In the Beginning.......
I grew up in a tiny town in the Green Mountains of Vermont....
graduated High School with Honors, was a State- Champion Gymnast, and joined
the Navy to "see the World." (My parents worked 3 jobs abd provided what my
brother and sister and I needed during those times, but college was out. Plus,
I had simply had it with small town America and wanted to get as far away as I
could. Little did I know!)
I attended 1 Navy tech school to learn about
shipboard propulsion systems and all the associated equipment in North Chicago.
Then I spent some time at the Navy's Nuclear Power School on Orlando, Florida.
I ended up out in Guam during the "Cold War" as a mechanical specialist fixing
the first batch of nuclear ballistic missile submarines ever made... Submarines
for which the US Government "forgot" to purchase the blueprints for....to save
money, the US Govt bought all the operational manuals, but didn't buy the
detailed blueprints.... So, everytime a submarine came in "broke," we had to
take whatever it was apart, figure out how it was supposed to work, figure out
what was wrong, design new and spare parts,have them fabricated in our huge
machine shops, figure out how to put everything back together and the finally,
figure out how to test everything. It was nothing to have 7 broken subs tied up
along side at once, and for the entire 3 year tour, I worked 24 hours on / 12
hours off, or I worked 36 hours on / 12 hours off. I really did love my first
wife, but our relationship just could survive my work and she left me for an
Air Force Fighter pilot. Under the circumstances, I've never blamed
her.
Then became a Deep Sea Diver for the US Navy's Special Operations
Deep Sea Diving Units. I don't mind being vain when I tell you I am
exceptionally proud of the fact that, at age 26, I became one of the youngest
men ever promoted to the rank of Chief Deep Sea Diver by Act of Congress.
Except for this friggin' spinal injury.... in 2 more years, I might have become
one of the US Navy's youngest-ever Master Divers... but, then, if pigs had
wings.... anyway... the first generation of PC's were just becoming popular,
and AutoCad had just been introduced.
In 1972, in the 7th grade, my math teacher- Mr. Al Bianchi- took an interest in 4 of us. Twice a week at 5AM, he would take us to the local university for 2 hours, and we would get to do BASIC programming on the HUGE mainframe. I remember writing simple programs, typing them into a keypunch terminal, which would then spit out a long strip of yellow tape full of holes. Then, we'd "timeshare" with the other university students, and run our yellow tapes through the mainframe reader, and THEN the mainframe would run our little programs and spit out the results on a "state-of-the-art" black and white cathode ray monitor. I've never seen Mr. Bianchi again, but I really do owe him a Debt of Honor for taking such an interest in the four of us and planting the seeds of computer usage to me at such an age. I've lost track of 2 of the group, but Kelly went on to be Valedictorian of our our class, and currently designs next-generation nuclear reactors for General Dynamics...
Anyway... off and on throughout my Navy days, I had the chance to work on amazing projects, and the big Unix Mainframes from time to time. But, it wasn't until my spinal injury and the decision to leave the Navy that computers really entered my life for good. As I said above, the first generation of PCs were just becoming popular, and I can remember memorizing every single DOS command. Remember writing batch files with COPYCON, anyone? <G> No such thing as Windows and "Plug'n'Play" back then, and I'd take my computers apart and memorize every single chip, jumper, and dip switch. AutoCad ver. 2.1 had just come out, and I remember memorizing every single AutoCad command, too. With my background in Navy mechanical blueprints, it wasn't long before I had a really cool job designing "special" stuff for a Government Contracting firm. I also took a lot of specialty courses on my own time, and earned every single AutoCad Certification there was up through Release 12. I even spent a year as a civilian Autocad Teacher to the US Naval Ship Repair Facility in the Philippines unto the Mt. Pinatubo volcano eruption ended up closing all the US bases over there.
Time went on, and my spine got worse. I had surgery to try and correct it a year after my discharge from the Navy, but the bastard that worked on me just screwed me up worse. Just as I was about to sue his old ass for malpractice, he had a heart attach and died.... just what he deserved, but no money for me.... By 1992, I was working for a small company as an independent contractor designing 4 separate assembly lines which spit out different size/shape thermal heat shields for cars to protect the catalytic converters. Spending 60-70 hours a week sitting in front of an AutoCad workstation for 7 months finally did it for me... The pain was intense, those old Vermont country docs wouldn't listen to me and refused to give me pain meds, so I would drive up across the border into Canada where I could buy "222's" - tylenol w/ codeine- over the counter and "smuggle" a dozen bottles at a time back into the States. I made another fateful decision- I simple HAD to come up with a business plan that allowed me to work from home, when I could, in the hours that I could. I simply could no longer withstand traveling around, working for other people, and just plain suffering- no matter HOW good the money was at my level.
