CoreBB

Steps out from behind the curtain and introduces himself to ACF.....

I was born in the city of Salinas, California and still live in the same general area. Salinas and the surrounding area is known mostly for being some of the most productive produce farm land in the world. If you eat ice berg lettuce, strawberries or artichokes odds are they came from around here. Salinas is about 120 miles south of San Fransico and about 20 miles NE of Monterey.

I was born in Feb of 1969 and the last 36 years have flown by. I have one younger brother that came along 2 years later. My parents will be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversy next year.

My childhood was very ordinary for the most part, highlighted by a few out of the ordinary events. We lived in a rural area that was like heaven to grow up in. Most of my childhood was spent outside....hiking, shooting, riding motorcycles and getting into various forms of mischief that kids can get into when they are outside of their parents sight.

Unusual facts about my early life.....

From birth until I was 8 or so I had serious problems with asthma. There were time I would wake up during the night and literally turn blue on the way to the hospital because I could not breath. This was before they had inhalers......I had to get into the hospital to get a shot to relieve the fluid build up in my lungs.

When I was about 5 I ate a whole bottle of childrens chewable asprin that I thought was candy. My aunt had left it on the bathroom counter. I went into toxic shock and had to have my stomach pumped. So to this day I avoid hospitals like the plague. I visited enough as a kid to last a life time

I also spent alot of time as a baby and toddler on local TV. My mother hosted a once a week early morning TV show that focused on women and women's issues. I was a "cohost" many times.....but don't remember much. My mother was not a hippy, but she was what I would call a "progressive" type Mom. She made granola, did not allow us to eat sugar and was a spokeswoman and founder of the county La Leche League. For those of you that do not know what the La Leche League is....it is a foundation that promotes breast feeding. My mother and a small group of other like minded young women held sit ins and did the talk show circut advocating the right for women to breastfeed their kids. I guess that explains why I am a "breast man" till this day.

The single most memorable moment of my childhood happened when I was 10 and went on a field trip with other kids in our advance placement group to San Francisco. After visiting the various museums and the aquarium, the end of the trip was spent at Fishermans Wharf. Jumping towards the end of the story, I got left behind when I decided to play one "last" game in the arcade. The chaperones on the bus did not realize I was missing until the bus was 50 miles south of San Fran. So I was in the middle of San Fransisco late on a Friday night. It would turn out to be a very "educational" evening. After finally making contact with my parents via a collect call, I was finally picked up by the police. I spent from around 9pm till 2 am in a downtown San Fran police precinct watching drunks, junkies and $10 ladies of the night being booked and processed. It literally was like being stuck in an episode of "Night Court". It was hiliarious.

The other "life changing" event for me happened when I was 10. The library at my elementry school got an Apple II computer. The librarian was a long time friend of my mothers and that allowed me access to the computer that other kids did not have. I used it during my lunch hour and after school. I was HOOKED on games like Star Wars and Oregon Trail. I literally drove my parents crazy until the relented and bought me an Apple II with dual disk drives and a printer. The trade off was that I wrote an inventory program and then entered and took care of the inventory of our business.....so the purchase was "written" off as a business expense.

My teenage years were spent married to my computer playing the Wizardry, Ultima and Bards Tale series. This all eventually led me to discover the original AC in 1999. I started posting on the AC Leafcull board in 2001 and was a very active trader there for the time I played AC. Sometime in 2003 one of my AC guild mates told me about the ACF board and all the hilarity that took place here. Again....I was hooked. I found ACF and I don't think there is a day since that I have not read or posted. I have also been secretly in love with all of the female ACF posters since. The women on this board are amazing

After finishing a relatively uneventful high school career I attended Fresno State for two years. After completing my second year I was going to take a "year" off and then go back to school. Fate cast her hand again and I became responsible for the care of my maternal grandmother when her health started to fail. I had started working at the family business(an automotive repair shop)in 1989, so my time was more or less divided between work, my grandmother and taking her to and from medical appointments. My grandmother had been a central figure in my early life and I had spent alot of time with her because my parents both worked VERY long hours getting the business off of the ground. I was glad that I was able to return the favor for her in the last few years of her life.

I had never envisioned working in the family business. Growing up I had no interest in cars at all, let alone thinking that I would one day end up making my living in the automotive field. But I have always had a gift for organization and marketing. When I went to work for my parents I made some fundamental changes to the business model in the way that we advertised, did our customer retention and made the business very active in supporting community events(a great way to draw in new customers).

In 1995 I bought my mothers 50% of the business and have been running the day to day operations since. Working for ones self is a real education. You learn alot about the world, people, and life in general that you never will learn in school. Having said that, I will always regret not having finished college and I am determined to go back one day when circumstances allow.

The last 12 to 15 months of my life have brought HUGE changes. About 15 months ago I met my SO. She is absolutely the most amazing person I have ever met and to this day I cannot imagine how I have gotten so lucky. She is a shining beacon even in the darkest moments. We plan to be married in December of 05.

I am also in the process of selling my business. It will transfer to the new owners on July 1st of this year. I will be staying on until November to help the new owners with the transition. Our business has been a part of our family since 1965, but I have come to a point where I am ready to move on and got an offer that was to good to refuse.

So thats it......the most boring of all ACF focus threads

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