User:Johnnygoodman
Who Is Johnny?
Howdy, I'm Johnny. I'm part of a family business that runs CPAP.com, CPAPAuction.com and CPAPtalk.com. I post under the name johnnygoodman on CPAPtalk.
Life Before CPAP
I don't have Sleep Apnea and neither do my parents or immediate family. After years of gentle prodding, my inlaws were tested and have a much higher quality and sleep and life since. "Before CPAP" for me means before getting into the business, seeing how bad a situation most people found themselves in and becoming an advocate.
My CPAP Story
As a kid I made money by "bagging" CPAP machines for use in traditional DME RT setups or moving boxes of CPAPs from point A to point B. I think those early Saturday mornings were one of the places my father taught me the value of hard work. Largely though, I remember thinking that it was way too hot and way too early. So much for nostalgia!
When I was a junior in high school my father read a Wall Street Journal article on a new web site called Ebay. He searched for CPAP and found that his costs on products were less than the selling price. Even back then, I loved computers and he asked me if I could help him post pictures along with his auctions. In exchange for my services, he agreed to split the profits. Bingo! After a year of working on the internet business I was able to turn in my grocery store uniform and say goodbye to washing sweaty country club towels.
During the end of high school and through out college I hired fellow computer nerds to work along side me building software for the business. Our first project was clinical and paper work tracking software for my father's traditional DME business. Being young and working for a formal business, we decided to give the software a crazy name: Stringbean. It stuck and Stringbean software is still in use today. We were the first and for a very long time the only software that let doctors check the note by note progress of patients on the web in a HIPPA compliant way. In fact, if you take a look at Respironics software today, many of the features were pioneered in Stringbean.
The first thousand or so CPAP.com orders were hand written on invoice pads purchased from an office supply store. My father had to write them out daily and quickly grew tired of it. I told him, as someone who had never written out an invoice, "hey partner, its far better to have the business and write it out than to not have it, I'll go back to playing computer games in my college dorm room now." As you may have guessed, that didn't fly and as result we wrote MadCow, the CPAP.com order processing and product management system over that Spring Break and Christmas break. We still run it today and it works great.
Each break over college we would upgrade a portion of CPAP.com, MadCow or Stringbean. We had many adventures and I made a life long friends in the process. Also, I was going to Texas A&M (a state school) and so I exited college with a degree and no debt. Can't beat that with a stick.
After college, I started with the company full time. I brought along Theo Chao, who is kind of a local programming rock star. One time Theo was goofing off in the back of a calculus class and the teacher said "Mr. Chao, since you are not paying attention to my lecture, and it is obviously not challenging enough for you, please enlighten us by explaining the roots and basis of calculus." Theo answered the question, in depth! Though none of us understood what he was saying, the teacher backed off and he was assumed correct. Stunned silence gave way to legend. Don't play poker with this man. It's dangerous.
When Not Doing CPAP Stuff
1. Being Married. I believe marriage is a full time job, even more important than the job you work for money. Many of the cliches I've heard about marriage are spot on true. Marry your best friend, ride out the ups and downs and it gets better every day. I'd also add another - do the dishes promptly and exactly as your wife wants to you.
2. Reading Books. I believe I'm personally responsible for the high stock price of Amazon.com. Though generally frugal, I order books off amazon 2-3 times a week. Its bad. My wife allowed me to covert an upstairs room in our home into the Goodman Library. We went to Ikea and bought the nice bookshelves, complete with the little click on lights. We have recliners up there now too. Specifically I like books on small business, investing, philosophy, world events, historical fictions, libertarianism, survivalism, fantasty (D&D and Lord of the Rings style mostly), really old western dime novels, classic novels (I don't like the Russian stuff though - War and Peace being the excellent exception) and gardening books.
3. Training/Sparring. I've got a probationary first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. This means I'm not actually good enough to win any given fight, but am arrogant enough to believe I can. The hedge my odds, I've recently taken up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is all about ground techniques. It is blowing my mind and punishing my body. I hope to stick with it and eventually be well grounded in hand to hand self defense.
4. Growing Food. My wife and I have an awesome gardening rule: if it doesn't make food, it doesn't grow here. Though our front yard is still in violation of the rule due to home owner codes, our back yard is doing great. We've got these fruit trees: plum, peach, apple, lime, lemon, orange, fig, kumquat. Depending on the season, you can find these veggies and herbs in our garden: edamame (grows great in Texas, who knew?), tomatoes (roma mostly), potatoes (gotta used raised beds, but they go good in them), corn (never again though, poor yield for sq ft), broccoli, spinach, cucumbers, thyme, rosemary, basil, lemon basil, table onions and garlic (well, we've never actually eaten any from the garden - 2 failed attempts).
5. Music. I was the drummer for a band named Edgerton in college. We were pretty good and I had a lot of fun. We once opened for Bob Schneider when he came through College Station. Also, the drummer tends to drink free, which doubles one's college food budget. Now a days, I lean on a network of people to tell me whats new and good. I listen to and love a ton of a music and won't get into listing it all here. I like folk music the best. My brother is a folk musician and his songs are kind of our social group's national anthems. If you find us around a camp fire having beers, just wait and you'll hear us sing one or more of them, even if he's not there.
Lastly, regarding music, If you listen to just one band in your entire life, and you believe that music is not just about taking a sugar pill but that it really makes meaning, then you absolutely must listen to a brilliant album called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. Its creator wrote it about Anne Frank and about the tragedy of war in general and the human relations that ultimately drive the machine. It is really gut wrenching, but it also reaches you, shakes you and forces you to square up to beauty from both sides. One man's opinion...
6. Being On A Farm/Ranch. What I really like, but what doesn't pay, is being outside and working with my hands. My wife and I started going to a horse rescue farm almost two years ago. They taught us how to ride, how to care for horses and general farm life lessons. In exchange, we pay lesson fees and I help out with hay baling when its the time. Good trade!
My grandparents also happen to own the world's most beautiful farm up in Wisconsin. Carolyn and I like to get up there when ever we can. She has family over in Minnesota too and we got married on the Round Barn Farm in Redwing.
Wrapping Up
There's more stuff, but its lunch time and if you've made it this far in the biography, I'm thankful.
In parting, the state of CPAP care in our world is poor. Our business does all we can and all we can think of to make it better. Your reading this, editing articles and helping newbies who come to the website makes a huge difference. Thank you and keep at it.