A little more than 25 years ago I was born (yes, scary . . . I know), and that's when it all started. I spent my first four years in a town in Northern California, Vacaville. During those first four years, my parents had gotten a divorce and they also both remarried. Shortly after my mother had my brother, and shortly before my step mother had another of my brothers, my step dad got transfered to a base in England. And so, I moved to England.

I spent the next four years of my life there. We lived in a small town named Wretham. Our nearest neighbor was about half a mile away, and the forest came right up to the edge of our backyard. I had two cats and a dog. I also had a little brother.

Don't get my wrong. I love my little brother (who isn't quite so little anymore), but during those years, he had developed this biting habit, and one time he bit my shoulder so hard that he drew blood. I remind him of that every time he choses to call me a vampire. I've never bitten him hard enough to draw blood. But, back to the story.

I started school in England at Hockham Primary School. There I made friends and started getting my education. I remember the bus rides to school and back well. We had a special bus (no, not one of the "special" buses) who came and picked those of us up that lived in places where there weren't any close by neighbors. So, there was about 6 of us that rode that bus, and we had a good time. There was one time that our bus driver was sick, and so they sent a substitute bus and bus driver. Our substitue bus was a nice, big, red double decker bus. Another thing I remember was being sent over to make friends with a new boy at school because he was from the States as well. I didn't sound like I was from the States by the time he got there, though, because I had picked up a strong english accent while I was there. I really do wish I still had that.

At any rate, we spent quite a bit of time visiting old castles and other historic sites there. I remember the castles the most though. I'm thinking that may be why I'm as warped as I am, though I do come from warped people. We're just all warped in different ways. And being warped isn't a bad thing, so don't you go thinking that.

We visited Wales and Scotland as well. My parents have a whole collection of Welsh Love spoons. I don't know where they are at the moment though. They're probably still packed away in a box somewhere from their latest move. I wonder if I could talk them out of the spoons. I'd love to have them.

Oops. I got off track again. In 1987 we moved back to the States, and back to the same town in Northern California. By then, my dad and step mom (and my two brothers from that side of the family) had moved to Delaware and they had settled down there. That meant that I wouldn't get to see my dad as often as I did before I moved to England, and that would be hard on both of us.

I started the third grade that fall at Elmira Elementary School. Everyone seemed to like me, but I wonder if that was because of the accent. I do remember having a hard time learning to spell things correctly and learning the money system. I think though, that I'm good at both spelling and money because I originally had a hard time with them.

I started band in 4th grade, or was it 5th grade? I think it was 5th grade now that I think about it. Anyway, I played the flute and eventually made my way into the advanced band. Then in 6th grade I made the honor band, along with some of my school buddies. It was in that band that we taught ourselves the alphabet in sign language and were able to talk to each other with out being heard. That was fun.

Sixth grade ended and I wound up in a new school to start junior high at Vaca Peña Middle School. Junior high wasn't all that bad. I kept most of my friends from elementary school, and I also made new ones. I was in band again, but I switched instruments. I picked up Baritone, and then Trumpet when I decided to try my hand at Jazz. I actually wasn't too bad at it. I got a solo once. Once. I did get to do a trio once too, that was fun. I liked that better than the solo. It was a trio with me, a guy I had a crush on for a few years (he played the trumbone) and a girl that we knew who played the sax.

Anyways, in 8th grade I was also in choir. That was the first "real" choir I had been in. I was in little choirs in Elementary school, but there wasn't any harmonies or anything like that, we just sang in unison and in rounds.

All in all, junior high was fun, though it was when I started to decide I didn't like homework, so I wasn't going to do it willingly, and my grades reflected that.

Then came high school.

I started high school in the fall of '93 at Will C. Wood High School. We were Wildcats, and our cross town rivals were the Bulldogs. We had a lot of school pride. Well, we did for the most part. I was in band and choir, and an honorary member of the Jazz band. It was honorary because Jazz was an "A" period class and started an hour before school started. I couldn't get there that early on most occasions, so I usually got there half an hour later which wasn't too bad. I just didn't get credit for the class, which was fine with me. I wasn't there for credit, I was there to play and have fun.

I wasn't in an actual Choir class either. During my Freshman year I played Volleyball for the school, and I tried out for softball, but found that the team was picked "politically" not necessarily by skill. So, after I was cut from the team, I decided that I still wanted to do a sport. In comes Badminton. I had never played the sport before, but most of the other people hadn't either, and there is a reason I put this right behind the choir comment. We had to run/walk/skip/whatever everyday after school at the beginning of practice. The course that we ran went right past the music room. I used to go in there during the run because I knew the pianist's son, and eventually I became a part of the all female after school choir, Felyricani. The school's pianist (my friends mom) turned out to be directing that particular choir. We had lots of fun in that group. Not to mention the fact that her son hung around all the time.

