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PI: Autobiography
Note: I have more links to add to this section once some photos are scanned. See my "Coming Soon" section for more details.
For those of you who know me, and that's a lot, you already know that I'm involved with computer art and computer programming. If not, read on...
K-9th grades
I was born at 12:36 PM at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis Missouri on April 15, 1975.
I first lived over by Green Park Elementary School, where I eventually went to for 1st grade.
We then moved to a street in Arnold which we nicknamed "Tundra Run" since it was so steep and icy in the wintertime. The ambulance couldn't get up the hill to get my brother who broke his leg when we were sledding when I was 7 years old. He was 5 years old.
We moved to Wellington Ct. when I was around 8. We lived there for a year or so until I was 9. Then my dad got a job with IBM in NY. So we moved to CT. He was a writer for The Globe Democrat paper in St. Louis but it was bought out by The Post Dispatch. My dad was head of the labor union that sued the Post for something. Cost the owners of the Post a few million dollars apparently for being unfair to the union workers.
Then after 2 ½ years I moved to Portland, OR on Valentine's Day of 1997.
So far I had gone to Green Park Lutheran School for Kindergarten and 1st grade. Then I went to St. John's Lutheran School for 2nd and 3rd grade. Those were in St. Louis Missouri. Then in CT, I went to John Pettibone Elementary School in New Milford, CT. It was my first public school. After that 5th grade was at Huckleberry Hill Elementary School in Brookfield, CT. Memorable events: In Kindergarten we played with big blocks that looked like bricks. They must have been a foot square by 2 feet long. I never got to play with them for very long. We built walls with them, but class usually started right as I got there. I liked those bricks though. On the last day of 1st grade, I kissed Jamie Ruppel on the lips on a school bus. It was full of everyone from K-8th grade. I don't know why I did. I had looked up her picture in a yearbook about a month or so earlier. Probably less depending on when they came out. She was sitting in the third seat behind the driver. I was in the seat behind her (4th behind the driver). I was looking out the window at the time. When the driver pulled up to her stop, he looked up in the mirror and said, "So Jamie, I hear this is your last day in St. Louis. I hope you like your new home in Texas." I realized that it would be the last time that I would ever see her. I shrugged it off and looked back out the window. What happened next was magical. I found myself standing up. I didn't know why but I remember that my brain couldn't convince my feet to work. They just had a mind of their own. So did the rest of my body. I didn't feel anything physical. I was just standing up. We both moved to the center aisle of the bus. Then without a word, she turned around clockwise and kissed me on the lips. Well I kissed her too on the lips. Then she turn around counter-clockwise and headed off the bus as I sat back down. Then an 8th grade boy yelled, "Hey driver! Did you just see that?" Then he looked up into the mirror again and said, "Yeah! I know& I know." It sounded like he was happy when he said it. Like with a smile on his face or happiness in his heart. I just looked out the window again as life went by. I didn't kiss another girl for 14 years after that event. Not even in high school. Not that I recall anyhow. I used to play Star Wars at Danny Doering's house when I was 5 years old. My Grandma Shipman once said, as she gave both my brother David and I a Campbells cup filled with green grapes, "If you have to spoil one child, you have to spoil them all." My mom didn't find out about that until I was in my early 20's. Hehehe&. My dad used to have a mural of the Moon in his office at IBM, but he doesn't remember it. I don't know why. He put it up like wallpaper. In 2nd grade, I had chicken pox and bronchitis. I get bronchitis every few years for a week. When I got back from being at home for the entire week, we had a spelling bee in class. I just spelled the words as they sounded. It wasn't long before I was the only one still standing. So then we had a spelling bee for the entire school. They said "Latter" which I spelled "Ladder". That's what I heard. Oh well. I guess a Lutheran school shouldn't ask words like that especially if they are generally assumed to be related to Mormons. I thought it was misleading and slightly unfair, but I didn't care. I was in 2nd grade. I had a fun time in the school play as a sailor though. I remember wearing a white hat and a blue costume with a white collar. I was totally into my coloring book page that someone had given to me before we started. Some mom came around and put bright rouge on my cheeks while I was coloring. I didn't stop coloring though. She was bothering me though, but my parents took a picture of course. In 3rd grade, I learned how to roller skate. I had never been on skates before. The Epille twins, Debbie and Sandy, had a birthday party at the roller skating rink. They were identical twins and I was the only one who couldn't skate. I hugged the wall a lot trying to stand up. They were
