History
From Daniel Crabtree
A very short history of me. This will be extended and added to as I have time.
| Table of contents |
The University Years - 2002 to Present
I currently attend Victoria University of Wellington and have done so since 2002. Having completed a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics in 2003 and a BSc with 1st class honours in Computer Science in 2004, I now work towards a PhD in Computer Science which I began in March of 2005.
Thursday, 3rd November 2005 - My 21st birthday
Wednesday 14th September 2005 - Saturday 8th October 2005 - 14th September to 8th October Trip to attend the WI/IAT 2005 Conference in France. The trip also included my first visit to Europe (France, England, and Wales). In France I visited Paris, and for the conference I was in Compiègne just north of Paris. After the conference, I headed across on the Eurostar Train through the tunnel under the chanel to London. During the stay in London we went to Wales via a Virgin Pendolino Train where we visited my Grandma's sister Ruth and her husband Eric, we also met their son Chris. After London we headed back to the United States to Las Vegas for a couple of days, before we traveled to Ontario where we were picked up by Kiki, who took us to see Sylvia Salk and family in Palm Springs. Lorna Shaw took us back to Los Angeles - Buena Park, where we spent the last day or two before heading back to New Zealand.
19th - 22nd September 2005 - Attended WI/IAT 2005 Conference in Compiègne, France. On Wednesday, 21st September 2005 I presented my first two conference papers: Improving Web Clustering by Cluster Selection and Standardized Evaluation Method for Web Clustering Results. The conference also included a banquet dinner at Pierrefonds Castle.
Early November 2004 - Finished BSc (Hons), Bachelor of Science Honours degree, in Computer Science with 1st class honours (the highest/best class). Grade Summary: 7 A+ grades. Complete grade information is available at Victoria University Grades.
Early November 2003 - Finished BSc, Bachelor of Science degree, with double major in Computer Science and Mathematics. Degree was completed in 20 months, approximately half the time it usually takes. Grade Summary: 16 A+ grades, 3 A grades, all Computer Science course grades were A+. Complete grade information is available at Victoria University Grades.
Monday, 25th February 2002 - My first day of university at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
The High School Years - 1998 to 2001
December 2001 / January 2002 - I found out that I was placed 1st out of 78,000 students from 28 countries in the Australasian Computer Competition and I received a gold medal and was front page news in the Hawkes Bay Today newspaper - Australasian Computer Competition Gold Medal.
I attended Napier Boys' High School from 1998 to 2001.
Late March 1999 to Middle of April 1999 - My fourth time to the United States. The primary reason for visiting was to go and see my Great Auntie Dot (Dorothy) in New Orleans.
Middle of December 1998 - I started a new website with someone from Singapore, it was entitled AnniWarium and was supposed to be a combination between Annihilation Zone and TA Warium. It never really got off the ground and we went our separate ways.
Early September 1998 - I start my first website, Annihilation Zone. A Total Annihilation website features news and 3rd party unit downloads. The featured hundreds of unit downloads and also a unit pack that I created. There was also a team of developers that I organised to form our own unit group and we released about 5 or 6 units ourselves. The site was quite popular and at it's peek it got over 1000 visitors per day. It was hosted my RTS Network and it's web address was annihilationzone.rtsnetwork.com.
June or July 1998 - I started to learn how to program in C++, initially I started by learning console programming and then moved onto MFC and graphical programming later. Quite a few interesting programs were created, especially once I got into DirectX programming. One of the better programs was a simple bat and ball or arkanoid type game. Other highlights included reimplementing my dad's recursive tree drawing program and some of the other neat graphical programs from his GEMS series. 3D gravity balls and 2d gravity balls were also very neat.
Monday, 18 May 1998 - I got to see and try out my first X86 based computer running Microsoft Windows 95, I think we had to wait a few weeks to get Windows 98. It was a Pentium 2 400mhz machine from TL Systems (the graphics card was upgraded several times, processor ended up being a P2 450mhz, sound card was upgraded, and we put in a SCSI hard drive and new motherboard too).
