This is the story of a pair of twins, Heckle and Jeckle.  Heckle was very competitive and always wanted to prove himself to others.  While Jeckle just wanted to watch TV.  Jeckle learned from the TV (pbs) that nothing could go faster than the speed of light due to special relativity.  Heckle insisted otherwise and vowed to show that he could go faster than the speed of light.  Heckle argued that he could accelerate at 9.8 m/s2 for 800 days.  Then slow down for 800 days and still be well ahead of a beam of light that left at the same time.Heckle built a spacecraft that would accelerate him, and enough life support, at 9.8 m/s2, so he would feel as if he were on earth.  One day he and a blast of light would leave earth.  For 800 days he would accelerate away from the earth. Then as he said, slow down for 800 days. He would wait for a while, then att the right moment he would hold up a mirror to reflect the beam back towards earth, then race and beat that beam home.  Of course for the final 800 days, Heckle would have to slow down again so he didn't crash into the earth at more than twice the speed of light.
Upon arrival All those who doubted him would have to admit their error.   Problem Statement
    Heckle was so sure he was right that on the day of departure, he took his time getting his spacecraft off after the flash of light had left.
    And after he left Jeckle wrote an idl program to predict how far he would actually go. idl code
    Jeckle realized that after the first 1600 days of accelerating and decelerating, Heckle would not have caught up with the light, or even attained it's speed.  Being ever stubborn, at day 1600 Heckle would cheat and send another false beam of light back towards earth and try to catch that.  Again he would fail.  Jeckle saw that although only 3200 days (~9 years) had passed for Heckle, Fully 6665 (~18 years) days would have passed for Jeckle and everyone else on earth.  During this time Jeckle would see his brother travel only 7.4 light years out and 7.4 ly back.  A distance covered by light in less than 15 years.

And here's the space time diagram Jeckle made of Heckle's journey.
 

 
 
The units of space are light years.

The units of time are days.

The curved line is the path of Heckle.  The diagonal lines are those of light.  The vertical line is the earth.  And the one horizontal line is idl assuming that Jeckle  wanted to connect all the points.  Notice that Heckle's speed approaches but never attains that of light.
 

When Heckle finally did return, he admitted defeat.  That blow was softened by the fact that Heckle's stocks had quadrupled in value and the little girl that had had a crush on him had grown into an attractive woman.  After 9 years in solitude, Heckle had adjusted his attitude.  He and the woman married and settled in Virginia.

The end.