One of my Birthday Parties Guess which one is me?

But I have lived for just about 20 years on the little island of St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which 60 miles east of Puerto Rico and part of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles island chain, in The Caribbean, considered to be part of North America, in the Western Hemisphere on the Planet Earth, third planet from the Sun, etc... ;)

Anyway, I grew up in L.A., but I don't have the "Val-Speak" (Example: "Omigod! Like, gag me with a spoon, fur-shure!") or "Surfer" accent (Example: "Dude! Uh, like, sorry dude... I totally flaked!"), indigenous to the region of where I grew up. Tarzana is a nice, quiet community... except for the coyotes that would howl and laugh like hyenas late at night. Gawd, I miss those nights... They were so loud it sounded like they were right outside my window! It was kinda scary when I was a kid, and I remember many nights of waking up and running to Mommie & Daddy... But as I grew up, and as the neighborhood expanded south into the Santa Monica Mountains towards the Topanga State Park, I heard the coyotes less and less. I really do miss them.

My upbringing was pretty normal... But then we all have our own skewed view of what "normal" is. And "The Brady Bunch" was definitely NOT NORMAL, at least compared to my upbringing. Don't get me wrong, my Mom & Dad did a great job raising me. I could talk to them about anything (well, almost anything) and they were always there for me, my sister, and my brother. But there were many nights when I was younger where I wish I was sent to my room, punished, or grounded, rather than to get a slap across the face or spanked with a belt for doing something wrong. I turned out all right, but it would later irk me when my younger brother got into trouble, for things that were far worse than what me or my sister ever did, and he was never punished as severely as we were at his age. He had it easy compared to us... ;D Oh Gawd, I sound like one of those "Old Guys" saying, "You know, when I was younger we had to walk 30 miles to school, in five feet snow, up hill, both ways..."

My Mom & Dad.

Maybe I should say my upbringing was pretty abnormal? Afterall, my Mom has said many times that the best baby-sitter she ever had was the TV! She told me, along with her friends and relatives at a big family reunion-like party, that when I was a baby she would put me down in front of the TV and I would stay there for hours! I guess that's why I love entertainment, especially Science Fiction, so much. The Cartoons I would watch back then were filled with Sci-Fi... "STAR TREK - The Animated Series", "Planet of the Apes", "The Fantastic Four", "The Superfriends", etc... Then there were the other shows like "Land of the Lost", and something I barely remember called "Ark II", and then the rerun shows of STAR TREK - The Original Series, Lost in Space (Loved this show... except for that damn Mr. Smith guy kept screwing things up! Gawd I wished his whiny know-it-all ass would die! I'm sorry to say that now since that wonderful actor, Jonathan Harris who played him, is no longer with us.), The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery (which scared me a couple times), SPACE:1999 (love those EAGLE Ships), etc... My sister loved "The Brady Bunch" and since we only had one TV (Yes, these were the days of only one TV in the house and NO SUCH THING as a VCR, or Cable TV! If that shows you how old I am! Ha ha ha), and that was the only show she really liked, so I had to watch it (or go do my homework). ;D Then we had some UHF stations that would play "The Little Rascals", The Roller Derby (Nothing is better than seeing someone on roller skates fall over the side after getting an elbow pad to the face!), and many Japanese Cartoons... I don't remember the names except for "Speed Racer"... There was one I remember where this guy would ride his motorcycle into a mountain to become this robot, then there were these group of five kids who were in these bird costumes. Then the grand master, the longest running series, ROBOTECH. Loved the story, hated Min Mei's singing... Whoa! I've been writing too much about this, haven't I! Well, I could go on and on about Sci-Fi, lets change the subject.

"Don't Follow Me - I'm Lost!"

Anyway, 4th grade was the last straw for my Mom. What the school had done was to group all the troublesome, problem, and failing kids into one class. And because I liked to draw all day and do nothing else, guess where I landed! ;) My Mom wasn't pleased with this. So she took me to UCLA where I was "tested". I didn't know that I was being tested until after it was done. (Hey that's a cool mirror, I can see through one side but not the other! What gives?) They found that I was "gifted", and so I began 5th grade in Private School, and I really enjoyed it! In Private School, instead of getting D's & F's, I got A's & B's! Private School made me WANT to come to school, I started to really enjoy going to school! And when I missed it, when I sick, I felt bad about it, because I knew I was going to miss something I wanted to be a part of. I missed my old Public School friends, but I made new ones. I was in private School from 5th to 7th grade, and they were the best times of my childhood. (P.S. If you were in Mrs. Lee's 6th grade class at Fairfield Elementary School in Van Nuys, E-MAIL ME! I have kept our ONE and ONLY Yearbook! I will soon be making a website out of it so I will share that link when it's done!)

