The principal told Tammy he had called our mother. "I'm going to let her handle this," he said. When we arrived home after school, Mom said, "I'm going to let your father handle this." My sister spent the day nervously awaiting her fate. When my father got home after work, he listened to the story and burst into a smile. He wasn't going to punish Tammy. He did everything but congratulate her! I was a kid who needed to have his lunch box dropped in a puddle. Tammy was relieved, and I'd been put in my place … though the lesson didn't completely sink in. By the time I got to Brown University, I had certain abilities and people knew I knew it. My good friend Scott Sherman, whom I met freshman year, now recalls me as "having a total lack of tact, and being universally acclaimed as the person quickest to offend someone he had just met." I usually didn't notice how I was coming off, in part because things seemed to be working out and I was succeeding academically. Andy van Dam, the school's legendary computer science professor, made me his teaching assistant. "Andy van Demand," as he was known, liked me. I was impassioned about so many things – a good trait. But like many people, I had strengths that were also flaws. In Andy's view, I was self-possessed to a fault, I was way too brash and I was an inflexible contrarian, always spouting opinions.