The Handshake

I’ll keep this short and sweet because basically, no one knows who I am, nor should they care. I’m just writing this Bio because I have no idea how blogging works. I know that when I meet someone I like to introduce myself and learn something about the person I’m meeting since it usually sparks some pretty interesting conversation and more often than not I walk away with some new knowledge about a subject that I never knew I cared about. So here I go-

My name is Elliott Cox, I’m thirty-one years old and I was born on St. Patrick’s Day in nineteen seventy seven. I live in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with my wife, Jackie, my eleven year-old daughter, Amara and my son Elias who was born August twentieth, two-thousand eight, so he’s fresh out of the box. I’m planning to move south toward Charlotte within the next year because that’s where I’ve worked for the past two and a half years and I have a three hour round trip commute at least five days a week. The commute time doesn’t bother me much because I am an audiobook junkie. The part that’s killing me, like both of you reading this I’m sure, is the price of gas. When a gallon of the cheap stuff hit four bucks a gallon, I was officially in the hurt locker.

A few people have asked me why I would move from the beautiful quiet country home I have now down to the “citified” area of Charlotte. I’m doing it because I love my job. Don’t get me wrong, given a choice of working from home or having my current job, my ass would be on the couch in a half a heartbeat but as long as I have to be a part of the working public, I couldn’t ask for a better place to work.

My dream job is to be a full-time writer. I’m working toward that goal nearly every day but until that goal is realized, the bills have to get paid. I think that maybe having such a good job is putting a damper on my aspirations of being a professional writer. If I had a job that I absolutely loathed I would be trying ten times as hard to be able to quit and write full time. As it is now, I enjoy going to work and if my writing career doesn’t take off this week then so be it.

Okay, off the soapbox…

I grew up in the small, three traffic light town named Hemingway, South Carolina. I graduated from Hemingway High School (barely) in Nineteen Ninety Five and left for US Air Force basic training shortly after. I spent four years in the Air Force as an F-16 avionics technician (2A352A for all you Air Force nerds) stationed at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina with the 78^th Fighter Squadron. I was one of the few that put in for world-wide duty in hopes of seeing new countries and meeting new people, but ended up getting stationed seventy-five miles from home. It could have been worse I d guess. While I was enlisted I got my wish of seeing new countries. The only problem was that the new country was Saudi Arabia and I had to live in a tent with other Air Force guys. Again, it could have been worse. I have nothing but respect for the men and women that were or are on the ground fighting, I had a cakewalk compared to them. The Air Force told me that I wanted to work on airplanes and I guess they got it right because that’s what I still do today.

After leaving the Air Force in Nineteen Ninety-Nine I took a contract job working on the Royal Netherlands Air Force’s F-16’s at Volkel Air Base in Uden, The Netherlands. While I was in Holland I lived in three cities; Nieuwegein, Eindhoven and Sintmichealsgestel. Holland is an absolutely beautiful country filled with the most polite and kind people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. For anyone interested in visiting, my advice is to spend one day in Amsterdam to see the art galleries and museums then get the hell out! If you’re interested in just partying, then Amsterdam is the place for you except for the fact that you’ll be doing all of your partying with tourists like yourself. Go see the real Dutch cities where you will be a part of the Dutch culture, it’s a lot more fun in my opinion.

Anyway, I came back to the states in two-thousand and soon thereafter got back in touch with my then future wife. She moved in with me and the rest is history.

I guess that’s about the bulk of it. If you’re still reading, I hope I haven’t bored you to tears. If I have, sorry, but I’m a pretty boring guy and that’s the way I like it.