Welcome to NickNorfleet.com

I was born in Houston, TX. That's a picture of me when I was still pretty new to this world. Cool hat huh. What can I say, it was the '60's. We moved to Conroe, TX when I was about 5 years old. We lived pretty close to Lake Conroe where I did a lot of fishing and some water skiing. I moved back to Houston when I was 16 and graduated from Dulles High School in Stafford, TX. I worked for Hi/Lo Auto Supply for a couple of years and decided it was time to grow up so I joined the US Navy.

While in the Navy, I went to Gunner's Mate school in Great Lakes, IL which is just north of Chicago. That was the coldest winter I'd ever seen. (Super Bowl weekend, January 1985, it got down to -26 with a wind chill of -82.) My first ship was the USS Stark (FFG 31) out of Mayport, FL. I was the ship's armorer, small arms instructor, range master, Ship's Self-Defense Force Coordinator as well as head of security alert teams. I spent a little over two years on board and did a tour of the Great Lakes and the Persian Gulf as well as refresher training in Cuba. That's a picture of some of my buddies as we were going through the Suez Canal. This is where I got my first taste of working with computers and I guess it stuck. I then transferred to a pre-commissioned unit called the PCU Papago in Norfolk, VA. I was there for just under a year before my time was up. When I came home, I went back to work for Hi/Lo Auto Supply.

I worked in the computer center for Hi/Lo for a couple of years installing the computer systems in all the stores. I think our first unit was a Texas Instruments 286 machine running SCO XENIX. We traveled a lot to all the different stores throughout Texas and Louisiana. (Hi/Lo was bought out by O'Reilly Auto.) I then decided it was time to further my education so I quit my job at Hi/Lo and went to work part time at PC Connexion in League City so that I could go to school at the University of Houston. I only went to school for a year, stupid me quit and got married instead of studying. I know, I know, I should have gone on to get my degree.

I worked for PC Connexion for about 3 years as their field service tech when I got a job at Compaq Computer Corporation. I started off in Tech Support answering the phones. I finally moved on to be a Systems Analyst in the Internet Services department. I was with Compaq for 6 years before I decided to further my career and became a consultant with BMC Software. I traveled to different customers and helping them with their Internet stuff and then again with end user administration. I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional and was working on getting my MCSE but decided it wasn't really worth it.

Thanks to Enron and what happened on September 11, 2001, the computer business just wasn't the same.  I decided it was time to retire from the computer business so I tried working in the mortgage business for about a year.  I realized it wasn't the career for me so I decided to pack up and head west.  I landed in Las Vegas and I love it more and more every day. When I got to Las Vegas, I knew I wanted to get into the casino business and become a pit boss so I went to dealer school and studied blackjack. I started dealing blackjack and learned all of the other games like roulette and craps. After a few months of dealing, I was promoted to supervisor.

I don't have any kids but I do have a cat that's pretty cool. He likes to sleep, especially on my briefcase, watch TV, play fetch, sleep, eat, sleep. The basic cat stuff. I really did teach him to play fetch though.

I also enjoy reading quite a bit. My favorite authors are Michael Crichton and James Patterson but my all time favorite is Clive Cussler, founder of NUMA. I really enjoy the Dirk Pitt series and even own the same watch that Dirk wears in the book. It's a Doxa Sub 300T Professional with the orange face.

I like to play golf when I can and like most amateurs, I have my good days and my bad days.  I've seen the best in the world like Tiger and Annika play and it makes you want to keep on playing.  I went to the 2003 LPGA World Championship in The Woodlands. Check out the autographs I got.

I've always wanted to learn how to fly so I finally decided to get my pilot's license. I'm just getting started so for now, it's a lot of book reading. I did get to take a test flight and control the plane a little to see what it was like and I can't wait for my first solo flight. It should be a lot of fun and if it leads to a job, it'll be just that much better.

Here's a bunch of pictures that I found of our troops in Afghanistan and I hope they have a sense of humor.