Two more things happpened right at that time that spurred me into founding Graphica Design, and working from home. I wish I had saved the newspaper clipping, but I didn't... but I think it was the New York Times.... I read an article about the Government's Internet system, and how it would soon be opened up to the general public for commercial application. It went on to theorize how this action would revolutionize personal communication and business in general... and I said to myself "Self, this is something I need to check out." Now in the year 2004, it's easy to look back and see just how foresighted that reporter was... Anyway, back in '93, when I DID first get connected to the web, everyone knows just how painfully slow everything worked- particularly when it came to photos. I mentioned above TWO things... and the 2nd was that the first generation of CDROM readers were coming to the market. With the crazy way my particular brain happens to be wired, I came up with the idea of writing websites with a companion CD.... Informative websites for companies to sell their wares, with the large ("GIF" format, at that time) images linked to the users' local PCs. When I registered my very first website, there were only about 50,000 domain names registered in the world. Now, they register about 50,000 new domain names an hour.....
Back then, there were only a handful of HTML tags, and it was a cinch to learn them ALL. No JAVA or CSS or anything else to worry about back then. It really was a cool idea, and I had great design skills, but it took me a degree from the School of Hard Knocks to catch up on my business skills. To convince companies that there really was a market for their stuff on the Net, which they totally couldn't grasp, I'd do the websites and CDs free of charge. In return, I got a wholesale percentage of every order I took in, and got to sell the CDs. 100's of thousands of people still have copies of my old CDs in their archives or trash bins, but I had a major flaw in my Business Plan: Every time I got a site going and got the orders flowing in, the company involved finally got the Big Picture, and hired someone InHouse to do their own websites and retailing, cutting me out of the picture. Despite having written agreements with these assholes, I was just one guy and didn't have the cash flow to hire a good lawyer and go after them.
The final guy I did business with, selling someone else's goods, was the guy who made Liquid Latex. You know, the stuff you paint on your skin, party hardy with or have big sex with your partner in, then peel it all off in big strips. In no time, I was getting the stuff by the 55 gallon drum, mixing colors, repackaging into pints and quarts, and shipping all over the world. I was getting all my raw materials direct from him at real wholesale prices, and earning a respectable living... then one day, I opened up a box of the color tints used to mix with the raw natural latex to make big batches of colored latex for sale. In this box, he had forgotten to remove the manufacturer's labels... something he routinely did so I couldn't buy them cheaper direct from the source. With the profit margin I was working on, I really didn't care... UNTIL I read the warning labels on the tint mixtures. To my ever lasting horror, I read that these tints were SO HIGHLY TOXIC and CARCINOGENIC that it doesn't even approach being funny. I called him on the carpet about it, but he insisted that because the chemicals were mixed with the latex, the molecules were bound to the latex and didn't actually come into contact with the skin. Yeah RIGHT. So, I called the manufacture- with my caller ID Number blocked.... and told them what their products were being used for. Their chemists HIT THE ROOF... and so ended the Liquid Latex Business. If you search the Net, you can still find this stuff being sold. You'll also find a couple of pirate Latex websites that copied my pages word for word and still call them their own, before I deleted my own work from the Web... (I still have the original works backed up on CD, just in case someone decides to call me a liar in public...) They know who they are, I've given them a piece of my mind, but without unlimited resources to hire the right lawyer, there is nothing to do but move on with life. If you are still into Liquid Latex, just be sure to ask for the Chemical Spec Sheet before putting out your money...... 'nuff said.
However, from the ashes of Liquid Latex arose Spandexwear.com. After my experiences with selling other people's products for them (like the above) and the Liquid Latex fiasco, I decided that I would never again sell anything on the web unless I made it myself. During the long run of selling the Liquid Latex, folks repeatedly asked me how to make the latex permanent, rather than just painting it on their skin for a few hours of play. I came up with the idea of wearing a tight-fitting spandex garment- whether a glove or bootie or a full suit- and coating the fabric with the Liquid Latex. One of the reasons people like this stuff is that it shrinks about 10% when drying, giving them that really tight feeling they are looking for. The same applies to the spandex: By applying multiple coats of latex to the spandex and letting each coat dry, a permanent, tight fitting latex/spandex suit could be made. A STAR was born <G>
At that time, living in a tiny town of 200 people in the mountains of Vermont, I knew I needed a seamstress to make the new project work... and despaired of pulling it off. However, I asked at the local sewing supply shop (we actually had one!) and immediately got a referral to SeamMistress Loreen. We met several times and talked strategy, and the rest is History as they say. She made all the patterns and came up with all the mathematical formulae for making both standard sizing charts AND custom fit suits. I did all the webwork and order processing, AND took the train to the NYC Garment District to special spandex fabrics, zippers, threads, etc... Once a week, Loreen would deliver me completed garments, I would mail them out, and then give Loreen a new printed worklist and all the materials needed for the week. Customers continued to make special requests, Loreen kept figuring out the ways to meet them, and the Master Price List continues to grow to this day. I couldn't walk very well, and suffered with a lot of pain, but I could run the website and process orders and emails with my laptop, from my recliner, day or night depending on my condition at the time.
