my own place - and finally leave the nest.
I might have taken a very twisty path, but I really like it - most of the time.