After 7th grade, my Mom & Dad couldn't afford to keep us in Private School any more. My baby brother may have put a crimp on the family expenses. So my sister and I started going to Public School again, and we were reunited with some of our old Public School buddies. After a few years there, we weren't getting the outstanding grades we used to get in Private School. And we found that many teachers in public school just didn't care about how their students did. I don't blame them, the school was overcrowded and with close to 35-45 kids in one class (as opposed to no more than 15-20 in Private School), it can be a burden, let alone impossible to give quality time to each and every student in just 40 minutes per period. But the few teachers that did, their classes were almost always full by the time you picked them. But my Sister and I both eventually made it through and Graduated High School.

Me & My Suzuki Sidekick in St. Thomas.

I then went to ITT Technical Institute in Van Nuys. I had a great time there too, it felt like Private School all over again. I aced everything thrown at me. I was there for 2 years taking "Architectural, Electrical, and Mechanical Drafting with CAD Applications". (Whew! That was a mouth full) I was the best in the class. And later, during my second year there, I was eventually hired as an Instructors Assistant to help the other students! I graduated with honors.

During my first year at ITT, I got my first job at TARGET Department Store. And I lucked out with the best job in the whole store... "Alignment Specialist"! My duties were to (1) help put up the shelves and displays for the items sold, (2) make sure all the items have the correct price on the shelf label by checking the item's UPC code with a portable scanner. (3) clean up the shelves and aisles by bringing items on the shelf to the front, picking up opened or misplaced items, and help out the occasional lost customer. And my manager was this guy who could have been a dead-ringer for Mario of Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers, mustache and all! Also, when you work in a Department Store, in The Valley, close to Hollywood... You meet many "Stars"... And I had the honor (or dishonor) of helping Comedian Howie Mandel. Here's the story... I'm aligning condoms or something in the pharmaceutical area, the store manager rushes over to see me and says, "The Electronics Area Manager is out to Lunch, and Howie Mandel is here! Can you go down there and help Howie Mandel with computers?" I've been using Macintosh Computers since '85, and knew a lot about them. In fact I had a Mac before it was called a Mac, it was this huge box called a Lisa, but anyway... The only computer TARGET sold at the time was COMMODORE-64's and 128's! :P And I am not a salesman... So I did tell him what it could do, and what it couldn't do, and that I've never owned one, so I don't know as much as the guy who is out to lunch right now... Needless to say, he didn't get one. Now I have met many "Stars" before, so it doesn't phase me. I just treat them like normal everyday people... But the reason why this sticks out in my mind is that I couldn't help but notice my coworkers hovering around me as I talked to him. I think they were all ready to bend over backwards to do anything for him... Puh-leeze! It's just Howie! Give the guy some room! I like him just like the next guy, but I know that most "stars", when they are off the stage, just doing everyday life, they like and want to be treated like a regular person. It's how I would want to be treated... unless I'm in some fancy restaurant where getting a table is a long wait. ;)

My Family at the Post Office Building Dedication Ceremony My Mom is pictured with my Aunts and Uncles.

After Graduating ITT in '89, My Family and I moved to St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, and I've been here ever since. My Mom & Dad have always wanted to move here. They were tired of the SMOG, the earthquakes, the gang related crimes on the news every night, the unsafeness of the neighborhoods where my Dad worked. (He's a Dentist) Also not to mention that L.A. has too many Dentists. So many that they have to compete with each other with Billboard Ads and TV Commercials... "$99 for a complete cleaning & check-up! Only for $99 dollars!" My mother is from The USVI. Her whole side of the family is from here. In fact we can trace our family tree back to one of the original crew members who went on that famous "second" voyage in 1493 and who stayed behind. ;) The de Lugo family is very big down here. I'm very proud of that ancestry, but also kinda' sad. Famous ground-breaking voyage, but greedy results. These islands were owned by six different countries, the last being the US They built the first US Post Office for these islands here on St. Thomas. My Grandfather, Alvaro de Lugo was their first Postmaster General for the islands. He even supervised the building of that first US Post Office, and in 1994 they dedicated the building to him and renamed it in his honor. (It was very cool) My Mom has 11 brothers and sisters, all of which have their kids, who in turn have their kids... So I have like a million cousins! :) Sometimes I wonder what percentage of the people on this island are related to me. At family parties, I felt like going around to everyone saying "Hi, I'm Brenda's son, and how are you related to me?" :D Anyway, my family was going to move, And I was going to stay in L.A. But my Dad convinced me to come down for a year, and if I didn't like it, I could go back to L.A. This was in '89, and I'm still here. Even after surviving three Hurricanes, I'm still here! And you know what's funny! We moved here in August of '89... Hurricane Hugo, the worst Hurricane to hit the islands in about 30 years, hit one month later! Then almost exactly six years later, to the day, Hurricane Marilyn hit us in '95. (Hugo hit on September 17th-18th '89, Marilyn hit September 18th-19th '95!) Then Bertha hit us in July '96, and recently Georges hit us on September 20th in '98, but they weren't as damaging as Marilyn was. My Parents now want to retire someplace else instead. But anyway, after Hugo in September of '89, VITELCO (the Virgin Islands Telephone Corporation) had an Ad for Drafters, my field. So I did the interview, and got the job.

