My Autobiography

This is where I tell a little about some of the things that I have done and where I have been. With a little background, hopefully, it will make me seem a little more real.

Some may find this to be a bit dry.

The Early Years & My Teens

After my birth in Rochester, New York, I was raised in the suburbs, in West Henrietta. I went to Fyle Elementary School, in the Rush-Henrietta Central School (RHCS) District.

In my teens, we moved out to Wyoming County, where the population of cows is greater than that of people, first to Castile. I went to junior high and part of high school at Letchworth Central School (LCS). While in school, I had a summer job with the maintenance department at Letchworth State Park.

When we moved to Warsaw I had a summer job in the maintenance department mowing lawns at the Wyoming County Community Hospital. I graduated from Warsaw Central School (WCS), where the whole school body was less than my graduating class would have been at RHCS. I graduated with a regents diploma with special endorsements in mathematics and science.

After Graduation

After graduating from high school, I got an apartment back in downtown Rochester, while going to college. I took a computer programming course at Bryant & Stratton Business Institute, now known as Bryant & Stratton College (BSC). I worked at Burger King as a cook, at Marketplace Mall in Rochester. I transferred to the computer programming course at Roberts Wesleyan College (RWC).

Military Service

I joined the U.S. Navy (USN). I went to boot camp in Orlando, FL. After 'A' school in Meridian, MS. I was stationed at the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) Air Station in Beaufort (MCAS Beaufort), South Carolina. I was an Aviation Storekeeper (AK>, working in the warehouse doing supply, customer service, technical research and more. The Aviation Storekeeper (AK) merged with Storekeeper (SK), and then merged with Postal Clerk (PC), to become Logistics Specialist (LS).

After The Military

After I got out of the military, I moved back to Gainesville, New York. When the job situation was bleak, I moved with some friends to Colorado Springs, Colorado. While I lived in Colorado, I was the head receiver at Western Warehouse, a retail store selling western apparel, hats and cowboy boots. (They went out of business in 2008)

After returning from Colorado, Then I returned to New York and got a job as a cashier at Arrow Mart in Warsaw, a convenience store/gas station/Subway. After three years, when I saw there wasn't going to be much room for a promotion within the company, I took a business management course at Genesee Community College (GCC). I worked a couple of summers at Darien Lake Theme Park Resort, where I was a ride operator while going to college. After a safety incident at the park (employees sign a contract that we won't talk about accidents in the park, so don't ask)

After expenses started to become overwhelming, I ended up quitting to work full time instead. I went to work as a salesperson at Radio Shack in Batavia. Note: Radio Shack has changed a lot since then. They should change their name to "Cellular/Satellite" Shack, in fact, the Warsaw store has completely disappeared and no one even knew anything about it. I believe that there are only two stores left in all of western New York.

Married Life

At that point in time, I met my future wife, and we started dating. I worked a couple of miscellaneous jobs and married my wife.

Through Kelly Services, I got a job in Rochester at Staples Business Advantage (SBA), doing data entry. I had thought this might be a career job, even with a commute over 50 miles each way from Gainesville and a winter time commute that was at times more than two hours because of snow and weather. But when the price of gas rose to over $1.75/gallon (nothing compared to today) and my car started having serious problems and would no longer pass the state inspection, I put in my two-week notice. My car, a Geo Metro, died shortly after my last day with over 132,000 miles on it. (It seems that foreign-made cars are cheap to buy, but not to repair.)

My last job was closer to home at Valu Home Centers in Warsaw. The job was hard, manual labor at below average pay, but that is to be expected in Wyoming County, according to our own county Chamber of Commerce. where they say wages are 50-80% of the regional average. Even the farm jobs aren't paying much more than New York State's minimum wage. (NY Minimum wage was be raised to $8.00 in January 2014, then to $8.75 in January 2015 then $9.00 in January 2016, then $9.70 in January 2017, then 10.40 in January 2018, then $11.10 in January 2019, then $11.80 in January 2020, and will be going to 12.50 in January 2021. What are the politicians thinking? Everytime they raise minimum wage up, so does the COST of everything! Lower the TAXES, morons.)

Since the time of the previous statement, New York State has set in motion to again, raise minimum wage to $15 per hour, in the next several years. In comparison, my first job in 1984, paid $3.35 per hour.