Continue reading »]]> It started with Fred, his first pet, a ferret. Fred wasn’t very friendly, in fact distant, an independent sort of animal, always eating, drinking and hopping around, yet never reciprocating with any affection at all. This annoyed Fred’s companion and owner, Kyle, who was 5 at the time.

Kyle grew weary of the daily ritual in which he tried to teach Fred etiquette.

“Bad posture, Fred,” he’d yell, then swing him by the tail into the wall. Finally, Kyle realized he’d never learn. “Seems you’re a waste of life,” he said, and threw Fred out the window, watching him plummet fifteen floors and become a tiny red dot on the street. Afterwards, Kyle has a pleasant dinner with his parents consisting of Swedish meatballs and a tossed salad.

“Fred’s gone, Dad,” said Kyle, as they prepared for dessert.

“‘Fred IS gone,’ Kyle. We will avoid using such contractions in the future, is that clear?”

“Yes, Dad. Fred is gone.”

“Animals teach humanity, Kyle. After dinner we will discuss your next choice of a pet.”

He named his bullfrog Ain’t.

“Ain’t?” said his father with a twitch.

“You told me I could name him anything I wanted.”

“Yes, as long as it was not a vulgarity.”

His father tolerated Kyle’s tendency to call Aint’s name loudly in his presence, but refused to refer to the bullfrog as anything other than ‘it.’

“Get it out of here immediately,” he would implore Kyle after a few minutes of being in the same room with his son and the loudly croaking frog.

Kyle bored easily of the repetitious hopping and croaking. One evening he inserted a large firecracker into Ain’t's mouth. “You must really learn to enunciate,” he said as he lit the explosive and hurled the bullfrog from his window. Ain’t exploded roughly fifty feet from street level, showering a taxicab with frog bits.

“Ain’t has left us, Dad,” said Kyle just before dessert.

“What have you learned from your bullfrog, Kyle,” asked his mother.

“He is learning humanity, gentility, and responsibility, Mildred, now please have our dessert ready immediately,” said Kyle’s father. “I think you should have a tortoise, Kyle.”

He named his tortoise Cecil. Cecil lived for three weeks, but Kyle became impatient. “You’re just too… damned.. SLOW!” He brought the hammer down in three broad strokes upon Cecil’s shell. “AAARGHHH!” screamed Kyle. The turtle was silent, motionless, dead. He was disposed of in the usual place, the pavement far below.

“You’re maturing into a quite a fine, well-mannered young man, Kyle,” said his father that evening before dinner.

“‘You ARE maturing,’ Dad. We must avoid contractions.”

Kyle felt the coldness of the steak knife in his hand.

“They’ll just never learn,” he thought to himself.

Continue reading »]]> I have owned computers since the age of seven, played piano since before I can remember, and been writing, drawing, and creating in one form or another for my entire life.

An alumnus of the original High School of Performing Arts in New York City, I played Carnegie Recital Hall when I was twelve, having started formal piano lessons at the age of six. I was the kid who routinely disappointed my parents’ party guests by playing Brahms and Rachmaninoff when they were hoping for Billy Joel and Barry Manilow. Lacking the discipline to compete in a conservatory environment, I opted to grow my hair, play in rock bands and attend Hunter College, majoring in something that came naturally to me, creative writing. I confess to having had fantasies of being the coolest English professor imaginable, sort of like the main character in “Wonder Boys.”

I spent two semesters as a teacher’s assistant for my favorite professor of all time, graduated in 1990, then moved on to tutoring part time at Queensborough Community College Writing Center.

In 1992, I picked up and moved to San Francisco, where I embarked upon my corporate career. This led to a string of positions at organizations ranging from non-profits to global financial institutions. Somehow, I’ve managed to be the go-to guy for everything graphics-related, though I lack any “formal” visual design training. My father, however, was a professional advertising artist. Perhaps there is a correlation.

After a brief ten-year stint in New York as Director of Corporate Communications at a healthcare organization which ended unceremoniously via Blackberry, I returned to the West Coast and, ironically, to the non-profit sector, as Design and Information Technology Manager for BayBio, a biotechnology trade association in South San Francisco.

I get some more of my thrills out as a trainer for AcademyX and part-time faculty at DeAnza College, teaching Adobe software.

Apparently, I’ve been accepted into the Computer Science Masters Program at San Jose State University. There goes the neighborhood.

To be continued…