(From the Fidonet AMIGA echodisk #6) Ayuh. I'm a "Maynah". I was born in 1955 and brought up in Maine and damn proud of it. The older I get, the saltier I get. ;) Lessee... My physical attributes are: I'm about 5'6" when I stand up straight, my ideal weight is 60 kilos, but because I've been on crutches for a while, I'm about 70... That'll change when I get back to my old active habits... Light brown hair that turns wicked blonde in the Summer. My interests are (obviously, because I'm single), women (Joyce... heehee I had to get that in...), fast cars (I replaced the Camaro you see in my pic with a 1987 Pontiac TransAm GTA - you know, the one with the 350 CID Corvette engine in it - MAN that thing snaps heads...), motorcycles (when my leg isn't munged up), boating and helicopters (Join the WHIRLYBIRDS echo!!). My first job was painting George Bush's pool in the early 1970's. Since then, I've been a (in order, but I may have forgotten a few) photographer for a local newspaper, maintenence man at the Y._W_.C.A. (GREAT job... ;) Professional musician (backed up a few bands in the '70's at the Orpheum and Gardens in Boston - I sang backup vocals and played percussion in the band, guitar and keyboards on the side (BTW: During that time, I could SIT on my hair... I was one of those "commie hippy radical no good long hair faggot" types and proud of it! I've since become rather conservative. Go figure.). Went on to play FireFighter/EMT for the local call fire department and two ambulance services. When my leg went South on me, I gave that up and became a Police/Emergency Communications Dispatcher for the Kennebunk Police Department. From there, I decided all this computer stuff ought to pay off, so I became my own boss, doing what I call "Electronic Publishing" (what you might call Desktop Publishing... I just prefer "Electronic"...) and computer consulting of sorts (I travel to people's offices and homes to repair their botched hard drives, or tutor them in computer use, install chips - all for $15.00 an hour. By undercutting the "experts", I get the business! Plus, the local computer store that no longer deals much in Amigas, sends me a lot of repair or installation work they no longer want to handle. :) I love it! I'm on the road a lot going from place to place and when I'm not, I'm here in my home office doing what I want, when I want, making bucks at it. I'm not making a killing, but I'm putting food on the table and paying the bills. I may also get to work for our 41st president next Summer... My computing roots began in 1983, when I watched "WarGames" on TV. Great movie! When I saw what he could do with a modem, I wanted in. (of course, I wasn't interested in hacking, but the lure of things like BBS's is what interested me). I shopped and shopped and listened to my brother tell me (the engineer - now computer scientist) "buy an Atari", my other brother (electronics technician - now computer scientist) "buy an IBM". After looking at everything, I said "screw that" and bought a Commodore 64. In December of 1984, I opened up a private BBS and shortly thereafer, went public. In 1988, my BBS was reviewed in COMPUTE!'s Gazette. Shortly after, I was reviewed in a local paper, whose reporter had seen the article. In 1989, I was asked by Tom Netzel to pen an article on being a SysOp, and it appeared in the March 1990 issue of COMPUTE (Gazette issue). From 1984 to 1989, four C64's, three 128's and one SX=64 later, I bought my first A2000 that I still run my BBS (Harbour Lights - Oldest damn BBS in the State of Maine!), although modified with 2mb chip and accellerated 030/4mb fast RAM. My other A2000 is soon to be Kennebunk Police Department's public relations BBS (they just hired me for specifically that purpose and the captain was so impressed with the Amiga and DLG, he gave me the option of selling my 2000 to them for their BBS.) An A3000 will take its place (soon with a Picasso...). BOY, this is long! I'll end this here so as not to put you to sleep if I haven't already... ;) That's me. Hope I didn't scare anyone with my pic. Hoping to see everyone else and read the other bios soon! Rick Lembree Alias: Riccardo Amiga (One of "The Three Amigas" - Carlos, Juan and Riccardo) (Juan was on disk 4 - JTMaguire. Carlos just lurks... ;) P.S. Just one thing that is important that I say: If your doctor or ANYONE ever suggests that you need to take steroids, RUN THE OTHER WAY unless it is a life threatening condition you need them for. Because I took steriods for a condition I had, it caused a severe form of arthritis in my hips. In 1988, I had to have both hips replaced (Like Bo Jackson, the baseball player). The pic I submitted was taken after the operation and for a couple of years, I was doing fine, being active, riding motorcycles & bikes, boating, etc. In 1991, I lost a hip from a freak infection and I've been walking with crutches since. This past March, I had reconstruction surgery and I'll soon be off the crutches, thank god. The main thing I want to stress, is PLEASE, unless you have a life threatening problem you NEED to take steroids for, DON'T! I wish I'd known what I just told you, back then. I hope maybe I can save one of YOU, the possibility of having this happen to you.