Me and my CAD Station.

I was their Senior CAD Draftsman for 11 years, and my job there was very nice. (It would have to be if I continued to work there for 11 years!) I got a lot accomplished in my time spent there. When I started in October of 1989, everything was still hand drawn. There was an old 286 PC that had the AutoCAD Revision 9 on it that wasn't used for much other than electrical schematic drawings. By the time I left, almost nothing was drawn by hand anymore and our record maps were being digitized. A lot has changed in those 11 years.

A Picture of my CAD work.

But then around March 2000, I was offered a job I couldn't refuse. It was a career move that I felt was a unique opportunity for me and would be a new and interesting challenge. But let me start by providing a little background story...

In 1997 a new Internet Service Provider, VIAccess, came online in the U.S. Virgin Islands offering unlimited access for $19.96 a month. There was one other ISP here at the time called COBEX, but they had much higher rates, closer to $50 a month. I was one of their first Macintosh customers. And since they didn't know anything about Macintosh computers, I was their guinea pig for testing the settings with their service. We also came to an agreement. If I could field their Macintosh customer support problems, they would give me FREE Access! And so a beautiful friendship was born. I later wrote instructions for them to give the Macintosh customers, and even sold them my old Macintosh 7100/66MHz to place in their store for walk-in customers who wanted to use the internet but are not familiar with the Windows PC.

It was around this time that I created Cyber Media Designs, my own Web Page Design & Consulting business that I operated on the side from my work at VITELCO. I did pretty well with it, creating many sites that are still up as I originally designed them today. Gordon Ackley, the owner and founder of VIAccess and Wireless World, apparently liked my work. He has wanted to hire me to do web site design for the ISP for quite a while from viewing the work I've done on my client's websites, some of whom are customers/subscribers to VIAccess. And in February/March of 2000, he made me an offer to work for him. So after 11 years with VITELCO, and after some regret, I turned in my resignation and journeyed down the path of something new. Something I didn't go to school/college for. Something I did as a hobby on my own, turned into something mainstream that I would enjoy immensely.

I do have some regrets about leaving VITELCO. There were some projects I was working on that I really wanted to finish before I even thought about looking for something new. And I knew that I would be missed greatly, and my former co-workers would see a heavier work load when I left. But working at Wireless World was nothing but pure enjoyment. So much so that sometimes my work stretched into the night, past the normal workday hours, and I was happy to be there! I know I could go back to VITELCO. The door would always open for me if I ever wanted to go back, which was comforting to know. It is a rare, good thing when two different companies value your different skills so highly that they are willing to fight over you. And I have been blessed by this quandary.

So with much regret to Wireless World (now Choice Communications), after 2-1/2 years of working for them, VITELCO (now Innovative Telephone) stole me back, making a counter offer I couldn't refuse. I was sad to leave my job at Choice Communications, but now this gives me the chance to finish the projects I started and to meet my goals at Innovative Telephone.

But if I didn't have the jobs I had, I wouldn't be here in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's not the money, though it is nice to make a decent salary, that is never the reason why I work at any of my jobs I've had for so long. I have to enjoy what I'm doing and the environment I work in, otherwise I won't be working there for long. And I have loved all my work environments, from TARGET to now. The people I have had the opportunity to work with are great and really friendly. Though sometimes we have our differences and debate about procedures or issues, and though some of them have got on my nerves at times, we've all kept it at a professional level and have remained friends. And the people I have worked for are very understanding when I may need time off to do take care of personal matters. They have all easily let me make up those missed hours after work or on the weekends. I couldn't ask for better working environments. I have heard of places in the 'States where things are so regulated, right down to signing-out the pens you use, a real sweat-shop mentality! :P I could never work in such a place! But the kind of relationship with my co-workers, not to mention the jobs I do, keeps me happy and challenged so I don't loose interest. It's my main reason why I stay here, through five Hurricanes! If I didn't have these jobs, I would have moved back to the States (or Maui) long ago. Sure the money is good, but true happiness is that you enjoy what you're doing, and I truly do. The only way I could think of leaving is if I can get a job by Telecommuting... Where I can work from my home and have a BroadBand connection to access my work. Then I could live on the island of Maui and still work here from 5,000+ miles away! That would truly be great!