36 VinnyFacts
1) Salvius is a name that I came up with for the SCA. Originally I wanted it to be a form of my last name (which is obvious) and then I actually came across a real name of a 12th century monk.
2) Ever since I started using that name (I was 19), it has become the main character of any adventure game I play.
3) My father gave me my first real computer in 1982 when I was 16; the Atari 800. It was waiting for me when I came home from school one day, and I stayed home the entire next day, teaching myself basic.
4) Within two weeks, I had written a comprehensive MONOPOLY game in basic which served as an opponent.
5) I got a 300 baud modem for the computer about a year later, and I was well known on pirate boards around the country as Mr. Roboto. I wanted to run my own BBS (bulletin board system), but I hated the few BBS programs that were available - so I wrote my own in basic. a month later, I launched the Styx BBS.
6) The first role playing game I ever learned to play was Champions. I was 16, and I learned it from classmates at Bronx Science - we played it every day at lunch. I learned AD&D a few months afterwards.
7) Growing up in an italian neighborhood in the Bronx, I first went out to "play on the street" when I was 9. It took a while for me to be accepted by the kids on the block, for various reasons, including the fact that I refused to curse at all under any circumstances. I was also the only Mets fan while they all rooted for the Yankees.
8) I have terrible balance, and I never learned to ride a bicycle or to ride roller skates or any number of other things the other kids took for granted.
9) By the time I was 10-11, I was pretty much the cerebral leader of the block, mostly because I wasn't very athletic. Referring back to #6, within 2 months of learning AD&D, I had convinced an entire block of kids ages ranged 12-17 to sit and play AD&D while I DMed. And we did it for hours on end. I don't think that's typical for a Bronx street :-)
10) When I was 12, in my senior year of elementary school, I took over the production and direction of our senior play, Star Wars. I wrote it, a staged it, I even engineered all of the props and effects we used. At my insistence, we spent a month trying to build a full-size X-Wing fighter out of cardboard for the final scene of Luke blowing up the Death Star (no, I'm not kidding). I struggled hard trying to figure out how to prop the wings up, and we finally gave up and ran the scene with two people on stage holding the upper wings.
11) My first foray into conventions were Creation Conventions, comic book conventions run in Manhattan. There, I met a guy named Mike Sargent, who convinced me that I should sell buttons. So I made an arrangement with the management of Creation that I would run AD&D games for them as part of their programming in exchange for table space to sell buttons. This lasted a year or so (they ran monthly conventions in the early 80s).
12) When I was 18 I went to my first science fiction convention, Lunacon (1984). I stayed over with the group from Bronx Science who had taught me to game. That year, I also went down to Disclave near Washington D.C. with Mike and his crew, and met Paul Birnbaum for the first time at my first fannish poker game. Birnbaum and I laugh a lot about the fact that we had to travel to D.C. to meet.
13) After meeting Paul, I became involved quickly in fannish politics, hanging out a lot at The Inwood Home for Wayward Fen, where Paul lived with three other smofs. For the next 2 years I travelled up and down the east coast going to science fiction conventions. Usually I would be selling buttons at a dealers table as "The Button Factory".
14) I am singlehandedly responsible for destroying the maryland science fiction convention known as Unicon. In 1985, I went to Unicon with the intent of running numerous parties (including a toga party) from two hotel rooms filled with 21 people. This was also the convention where I met Martha (she drove me down). Everything that went wrong at that convention ended up revolved around me. The hotel had to do a lockdown and room count because things were so out of control. Those were fun times.
15) My first real job was at a local Carvel. i worked there in the summer when I was 14. I was terrible at most things having to do with the job, including cake writing (impossible), cone swirling (I never got them to be straight) and mopping the floor (I'm a lover, not a cleaner). I was making something like $100/week. And I insisted on giving mom $25.00 a week towards the rent we were paying at the time. At the end of that summer, she handed me an envelope with all the collected money with a smile.
16) My earliest memories of television include watching the very first Sesame Street episode that was ever broadcast as well as the very first Electric Company episode. Saturday morning television was a religion for me, and the new September fall lineup was a sacred day. I would spend the entire week leading up to it planning my Saturday morning watching schedule, and Sid & Marty Kroft series were always a big part of that.
