The Mark Ahrens story begins in Winfield, Illinois where I was born to Dale and Elizabeth Ahrens on April 11, 1979. I don't remember much of my first years of life, my first memory is of my cousin Wyatt having his head busted open after hitting it on the step of a van. Things progressed from there and I went to elementary school at Elsie Johnson Elementary School. Because of new schools being built, I was in one of the only classes that took 4th-6th grade at Jay Stream Middle School. Most students only get to enjoy 5th and 6th grade there.
After 6th grade, I was ready to enter the new Stratford Junior High School, however a nasty blood disease got in the way of that. I missed the first 5 months of 7th grade with Henoch-Schonlein purpura, a rare blood disease that is only contracted in 14 of 100,000 people. After recovering from that, I rejoined school to find that A. junior high was very different and B. a lot of my friends had new friends. I did manage to get by though and was able to make new friends myself.
After 8th grade, I started my path to the AP exams with freshman level honors classes at Glenbard North. Being quite the geek, I did my best in the classes with the minimal amount of work. While this did not mean I was at the top of my class, it did mean that I did not stress as much as some other honors students. This does mean that I did not get into some of the more prestigious schools, but I wasn't interested in going there anyway. I did choose to go to Northern Illinois University though for a degree in Meteorology.
Also through high school, I worked for Countryside Animal Clinic. I was once interested in becoming a veterinarian so I decided to get a job helping out for one, and since my mom used to work for Dr. Swanson, I had an in there. I worked for Dr. Swanson for my last 1 1/2 years in high school and then a couple of times on breaks from college. While I did not choose to become a vet, I went through a number of moving life experiences while working for Dr. Swanson and he remains one of my close friends to this day.
My first year at NIU was a successful one for my grades, but I did not enjoy the experience. I felt like it was an extension of high school and not the college experience I was told about. So I decided to move on and I ended up choosing the University of Iowa. I changed majors when I changed schools and pursued a degree in Mathematics. I struggled through the first year and a half at Iowa, no longer interested in schools and far too interested in other things, I was kicked out of school. Luckily this gave me the kick in the ass that I needed and I stayed on at the ITS Help Desk working for a year instead of heading back home. After missing a deadline by a week, I had to wait an extra semester before starting school again in January of '02. I plowed through the last two semester, raising my GPA up to a respectable level and graduated with a BS in Mathematics in December 2002.
After graduating, I found the job market a fickle beast. I looked for a job in computers but ended up on the short end of the recession stick. Once again, I was lucky that the Help Desk still needed help and I was able to provide it. As my temporary position status is came to an end, I was lucky enough to get the full time position with the Help Desk. This means that I have an official job now after graduating with benefits and a real salary. I have grown quite fond of the Iowa City area and have made many friends including my fiancee Rebekah.
Oh, if you are wondering why MyTungsten, well the origin is actually from an episode of the Simpsons where there is a parody of an Ikea. In the store there is a person in a costume pretending to be an allen wrench, with the clever name of Allen Wrench. The name is not the cause of the site though, the character is actually an alien which begs Lisa for tungsten as it requires it to live. This brought quite the giggle out of me, so I decided on the domain name, tungsten.net. However, this was taken already, so it being trendy at the time, I threw a My in front of Tungsten, and this led to MyTungsten.
So there you have it folks, enjoy the new MyTungsten. I have brought back some old classics and revamped some of the newer stuff. Feel free to shoot me a line at webmaster at mytungsten.net if you have feedback, concerns, donations, you know, whatever.
Mark Ahrens
Updated: 8/25/2004