Saturday, 16 May 1998 to Sunday, 17 May 1998 - I attend the RotaVegas Magic The Gathering tournament in Rotorua, New Zealand. This is the last such tournament that I attended and was als othe one in which I got the best result. In the booster tournament I placed 1st equal, having decided to call it a draw before playing the final match. In the type 2 tournament I can't remember my exact place, I am pretty such it was not first, but it was pretty good, I think it was 2nd or 3rd. It had to be pretty good because I did win a reasonable prize for it.
Friday, 15 May 1998 - My new computer arrives, but I am in Rotorua, New Zealand, ready to attend the last Magic The Gathering tournament (RotaVegas) that I will attend. I did the best in this tournament of any that I went to, I ended up 1st equal in the booster draft.
The Intermediate School Years - 1996 to 1997
I attended Napier Intermediate School from 1996 - 1997. My classes are teachers were:
1st Year - F1 - Room 2 - Mr Groom
2nd Year - F2 - Room 4 - Mr Nicholson (not sure if that is correct spelling or not, need to verify)
The Primary School Years - 1990 to 1995
I attended Nelson Park Primary School in Napier from 1990 to 1995. My classes and teachers were:
1st Year - J1 - Room 2 - Mrs Wallwind (spelling seems wrong, I was 5, it's hard to remember I will verify)
2nd Year - J2 - Room 10 - Mrs North
3rd Year - S1 - Room 9 - Mrs ? (I can't remember this teachers name, I think it maybe began with an S)
4th Year - S2 - Room ? - Mrs Arnold (the rooms were like 11 - 13, not sure which)
5th Year - S3 - Room ? - Mrs Arnold (the rooms were like 11 - 13, not sure which, this year was different room to 4th year)
6th Year - S4 - Room 6 - Mrs Hall
Other memorable events:
I played Cricket on Saturdays for the School Team. We played out at Tamatea (between Napier and Taradale) quite often. But the most memorable game was the one we played near the Port at Ahuriri. I did particularly well at batting in that game.
Optimist Yachting: we sailed in pairs, my partner was David Tucker.
Tamiya Car Racing.
Radio Control Car Racing: off-road and on-road. I went to several championships. The first was the North Island Champs in Levin, I made the finals and placed 8th. We also went to Hamilton and Wanganui.
The Early Years - 1984 to 1989
1989 - I attended Rudolf Steiner Kindergarten in Taradale. I started here at some time during 1989 when I was 4. From my memory, looking from the front there was a porch with a front entrance, I had a photo taken in front of it with my first school bag. On the left side there was a gate and this was the standard entrance, I never remember ever going through the front door. Once you went through on the left there was a sand pit, this got dug up often as there were gold painted stones hidden deep in it to be found. Then as you came around the back of the place there was a large wooden boat and also a large tree, you could then go in through the backdoor. There was a hallway in the middle where you could hang your bags and there were 2 main rooms to my knowledge, one of the left side of the house and one of the right when looking from the front. There may have been a third, or possibly even 4 main class rooms, but I only remember the 2, of the two I was in the one on the left side of the house. I call it a house, as that's what it probably was originally, but was adapted into a kindergarten, it seems this is how many of them are made. We didn't really do much here, I mean it was Kindy afterall, and there is nothing that stands out in my memory as being really interesting tasks or activities that we did. Also for some reason I believe there may have been farm animals out the back somewhere, such as sheep and maybe some birds, I seem to recall seeing those one time, but they may have been in a seperate area as I don't recall going there by myself.
Early 1988 - My second memory is from sometime slightly after my first memory and it is of me sitting on the floor in the lounge of our Napier house in Nelson Crescent. My Dad was teaching me how to write my name and at the time I didn't understand what the point was of actually knowing how to do this.
Early 1988 - My first memory is from when I was a bit over 3 years old. I was in Data Stream, which was a Commodore / Amiga computer shop which was part of the Video World building in Napier. My Dad owned both Data Stream and Video World. I was sitting on what was probably an Amiga 500 drawing in DPaint (I think it was Deluxe Paint 4, but it could have been one of the earlier versions). I was simply going around the screen clockwise with a large circular brush drawing in different colours and I would hold down the TAB key to make the colours cycle.
Saturday, 3rd November 1984, 8:15AM GMT+12 - Daniel Wayne Crabtree was born as child of Wayne Dudley Crabtree and Laura Mary Crabtree at Napier hospital in New Zealand.