17) The first color televisions we got were free gifts from a bank for opening new CDs. The larger one went into my parent's room and the smaller one went into my aunt's room. I inherited her black & white set and shortly thereafter hooked up my first video game system, the Atari VCS. I remember what a thrill everything was in color, where even the commercials were fascinating to watch. I also remember playing all of my VCS cartridge games in black & white, and being shocked when I saw them in color at someone else's house.
18) At age 12 or so, I was learning to play chess. Like most things, I figured it out quickly but never quite mastered it. I was very eager at the time, though, and my parents certainly encouraged me. I even got them to sign me up for a local chess championship. I was all set to go, and then I got sick - fever, chills, everything, and although I insisted, they would not let me go. I was very, very disappointed.
19) At age 13 or 14, I remember my fondest Christmas. I had very much wanted a chess challenger (a standalone game that played chess with you) valued at about $100 at the time (they were pretty new). During that Christmas, I got all sorts of fantastic toys and games, and then after I had given up hope, mom brought out one more box that wasn't under the tree and it was the chess challenger! I remember holing myself in my room for the entire weekend playing with that and my other games (including a special lego set that allowed the building of a race car).
20) Speaking of Lego, they played a very important part in my childhood. After having seen Star Wars when I was 11, I was obsessed with spaceship combat and would build scores of ships with my legos, then have big battles on my bedroom floor.
21) The following year my aunt took me to see Jaws and Alien on the same day. I had nightmares that whole night. Not a very good idea.
22) During my "senior" year in elementary school (6th grade), I took a test for the Hunter College scholarship program. The idea was that one would enter Hunter High School two years early (9th grade) and go on to Hunter College. My score was ranked in the top 10 of NYC, so needless to say I qualified. However, my parents and I discussed it at length and we decided that the experience of being in the proper grades at the proper age was more important, and I was set to move on to 7th grade.
23) That lead to angst over the local Middle School, which did not have a very good reputation (note: today, it is in total lockdown mode). So my parents applied to the local catholic private school, which they felt was safer for me. The problem was, in order to attend that school, it was mandatory to take religious instruction. Forget it. I went to the local Middle School.
24) I was quite nervous going to that school in 7th grade. The second day I was there, a senior (9th grader) pretended to rob me in the bathroom. He was just playing a joke, but I was really shaken up and when I came out of the bathroom, the principal of the school saw me shaking. He took me into his office and asked me if I was scared to travel to the bathroom by myself and when I told him I was, he told me that from now on, I could use his personal bathroom. i continued doing that for the entire time I went to that school.
25) When I was in 8th grade, I had the opportunity to take the test for the "elite" high schools of NYC, Styvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech. I delcined, because while I had thought I wanted to get out of that school as quickly as possible when I first went into it, I came to love it enough that I wanted to take 9th grade there. The following year, I took the test and passed in with flying colors, and was ready to enter Bronx Science.
26) When I was in 7th grade, I joined the "band", and decided to learn to play the tuba (which i never did very well).
27) As a sophomore (10th grader) at Bronx Science, I joined the debate team, where I was partnered with Scott Minkoff (the one who later taught me AD&D). I was a decent debater, but I hated the work that had to go into preparation, and I hated the faculty guy who ran it, so I dropped out after 10th grade.
28) During my senior year of Bronx Science, I barely did any actual school work. For example, after having taken Italian for 6 years, I still never got past "che questa", and the only reason I passed that class was that the teacher liked me a lot and the regents exam was cancelled that year. Instead, my time was spent playing spades in the cafeteria, and forming the Bronx Science Gaming Society, where I would run elaborate Killer games during the school day (even got teachers to play).
29) When Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan came out, I and a bunch of friends from Bronx Science camped out in the middle of Times Square to see the first showing the following morning. That was a very fond memory. A year later, we did that same thing for Return of the Jedi. For those of you who might be too young to remember this, in 1983 it was still possible to keep a hollywood secret, and NOBODY knew the actual answers to the riddles of The Empire Strikes Back. It was a very special day to sit in a PACKED audience seeing the very first showing of Return of the Jedi and learning all of the answers for the first time with a group of rabid fans. To this day, I get teary thinking about what is arguably the most significant space battle scene ever created; where Lucas showed us a 70mm panoramic view of the rebel fleet coming out of hyperspace and being attacked by hundreds of ships all at the same time - imagine being in a theater with a thousand people all blown away at the same time by that 5-second unprecedented scene. And of course, every single person was on his feet cheering when Luke pounded Vader down at the end. Say what you will about Lucas, but I don't think any movie experience can ever top that.
