I I live in Lake Elsinore. When I moved out here it was a rural town in California. You couldn’t vote unless you could prove that you owned a shotgun, a pickup truck, and a dog. We only had two traffic lights, and one of them was a spare.
I moved here because, unlike most California towns, this one was still free.  If you drove around the lake, you would pass a mansion, a small house, a big mansion, and a 1952 Airstream trailer on blocks, side by side.  This was refreshing in a state where many subdivisions had rules about what color curtains you could put in your windows and would fine you if you didn’t curl up your garden hose neatly in your back yard.
Unfortunately, we got a Wal-Mart a few years ago, and a Home Depot about a year after that. Now we have traffic, stop lights, rules about what you can put in your yard, and a civic betterment league.  Heaven never lasts.
Like my sometimes co-author Leo Frankowski, I married a Russian Bride.  Up until recently, we spent part of each year in our apartment in Russia, and I loved it.  It’s like taking a magic carpet to a Wild West town with buildings from the 1930’s, people from the 1950’s, and gangsters straight out of the bad Hollywood movies of the 40’s.  Men fight, cuss, drink, sing songs in loud voices, and tell dirty jokes without apologizing.  Women flirt with the men, dress like females, and talk to each other about how foolish the men are. It’s a social heaven.
Like most authors, I've had more jobs than then I can list on this one page. I was trained as a psychologist and spent several years in the racket before I turned honest. I've also been a salesmen, sales manager, school chancellor, English teacher, landlord, male nurse, mechanic, and a bunch of other things.
When PC's first came out, I bought one and wrote a few games for my kids.  When my house filled up with neighborhood children wanting to play the games, I put an advertisement in a computer magazine hoping to sell a few games and recover some of the money I had wasted on the computer. Within two months, I had established Aardvark Software, and was writing computer games full time.  I created and published many of the early adventures and shoot-em-up games for TRS-80, Commodore, and IBM.  I wrote for computer magazines and published a small magazine of my own.  I was surprised to find out that I was creative. Never expected that.
Eventually massive piracy put me out of business and I moved west. There I worked for Capitol Records, EMI and Warner Brothers designing and installing their first PC systems and designing software for the music industry. I was promoted a lot, but the business cards in the entertainment industry are done in pencil and no one ever lasts long enough to retire. I eventually left, sort of voluntarily.
I eventually combined the skills from several of my professions and established ADM Software.  It develops software to manage drug addiction, alcohol addiction, spousal abuse, and similar court ordered psychological treatment programs.  Like most of my staff, I work from an office about 50 feet from my bedroom.  The commute is Heaven, but the Christmas party sucks.
As for my personal life, I have been married for 35 years, but, of course, not to the same woman. I was fortunate that my first wife ran off with my best friend. I sent him a thank you card, but he still won’t forgive me for sticking him with her.  My second wife was only a temp. We were married for 7 years.
For the last 14 years I have been married to a delightful Russian woman. She is 45 years old. I am 71, and we have a delightful 6 year old daughter.  That means that I don’t have to wonder about what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.



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