Van Vangor:  

Life Howdy. Here's a thumbnail sketch. I didn't actually graduate from Port Charlotte High School. I moved to Boca Raton in the middle of my Junior year and finished High School there. Talk about culture shock! I graduated from Boca High in 1986 and promptly moved back to Port Charlotte. I wasn't going to go to college, but I couldn't find a computer job. The bottom line is that the Charlotte County job market really stunk back then. I ended up cutting survey stakes for Chase Wood Products in Whidden Industrial park during the summer of 86. That was one hot and nasty job. It was typically 105 degrees in the warehouse. I got splinters in arms and regularly, and I smelled like Karosene. Two months of that job got me an attitude adjustment and got me to sign up at Manatee Community College. While at MCC, I met Jody Kouba who graduated from Venice High in 1987. Ol' Jeff Zdenek did his first two years at MCC, too, as did Debbie DePaiva, and Tom Bould. We had a blast. Jody and I got married a year later in 1989, we finished our Associate Degrees, and we moved to Orlando to finish Bachelor's Degrees at UCF. It's a good thing that I got Jody to marry me when she did because I lost most of my hair shortly thereafter! I got stricken with some bad hair genes somewhere. Jeff Zdenek went off to USF in Tampa. I believe Tom went to USF, too. Debbie DePaiva went off to UCF, too, and got her Engineering degree. We didn't have any outside support, so we did the typical "poor student" routine. We had a couple of roomates, including Ken Bould from the class of 1985. We lived on Ramen Noodles and Bubba Burgers. We loved UCF, though. After a year, I ended up taking a full time job in their Computer Services Department (1990), and working on my degree part time. I didn't finish up my Bachelors Degree until December 1993. Jody continued working on her degree full time, while working part time in UCF's Financial Aid Department. She finished up in 199...Expand for more