30) I was always a lover of movie scores, even pre-dating Star Wars. Some of that was because I was always blasted with classical music, but hated Opera. Movie music was a more modern approach to classical music. I came to know all about the composers of the era (John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Wendy Carlos, etc.) and had a very good collection of music.
31) There were several authors who shaped my view of the world. Hugh Lofting was the first; his Dr. Doolittle books gave me a crucial perspective on the creative aspect of adventuring. Piers Anthony was the one who taught me the spiritual side of things, and taught me strategy.
32) During the Rubik's Cube fad, I decided to teach it to myself, and I used to amaze people when I could solve it in front of large groups of people in under a minute. I don't remember any of it now :-)
33) From the time I was 4 or 5 I had decided that I wanted to be an astronomer. I was fascinated by the planets and the universe. I wish I had more time to spend thinking about the great mysteries of cosmology today, because I am still just as fascinated.
34) I watched every episode of Cosmos as it was first broadcast on PBS; in addition to Carl Sagan becoming a personal hero for me, I was also taken with Vagelis' music (as were many other people), and became a strong Vangelis fan ever since. For those of you who pay attention, Vangelis' "Voices" is the majority of the soundtrack of SUGARFEST (played after the Boston intro).
35) Just in case there is anyone left who doesn't know (or realize) this: I came out of High School and went looking for my first job after a relaxing summer. I decided at that time not to go to college, because I just didn't see the point. I am self-taught in every bit of computer knowledge I have, and worked my way up corporate ladders until finally taking the reigns with my own business (Double Exposure Technology Consulting).
36) The final VinnyFact: There are two ways to empower me to create miracles. One, inspire me by showing me one of your fondest dreams and I'll make it a reality. Two, tell me emphatically that it is impossible for me to do something I want to do. You know who you are.
2) Ever since I started using that name (I was 19), it has become the main character of any adventure game I play.
3) My father gave me my first real computer in 1982 when I was 16; the Atari 800. It was waiting for me when I came home from school one day, and I stayed home the entire next day, teaching myself basic.
4) Within two weeks, I had written a comprehensive MONOPOLY game in basic which served as an opponent.
5) I got a 300 baud modem for the computer about a year later, and I was well known on pirate boards around the country as Mr. Roboto. I wanted to run my own BBS (bulletin board system), but I hated the few BBS programs that were available - so I wrote my own in basic. a month later, I launched the Styx BBS.
6) The first role playing game I ever learned to play was Champions. I was 16, and I learned it from classmates at Bronx Science - we played it every day at lunch. I learned AD&D a few months afterwards.
7) Growing up in an italian neighborhood in the Bronx, I first went out to "play on the street" when I was 9. It took a while for me to be accepted by the kids on the block, for various reasons, including the fact that I refused to curse at all under any circumstances. I was also the only Mets fan while they all rooted for the Yankees.
8) I have terrible balance, and I never learned to ride a bicycle or to ride roller skates or any number of other things the other kids took for granted.
9) By the time I was 10-11, I was pretty much the cerebral leader of the block, mostly because I wasn't very athletic. Referring back to #6, within 2 months of learning AD&D, I had convinced an entire block of kids ages ranged 12-17 to sit and play AD&D while I DMed. And we did it for hours on end. I don't think that's typical for a Bronx street :-)
10) When I was 12, in my senior year of elementary school, I took over the production and direction of our senior play, Star Wars. I wrote it, a staged it, I even engineered all of the props and effects we used. At my insistence, we spent a month trying to build a full-size X-Wing fighter out of cardboard for the final scene of Luke blowing up the Death Star (no, I'm not kidding). I struggled hard trying to figure out how to prop the wings up, and we finally gave up and ran the scene with two people on stage holding the upper wings.
