My Parents: Nanine & Helmar. What can I say? They are my parents. They aren't perfect, but they have been perfect parents and have raised me (and my sister) with a vested interest in instilling love, honor, trust, compassion, truth, and belief in all things good. They are clearly the major components that would make up the dicotomy of Nick Steglich.

My mother is easily one of the most versatile artists I have ever known - having worked with everything from silk-screening to sculpture, from pencil sketches to refinishing furniture. She is an amazing and recognized artist and I have actually established conversations that lead to great and lasting friendships as a result of her artwork. She has an eye for this world that is hard to duplicate. She comes from a very artistic and European-influenced background. Both of her parents were artists and collectors, and so her youth was filled with a creative in and output that formed her into the person she is today.

My father is very realistic, structured, and intelligent. He's an engineer, which is fitting for that mindset. He is a happy guy who finds great pleasure in figuring out problems, creating solutions where none existed before, fixing, building, enhancing and inventing. He's a quiet kind of guy, and I would guess it's because he is usually buried deep within his own mind, working on ideas or solving some sort of unseen quandary. He can fix just about anything. And at the very least, he will try a good couple dozen times before he claims that he can't. He is also very resourceful and is not afraid to ask for help if it is more efficient to do so. He is stubborn at times, but not so much that it gets in the way of his constant push to move forward. He, too, is compassionate and caring really cares about who people are and how to make them happy.

These two people found each other and have jointly instilled these traits unto me. One might expect that the child of two parents would a perfect mix of the two. But I find that it is an uncanny pairing and outcome that I am seemingly a 50/50 split between them. My sister is as well, though she tends to be more like my mom. Regardless... I find that I am equally drawn to technology as I am art. Chaos as I am structure. Not that my mother is chaotic or anything, but art in general is chaos, and so one must perceive the world around them a bit more chaotically than other might. And the values that they have shared - compassion, trust, love... these are all teh founding principals on which my entire life has been built. So one might find that taking a ball of blue clay and a ball of yellow clay, mixed together would equal me, the green, and now slightly larger than original lump o' clay. Yeah.. that's one thing that is a little off.. I stand about 6 inches taller than anyone else in my family. They are all the exact same height, except for me. Very odd.

Anyways...

My parents have also been incredible sources of support and understanding for me over the years. I have always tried to honor them and deal with things on my own - to save them from the need to take care of me. But when I fall, I fall hard. And they have always been there to pick me up and send me in the right direction. They have always tried to set me straight and instill in me a sense of propriety for all aspects of my life - be it financially, in love, in outlook on life, etc. They have never told me that I couldn't do something, and have supported me in good choices and bad, knowing that I would learn the lessons on my own. Sure, they have tried to veer me away fro the really stuoid ideas, and for the most part, I think they have succeeded. But when I don't, I do my best to understand what went wrong and try to fix it - for me, but also for them. It is a symbiotic relationship, I think. And a great one at that. I make mention of it because I see so many other families out there... some new and in the beginning stages of finding their way, and some who have been through years of trial and tribulation, and I can't honestly say that I know any other family as well-rounded and put together as mine. My parents never gave up. They never gave in and said they couldn't do it. They represent moral standards that don't seem to exist anymore. And they taught - whether they meant to or not - all of those to both my sister and me. I am certainly not saying that we, as a family, are any better than anyone else's family... but I will say that my parents are far and away the best parents a guy like me could ever ask for, dream of, or describe to an audience of the world. If you haven't met them, you are missing out. That, my friends, is a promise.