In 10th grade, I didn't play volleyball, but I was in the choir and the band and the jazz band still. Later in that year I was also a part of the musical. Our school had done Romeo and Juliet for the fall play, and so for the spring musical we did West Side Story. Because I was a big part of the music department, I became a part of the musical. I had a part as an extra, a choirgirl. I was chosen to be one of the shark girls. I also helped coordinating between the theatre and the music rooms. Only the lead characters got use of the dressing rooms in the theatre. The rest of us had to use the music rooms to change and do make up and such. During the rehersal weeks, I pretty much lived at school. There were days when my mom brought my dinner to me at the theatre so that I had some real food to eat, not just cookies from the vending machine.

I think the absolute best time of my sophomore year was the cast parties form the musical. There were two unofficial ones, and then the official one. The official one was where all the directors and the dance coreographer were invited. Or rather, they were incharge of it and knew it was going on. The other two were at cast members houses, and you never knew what was going to happen there

The summer after 10th grade was the summer that I've done the most things with friends. Keith and Richardson tried to teach me how to play tennis, but after only a few lessons, they called it hopeless. I tried to tell them it was before we even started, but they didn't listen to me. I suppose one of the reasons we all did more stuff together that year was one, Keith had a car and two, I knew there was a possibility that I would be moving before the next school year.

And I did.

I moved down to Carlsbad in August of '95. That was probably the most difficult thing I had to do up to that point. I had to leave behind 8 years worth of friends and move 8 hours away. I was very bitter at my parents about that for a while. It wouldn't have been so bad if it were two years earlier, or two years later. Either one of those wouldn't have been right in the middle of high school. By the time people are in 11th grade, they have their groups of friends, and they aren't very receptive of new people. And to make matters worse, there was no active music program and they didn't have a badminton team.

My first day at San Dieguito High School was awful. By the time I got to the apartment we were in until we could move into our house, I was about ready to cry. It's not that I didn't like the school, or the teachers, or the classes, it's more the way it was run. Things were very different. I had to wait after school for two hours in order to get books, and I had to walk a very long way to get to the bus stop because the bus that ran closer to the school had stopped running for the day (they didn't have school busses, we had to take public transportation), so I was tired and frustrated by the time I got home. The next day was much better though.

I think I have two favorite teachers from that year. One was my spanish teacher. She was very fun, wild, crazy and outgoing. And, she grew up in Vacaville. She was excited to have me in the class as well. Right now she's actually a spanish teacher at Will C. Wood.

My other favorite teacher that year was my Marine Biology teacher. She was such a sweet lady, and she too enjoyed having me in the class, mainly because the people who usually took the class were those who never did well enough to pass a college prep biology class. There weren't very many of us that took the class for fun. I did though, but that's because I wanted to major in Marine Bio when I went to college.

As the year went on, I found a group of people to hang out with. Though I came to realize that I didn't really belong in that group. They were very much christian people, and I wasn't. I did meet a guy from some class that I had, and he got me into a club that met once a week. The Insanity Club. That, I think, was my most favorite club. We spent one lunch period a week talking about strange things. Some of my favorite discussions were "the shape of time" and "what is reality".

That year, I also helped start up an after school music program. It was based around Jazz, but it was music none the less. We had fun in the music program, and between the jazz band, and the jazz choir, I had plenty of concerts to keep me busy.

I would attend another school my senior year. La Costa Canyon High School opened for the first time for the '96-'97 school year, and I chose to go there instead of staying at San Dieguito because it was going to be cheaper transportation wise. LCC was just over the hill from my house, so I could walk if need be.

My senior year started a little before school did. I was involved with some stuff that started during the summer. One of those things was Drill Team and we had summer practices starting in July I think. I enjoyed Drill because I got to do flags, which was something that I had wanted to do when I was at Wood.

The other thing that started before school was something called Link Crew. This was sort of an orientation program. At San Dieguito, there were only grades 10, 11 and 12. 9th grade was kept at the junior high. LCC would have 9th grade though. So for the first year of Link Crew, we'd have two different grades of kids to give an orientation to.

