Hello.
If you're visiting my site and you don't otherwise know me, you might be wondering who the heck I am. Well, read on, because I'm about to tell you.
I was born about 38 years ago in California, and I escaped to Oregon at the age of two. I have lived in the beautiful Rogue Valley of southern Oregon since then. I attended Hidden Valley High School in Murphy, graduating somewhere in the top third of my class in 1985. In school, I learned that I was very good at taking multiple-choice tests, and I was halfway decent at bullshitting my way through other assignments. Unfortunately, this instilled in me the lack of effort that I have since maintained in many of the things I set out to accomplish.
I attended Southern Oregon State College, in large part because I didn't actually do the work of applying for scholarships and such to get into any better schools. I was a drifter in college, as far as my major. I started out as a geography major. By the end of my first year of college, my major was history. After that, biology, math, and finally music. I wound up not graduating because I figured that I was wasting my money, since I rarely bothered to attend most of my classes. That was the harsh price I paid for skating my way through high school. I just figured that I could read a little and pass the tests, not having to worry about little details like actually applying myself to my studies. Boy, was I sadly mistaken.
One good thing that I found in college was music. A neighbor at the dorms was a guitar player, and he also had a bass. Since he didn't play the bass very often, I asked to borrow it and he let me. I started playing quite a bit and reading a lot of music theory books. I was not a very good player in those years, but I got better later...
After leaving college, I started working for minimum wage cleaning rooms at a local motel. It was a horrible job, working long, irregular hours doing hard work. I didn't like it. The worst thing was cleaning up other people's messes after they'd stayed in the room for who knows how long. One thing this little episode in my life taught me was to try to leave the motel rooms where I stay as clean as I possibly can. I also usually try to tip well.
After working as a housekeeper for almost a year, I inherited the head housekeeping position at the same motel. An easier job, with more stable hours and better pay. Unfortunately, I wasn't really cut out to be mid-level management material at the time, and I wasn't a very good head housekeeper.
Fortunately, after a short stint as head housekeeper, an opening came up on the front desk. This was a much more comfortable position for me. I've always been a list-making sort of person, with good organization when I choose to apply it, and this was an excellent position for someone with those skills. I had fun at this job for a long time. I kept my position as desk clerk through three different managers. Overall, I worked for the motel for about six years. I finally left because I got tired of my last manager. He had a tendency to forget to mark down reservations and such, and he tended to like to stay out later than he was scheduled.
After leaving the hotel industry, I worked for a while as a typist, then I became a clerk at Kathrein-Scala, although it was just called Scala at the time. After a few years of being a general clerk in the production and shipping departments, I was moved into the Information Systems department. That is where I have remained ever since. Working at Scala, I met a few musicians, and some of us formed the band West of Arizona. The band released two CDs, called Area to Vary and Virtual Vinyl. Despite achieving some local success in the Rogue Valley, the band broke up a few years after it formed. Since then, I have basically been a closet musician. Bummer. Recently, I have been trying to put together or join another band, but I have had little luck. Bummer again.
While working at Scala and playing in the band, I met quite a few nice people, including one particular lady named Carol. She is also a musician, and we were introduced by a mutual friend who thought we might share quite a few common interests because of our music. The friend was right. We dated for a while, and I got to know her two sons, Anthony (who is now 21) and Jarrod (18) better. Meanwhile, she got to know my two cats better, much to her chagrin. We got married in August of 2001, and still live with her younger stepson and the two kitties in Medford. We like to go to the coast and attend the Britt Festival when we can, and we hope to purchase an RV in the near future, so we can travel more often.
Created on ... October 07, 2003
Last Updated March 2, 2006