11) My first foray into conventions were Creation Conventions, comic book conventions run in Manhattan. There, I met a guy named Mike Sargent, who convinced me that I should sell buttons. So I made an arrangement with the management of Creation that I would run AD&D games for them as part of their programming in exchange for table space to sell buttons. This lasted a year or so (they ran monthly conventions in the early 80s).
12) When I was 18 I went to my first science fiction convention, Lunacon (1984). I stayed over with the group from Bronx Science who had taught me to game. That year, I also went down to Disclave near Washington D.C. with Mike and his crew, and met Paul Birnbaum for the first time at my first fannish poker game. Birnbaum and I laugh a lot about the fact that we had to travel to D.C. to meet.
13) After meeting Paul, I became involved quickly in fannish politics, hanging out a lot at The Inwood Home for Wayward Fen, where Paul lived with three other smofs. For the next 2 years I travelled up and down the east coast going to science fiction conventions. Usually I would be selling buttons at a dealers table as "The Button Factory".
14) I am singlehandedly responsible for destroying the maryland science fiction convention known as Unicon. In 1985, I went to Unicon with the intent of running numerous parties (including a toga party) from two hotel rooms filled with 21 people. This was also the convention where I met Martha (she drove me down). Everything that went wrong at that convention ended up revolved around me. The hotel had to do a lockdown and room count because things were so out of control. Those were fun times.
15) My first real job was at a local Carvel. i worked there in the summer when I was 14. I was terrible at most things having to do with the job, including cake writing (impossible), cone swirling (I never got them to be straight) and mopping the floor (I'm a lover, not a cleaner). I was making something like $100/week. And I insisted on giving mom $25.00 a week towards the rent we were paying at the time. At the end of that summer, she handed me an envelope with all the collected money with a smile.
16) My earliest memories of television include watching the very first Sesame Street episode that was ever broadcast as well as the very first Electric Company episode. Saturday morning television was a religion for me, and the new September fall lineup was a sacred day. I would spend the entire week leading up to it planning my Saturday morning watching schedule, and Sid & Marty Kroft series were always a big part of that.
17) The first color televisions we got were free gifts from a bank for opening new CDs. The larger one went into my parent's room and the smaller one went into my aunt's room. I inherited her black & white set and shortly thereafter hooked up my first video game system, the Atari VCS. I remember what a thrill everything was in color, where even the commercials were fascinating to watch. I also remember playing all of my VCS cartridge games in black & white, and being shocked when I saw them in color at someone else's house.
18) At age 12 or so, I was learning to play chess. Like most things, I figured it out quickly but never quite mastered it. I was very eager at the time, though, and my parents certainly encouraged me. I even got them to sign me up for a local chess championship. I was all set to go, and then I got sick - fever, chills, everything, and although I insisted, they would not let me go. I was very, very disappointed.
19) At age 13 or 14, I remember my fondest Christmas. I had very much wanted a chess challenger (a standalone game that played chess with you) valued at about $100 at the time (they were pretty new). During that Christmas, I got all sorts of fantastic toys and games, and then after I had given up hope, mom brought out one more box that wasn't under the tree and it was the chess challenger! I remember holing myself in my room for the entire weekend playing with that and my other games (including a special lego set that allowed the building of a race car).
20) Speaking of Lego, they played a very important part in my childhood. After having seen Star Wars when I was 11, I was obsessed with spaceship combat and would build scores of ships with my legos, then have big battles on my bedroom floor.
21) The following year my aunt took me to see Jaws and Alien on the same day. I had nightmares that whole night. Not a very good idea.
22) During my "senior" year in elementary school (6th grade), I took a test for the Hunter College scholarship program. The idea was that one would enter Hunter High School two years early (9th grade) and go on to Hunter College. My score was ranked in the top 10 of NYC, so needless to say I qualified. However, my parents and I discussed it at length and we decided that the experience of being in the proper grades at the proper age was more important, and I was set to move on to 7th grade.
23) That lead to angst over the local Middle School, which did not have a very good reputation (note: today, it is in total lockdown mode). So my parents applied to the local catholic private school, which they felt was safer for me. The problem was, in order to attend that school, it was mandatory to take religious instruction. Forget it. I went to the local Middle School.