I was given four groups of kids, one for each day of orientation. About half the kids showed up, which was good since it was optional. The whole purpose of this was to introduce them to the new school, and to make them feel welcome. It also helped me because I got paired with someone else from my own grade, and we had to work together. Him and I were friends through the whole year. But anyway, we had fun, and we played games that you would usually play in elementary school classes, or perhaps in a drama class, trying to get everyone to open up just a little bit.

All in all, I think everyone enjoyed the experience, and I think that's what helped Link Crew to stick around. It was fun to help kids adjust to a new environment.

By the second half of my senior year I had finally found a group of friends that I felt I belonged in. We did stuff every weekend, even if it was just hanging around the house. We usually went to sports games for the school to watch friends play, or in some cases to watch some boy that Kathy had a crush on.

I went to all the dances during that half of the year, even the formals though I never had a date. But I had fun anyway.

I graduated from LCCHS at 4pm on Friday, June 13, 1997. And we were the first graduating class. I don't think many of us had massive amounts of school spirit. I know I didn't. We were the Mavericks, and my personal saying was "Maverick by name, Wildcat by heart." And I truely felt that way. Everyone that I wanted to be around for graduation were 500 miles away. They would be graduating at 7pm that evening, and I desperately wanted to be there with them, but I couldn't. So instead, I put on a cheerful face and went about my business.

Grad night was that evening, and we all went and had fun. The when it was over, we went to Denny's, and some people slept in the booth instead of eating. We left Denny's and went to someone's house to crash since we'd been up all night and we desperately needed sleep.

That summer things happened while I was away visiting my dad, and when I returned, the group of friends I had split apart. I still hung out with everyone, but it wasn't the same.

That fall, I started college, got my lisence, got a job, and got a car. I went to school at Mira Costa Community College. I started Working for T.J. Maxx, and I got a pretty '85 Ford Mustang Convertable.

College was when I rediscovered the internet and the people on it. I had my first taste of the 'net the summer before I moved to Carlsbad when I went to live with my aunt to help take care of my baby cousin. Once I found out about the computer labs at school, I spent some time chatting online, but it wasn't as interesting as it had been the summer of '95. That summer I had spent my time chatting in IRC, and I had found a group of people who liked to pretend they were doing stuff instead of just chatting. We had "pool parties" and "bar-b-ques". It was rather entertaining. At one "bar-b-que" we actually tried to cook one of the chatters, but only because he had a name that had the word cow in it, and we wanted burgers. You understand, right?

Anyway, when I started chatting again, I was in Yahoo. I wandered from room to room, bored out of my mind because the only thing I ever really say in the rooms was "a/s/l?" and I was tired of answering that question. I started searching through the "who's online" section for guys that were around my age, and then I'd go to the room they were in. Sometimes that landed me in some private rooms, but once, it landed me in a room named "RPG Tavern."

In a sense I never left that room.

I had discovered the art of Role Playing, which was similar to what I enjoyed doing back in IRC, and it also let me explore some of the more interesting character types.

From that point until we got the internet at home, I spent all my free time in the computer lab, and since we weren't allowed to be chatting, I started this webpage, and I became rather skilled at Multi tasking.

I taught myself html by looking at the sources from other pages, and I actally bought one little pocket guide, and this is the result. It's grown so much more than I had ever planned, but that's alright.

The next two years or so were pretty much uneventful, except for one thing.

In February of '98, my younger brother Matthew on my dad's side of the family got diagnosed with Leukemia, and on August 19th of that year, he died. I went out to Delaware for the funeral, but I couldn't stay any longer than that because school started the next week, and I had to be there to get one of my classes. That's also the last time that I've been there. I haven't been able to afford the time off of work, or the plane fare to go back to visit yet, but I need to.

In January 2000, I transfered schools (finally) and started attending Cal State Long Beach. It's a very pretty school, and I was happy to be going there. I also transfered stores so that I wouldn't have to find a job. I moved out of my parents house, and rented a room out of someone's house here.

After T.J. Maxx, I got a job with Home Depot and eventually migrated from cashiering to the paint department. A year or so later, I got the itch to make a change. Usually when I get those itches, I'll change jobs or change my hair color/style. This time, a move was what cured the itch. I moved across country to live near my dad.

I worked for Lowe's for a time before going back to work for Home Depot. My time working for Lowe's was well spent. It's there that I met Linda and Daniel (whom I've "officially" been with for a little over 5 months now ... "unofficially" we've been tempted for over a year). I'll go back to school eventually. When I do, I want to take some music classes and maybe some art classes as well.

I think that brings everyone up to date on my life. If there's anything else I should include (other than my misadventures in the realm of relationships) you can e-mail me.

Until next time,
Be well.

Last updated - July 2004