Spandexwear.com outgrew my tiny place in Vermont, and the snow and ice were talking their toll on my back. I moved to Florida, bought a nice place, and finally married a woman I had known since she was 8 years old. BUT...... into every sunny time of life some lightning has to strike. In May of 2001, while working around my new house, another "slip'n'fall" totally shredded my spine and previous surgery. I literally couldn't walk without 2 canes and was in BLINDING pain. I would go days at a time without sleeping, until my body would finally just shut itself down for a few hours. I had a crappy medical insurance plan, and couldn't find a surgeon willing to take me on as a patient. I started seeing a "Spine and Pain" Medical Specialist, but all he did was keep pumping me full of Oxycontin, and referring me to specialists that would take MONTHS to get in to see as a new patient. My insurance company would pay over $1100 a month for the pain meds, but wouldn't authorize the approx. $25K needed to fix the problem. THEN, I get a letter that my insurance company had dropped all policies written in the State of Florida as being unprofitable, and the State of Florida Insurance Board let them do it. THEN- my wife of just over a year wakes me up one morning to tell me "she can't spend the rest of her life living with a cripple." While I would crawl to the bathroom on my stomach, she cleaned out the house, left me bankrupt, and got a lawyer to force me to sell my own house. What I didn't know at the time was that she burned a CD of my customer database, website, and Master Sewing Manual... Those of you who remember who she is have already figured out what she did with it.... but that's another story. Dark were my days, and darker the nights, and many's the time I considered swallowing my entire supply of Oxycontin.
It was obvious to me that I couldn't keep running the still-expanding Spandexwear.com, and thanks to my wonderful wife, I was probably going to lose the business entirely. So.... I made the decision to "save my baby" and transferred ownership of the business to SeamMistress Loreen. Since day ONE, she had been the BEST person to work with, and if you haven't figured it out yet, I've worked with a LOT of different people over the years. The timing turned out to be perfect, and I saved Spandexwear.com from inclusion in the bankruptcy scavengers. I lost virtually everything else I owned, as Florida only allows you to protect $1000 worth of personal assets in a FEDERAL bankruptcy filing. Just bend me over again, you know???
AND THEN- it was like the Hand of God reached down and puled me out of the sewer. My parents came to see me, and literally dragged me to the VA Hospital in Tampa. I had been told for years that "No Medical Records, No Nothing" from the Veteran's Administration. No one, not one single Government Employee, EVER told me that in 1996, President Clinton changed the rules pertaining to medical care for Veterans. As long as I could prove I was a Veteran, I was eligible for free medical care. Before I knew what had hit me, I was entered into the system, given a computer-readable photo ID card and admitted into the Hospital. After a lot of new tests, they did the surgery I needed so badly- sort of. They cut out most of my mangled L5/S1 disc, but didn't fuse the joint. In a few weeks, I could actually walk sloooowly without my canes, but I'll never be free of the pain of this injury. I got a lot of free counselling, and in the end... I was enrolled in a special Morphine Management Program. I wasn't exactly back on my feet, but I was in a better position to start all over again with nothing,.. again.
Once again, multiple things happened quickly.... That asshole President DubYa Bush went to war in Iraq. What most people don't realise is, that for political purposes, he didn't ask Congress to authorize the REAL cost of the war... Yes, he got his initial 80 million bucks, but he also used his Executive Powers to rape many other programs of their authorized budgets and shifted the money into the War Chest. At a time when American Men and Women were being shredded and dumped into the VA system for rehab, he cut TWO BILLION DOLLARS from the VA budget alone. Because of my classification and "loss" of my original Navy medical records, I was cut from the system. 1 last bottle of Morphine, then I was out on my own again. Can you say "BITCH", boys and girls?
I had been ordered by the Courts to sell my nice house and it had a for sale sign out front, but real estate in my particular area wasn't moving very fast for whatever reason. 5 days after Tina died in my hands, a man walked in off the street, asked me what I would take for the house, and wrote me a check on the spot. As is, where is, closing tomorrow- the only catch was that I had to be out in 10 days flat. Talk about lightning striking twice. If you read my initial Welcome Page, you know by now that, even after the Courts and my ex-wife's blood sucking lawyer got done raping me, I DID have a little money left over to start anew with. I made a snap decision, and decided to move to a small tropical country I had visited in the Navy once, where I could live in peace.... and with the cost of living here, afford to have a small house and a maid and a houseboy to help me when I can't walk. Yeah... the surgery I was so proud of that was performed by the VA lasted exactly 3 months before that specific vertebra disc completely squashed. The meds that cost my insurance company $1100/month in the USA cost me less than $75/month over here. And, in the near future, my docs are going to remove my mangled spinal disc completely and permanently fuse the 2 bones together with plates and screws.
Well, Folks.... that's the basic story of how I got from being a kid in the moutains of Vermont to being WebMaster Bruce on a small tropical island. Once I have my spine fused and learn how to walk again, it's hoped that I can finally be detoxed from the morphine, and begin a new life with all the ideas I have in my head and my workshop. I'll post an update here after my fusion surgery, (which I can't pay for yet...), and once I finally get my Permenant Residency Visa processed by this country, I'll tell you all lwhere I actually am. Thanks for taking the time to read all lthis drivel, and if you can find it in your heart, I'd be really grateful if you could consider making a donation to my surgery in return for a copy of the book I'm going to write this next year.
WebMaster Bruce