24) I was quite nervous going to that school in 7th grade. The second day I was there, a senior (9th grader) pretended to rob me in the bathroom. He was just playing a joke, but I was really shaken up and when I came out of the bathroom, the principal of the school saw me shaking. He took me into his office and asked me if I was scared to travel to the bathroom by myself and when I told him I was, he told me that from now on, I could use his personal bathroom. i continued doing that for the entire time I went to that school.
25) When I was in 8th grade, I had the opportunity to take the test for the "elite" high schools of NYC, Styvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech. I delcined, because while I had thought I wanted to get out of that school as quickly as possible when I first went into it, I came to love it enough that I wanted to take 9th grade there. The following year, I took the test and passed in with flying colors, and was ready to enter Bronx Science.
26) When I was in 7th grade, I joined the "band", and decided to learn to play the tuba (which i never did very well).
27) As a sophomore (10th grader) at Bronx Science, I joined the debate team, where I was partnered with Scott Minkoff (the one who later taught me AD&D). I was a decent debater, but I hated the work that had to go into preparation, and I hated the faculty guy who ran it, so I dropped out after 10th grade.
28) During my senior year of Bronx Science, I barely did any actual school work. For example, after having taken Italian for 6 years, I still never got past "che questa", and the only reason I passed that class was that the teacher liked me a lot and the regents exam was cancelled that year. Instead, my time was spent playing spades in the cafeteria, and forming the Bronx Science Gaming Society, where I would run elaborate Killer games during the school day (even got teachers to play).
29) When Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan came out, I and a bunch of friends from Bronx Science camped out in the middle of Times Square to see the first showing the following morning. That was a very fond memory. A year later, we did that same thing for Return of the Jedi. For those of you who might be too young to remember this, in 1983 it was still possible to keep a hollywood secret, and NOBODY knew the actual answers to the riddles of The Empire Strikes Back. It was a very special day to sit in a PACKED audience seeing the very first showing of Return of the Jedi and learning all of the answers for the first time with a group of rabid fans. To this day, I get teary thinking about what is arguably the most significant space battle scene ever created; where Lucas showed us a 70mm panoramic view of the rebel fleet coming out of hyperspace and being attacked by hundreds of ships all at the same time - imagine being in a theater with a thousand people all blown away at the same time by that 5-second unprecedented scene. And of course, every single person was on his feet cheering when Luke pounded Vader down at the end. Say what you will about Lucas, but I don't think any movie experience can ever top that.
30) I was always a lover of movie scores, even pre-dating Star Wars. Some of that was because I was always blasted with classical music, but hated Opera. Movie music was a more modern approach to classical music. I came to know all about the composers of the era (John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Wendy Carlos, etc.) and had a very good collection of music.
31) There were several authors who shaped my view of the world. Hugh Lofting was the first; his Dr. Doolittle books gave me a crucial perspective on the creative aspect of adventuring. Piers Anthony was the one who taught me the spiritual side of things, and taught me strategy.
32) During the Rubik's Cube fad, I decided to teach it to myself, and I used to amaze people when I could solve it in front of large groups of people in under a minute. I don't remember any of it now :-)
33) From the time I was 4 or 5 I had decided that I wanted to be an astronomer. I was fascinated by the planets and the universe. I wish I had more time to spend thinking about the great mysteries of cosmology today, because I am still just as fascinated.
34) I watched every episode of Cosmos as it was first broadcast on PBS; in addition to Carl Sagan becoming a personal hero for me, I was also taken with Vagelis' music (as were many other people), and became a strong Vangelis fan ever since. For those of you who pay attention, Vangelis' "Voices" is the majority of the soundtrack of SUGARFEST (played after the Boston intro).
35) Just in case there is anyone left who doesn't know (or realize) this: I came out of High School and went looking for my first job after a relaxing summer. I decided at that time not to go to college, because I just didn't see the point. I am self-taught in every bit of computer knowledge I have, and worked my way up corporate ladders until finally taking the reigns with my own business (Double Exposure Technology Consulting).
36) The final VinnyFact: There are two ways to empower me to create miracles. One, inspire me by showing me one of your fondest dreams and I'll make it a reality. Two, tell me emphatically that it is impossible for me to do something I want to do. You know who you are.