>I lived in an apartment with a pretty good sized yard next to it that sunken. The area around the edges of the yard was higher than the rest. This natural border was put to use. In the winter, we flooded the yard for a ice rink.

Even cooler! Wow, a natural border...I remember the horrible day when we had to unbolt all those boards and store 'em in the garage. Not only was it work, but it also meant the end of skating, AND I wasn't able to play with my friends for an afernoon. I'd have LOVED a natural border!

>I guess my interest in computers and electronics in general was sparked by my father. He was a record producer and, as a hobby, did amateur radio (a HAM). I've often said that I learned how to read a schemata before I learned how to read English.

Amazing how dads impact our lives! I got started from my dad, too! He was likely one of the first telecommuters, as we had an old teletype with an acoustic 300 baud modem in our *dining room* (Mom LOVED that!) in 1972. He was the director of the clinical laboratories at Wesley Hospital (now Northwestern Hospital), and somehow used it in his work. I was all of 10 at the time, and we played this wonderful game called Lunar Lander. He'd also write math programs for us, and from time to time, would show me how to write programs. As soon as the Apples hit the market, I became slave labor for entering data for the labs. I remember on the Apple II, I'd type with such a cadence, the chips would work themselves loose and crash the system. So Mom and I learned to leave the cover off, and periodically press the chips back into their sockets before it crashed!

Dad moved us to NC in 1976, when he took a position with Duke Hospital. While trying to double-major in Art and History at Duke, Dad still had me doing computers. This time, he dragged me into teaching these seminars to lab directors on how to use a PC (WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3, etc.). So his best friend, the Faculty Sports Advisor (who was pivotal in getting me the basketball manager position) told Coach K that I knew everything about computers. So I built a database on an Apple for recruiting players. The first class recruited with my database contained Johnny Dawkins, Tommy Amaker, Jay Bilas, Mark Alarie, and David Henderson. Musta been my database!!!! <G>

I also had the priviledge of working with a computer-aided sculptor at Duke. Frank Smullin was *amazing*, and got me interested in using the computer for art. However, I was just a few years before my time, and I found that I'd rather make real money programming database apps than being a "starving artist."

I love hearing the stories of how people got into this career. Girl Scouts has a big career emphasis, and I retell a lot of the FoxFolk's stories to the girls in the career-related activities, to show them that you never know HOW you are going to use your education, and you never when you'll go back and change to something you NEVER thought you'd do! Of course, you can't tell sixth and seventh graders anything...they all think they'll be pro athletes or the next Brittany Spears <gag>.

>Temple ain't Arizona.:-)

Nope, but they *were* highly ranked at the time <s>. I noticed the Illini are right behind Duke...should be a good March Madness!

>Della, you can put the above in you sig block in your account setup.:-)

I thought about it, but I figured I needed to customize it only for specific people <g>...

- della
LET'S GO DUKE! One up on the Illini, for now <g>