| Hi,
I am bigBrian. I live in Charlotte NC. But I grew up in Anaheim CA, and Huntington WV. In Anaheim I developed my enthusiasm for Disney in general, and Disney theme parks in particular. I was born at San Diego Naval Hospital in 1967. I remember living in Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Anaheim. In Anaheim we lived near Ball Junior High School. From the back of the athletic field there, and at the neighboring elementary school you could see the top of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad once construction began on it. Most of my years growing up in southern California we went to Disneyland about twice a year but the frequency increased as we grew older, moved closer, and realized we were going to move away. The last year I went several times even by myself a couple times. (I was 14 when we moved away in 1981). In Huntington I went to a wonderful small high school (Vinson High School class of 1985), did a few semesters of college ( Marshall University ), and met and married my now ex-wife . We tried to make a living in WV I passed 300 local papers every morning (Up at 3 am 365 days a year yuck!) and 100 USA todays (Mc paper) when I wasn't sleeping or passing papers or collecting on my paper routes (for years afterward I had dreams that I was behind on my collecting and I woke up relieved and happy to know that life is behind me) We played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with a group at the university, or visited our other friends. I moved to Charlotte in 1989 one day after hurricane Hugo had came through (what a mess). One of the first places I put in an application was an industrial plant the roof of which looked to be mostly in their parking lot. So being fall I figured some of the stores would be hiring for Christmas and just applied everywhere. I was hired at Toys-R-Us. Worked there a few weeks before getting on with the construction firm that employed the friend who let me move down here with him (an old high school/AD&D buddy , thanks Denver). Because of that month whenever I go uptown I can look up at one of the skyscrapers (Interstate Tower) and say I helped build that. A month or so later I got hired by the company who had their roof knocked into their parking lot by Hurricane Hugo, Armin Plastics. They liked me so much they gave me a turkey along with my first paycheck (ok so it was Thanksgiving) and I've been there ever since. In 1996 my moms union held their annual convention in Orlando FL. So, my sister,
Michelle and her husband George asked if my wife at that time, Carmella,
and I wanted to go down
too. We said yes. Carmella ended up
changing jobs and so decided not to go. I talked to her about it and she
was ok with me going so I did the trip was great. After getting back from
Disney World I was watching cable one day checking out some new stations
our system had recently added. One of them was MSNBC. I already had two
good friends who have computers so I decided to keep an eye on this
channel (which on that time covered computers a fair bit)
some to see what was so great about computers. I also had a
Texas Instruments TI99/4A, back in high school days,
that hooked to the tv, rather than a monitor, it
was cool but the board crystallized or something and getting another
computer wasn't an option for me back then (about 1984). Any how, one day I was
checking this channel out and on the show called "the site" they mentioned
Yesterland, a web
site devoted to former Disneyland attractions ... This I could
understand how I might be interested in. So, when I found out about the
virtual library we have here (through the regular library, it's great) I went
down and started checking out Disney web pages. About 9 months later we
got a computer ( my wife wanted one too). With this I am able to
do something not allowed at the public library IRC- Internet Relay Chat. I
have made some wonderful friends this way particularly in the
radp-friends room formerly found on anothernet then on sandnet now on
different.net. Just imagine a whole room full of Disney fans chatting
away! I would have been so happy to have just one friend who understood my
interest in Disney now I have many! Just goes to show that sometimes
technology really does make life better |