the window. Then I looked at her again and then out the window again. Then I looked at her again and thought "Wow! She's cute!". Ok girls had cuties. I remember that but I think that was in 2nd and 4th grades. I kissed a girl in 1st and thought she was cute then. I thought the Epille twins were both cute also in 3rd grade. I went to school with Rebecca Gruen aka Becky Gruen in 3rd grade. She will be important later on. Ok, she's the only person I met up with later on in life when she was 25. She's 6' tall! Kera was taller than me at the time. She was a foot taller. I looked up to her, literally. She shared a similar attraction to me which I noticed right away. We got along really well for 2 months but weren't sitting next to each other. Then the teacher put us together. Her name was Mrs. Cook. I thought I was in Heaven! That was the year that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. I remember wanting to watch the teacher in Space. Mrs. Cook got the news when she was asked to walk into the hallway by some guy. Probably the principle. Then she came back in and told us the news. I was devistated. I did well in math that year. I also had straight A's for the first time in my life. Kera called me one day and asked me if I'd go out with her. I had never gone out with anyone and was stunned by her request. I just laughed. I don't know why, but I was so happy. She took it the wrong way and never really talked to me again. I tried to talk to her but it didn't work out. Sad. She was pretty. She was held back a year in school, otherwise she would have been in 6th grade. When I asked her about the phone call, she just said it was her "twin sister" and left it at that. I didn't understand that at the time and didn't know how to make things better between us. Oh well. In 4th grade, I learned how to fight back against this bully in class. He was picking on me so one day I asked my dad how to deal with him. Dad said to take a swing at his nose and make it bleed. So that's what I did the next time I was picked on. It didn't bleed but I earned the bully's respect. He was thin and not big but forceful. I guess he wanted to see what I'd do. Anyways, someone stole my sissors in class one day. They were the safety proof kind. My dad had engraved my name on the inside of the blade with a hot solder gun. I couldn't find them in my desk so I went around the room and somehow knew who had them. I guess it was instinct. I opened their desk and took my scissors out and back to my desk. That was odd. In 5th grade I learned to play clarinet. I only played for 2 months though. I had my dad take me to a concert at the school. The band was playing and trying to get people interested in music. I wanted to play the clarinet. I don't know why anymore. Maybe it was just cool. We lived in a 200 year old house that we called "The Maze House". We all got lost in it when we first moved in. It had hand made nails in the basement. It originally was one room but was added on over the years. First the downstairs, then the upstairs, then the attic. There was a barn out back and a horse carriage garage with a loft way out to the right of the house. We lived on 5 acres of land but ½ of it was forests. Cool place though. In 6th grade, I started out at Whitacre Middle School in Brookfield, CT. Then I moved to Portland, OR on Valentine's Day and finished 6th grade at Robert Gray Middle School. I got straight A's again that year. I think twice in a row I just assumed that I would get them from then on. I really hadn't done much to get them. I stayed at RG until I graduated from there in 8th grade. I liked every school year up until 7th grade. I didn't like 7th grade much. I didn't fit in anywhere. I was really bright in math and science and creative writing but my language arts skills weren't very good. L.A. would be what most people call English class in high school. Think Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet. When I was picking up a textbook for 7th grade math, my teacher (some older lady I can't rem
In 9th grade, I started attending Woodrow Wilson High School in Portland, OR. It was down the street from RG. Oh, Mr. Powell, in 8th grade was the science teacher. He liked Pink Floyd and was cool. He kyacked. Come to think of it, all of my next few science teachers kyacked. I never fit in with any group at RG at recess. That was the last time I ever had recess. In 9th grade, I used to walk down to Burger King. It was a closed campus but I didn't care. I just left anyhow. I guess I'm looking for where I'm going in life right now. Maybe looking at my past will help me find my way forward in life. That's good for tonight.
9th-12th grades
Ok, where did I leave off? Ah yes...
I started high school in September of 1989. I went to Woodrow Wilson High School in Portland, Oregon. Commonly referred to as WHS. Our colors were green, white and black. That was the first time that I went to a school from start to finish. From what I remember, freshman year wasn’t that great. My favorite classes were Geometry and Computer Science. I liked abstract shapes and abstract ideas. Little did I know that years later I would end up working with abstract shapes and abstract ideas as a webmaster. Freshman year was kind of boring. I never did go out with Tanya Fritzche. She asked me to the Homecoming dance but I turned her down. I was tired of chasing her from 8th grade. I did like her though. I never did go to a dance that year. 10th grade was way more fun. I hung out with Andrew Millward a lot. Over at his house or over at mine. I had friends from class, but I’d never see them outside of school. Ryan Biggerstaff was one. Marco Marienburg was another. I remember Ryan being behind me by Round Table pizza. He called out my name on the PA system on his truck. That was so hillariously funny. Think about it… why would you need a PA system in the first place? Dunno, but we had fun in biology that year. Marco was my senior year lab partner physics class. All of the girls liked him. The brainy ones, the cheerleaders. He was the ultra tan soccer player. I played soccer too, but I never talked much. When I did, everyone was stunned. Like one day in physics, we had an engineer from Intel show up. He was talking about how he had been a bicycle engineer for a few years. Then he started working at Intel designing electronic microchips. For all you techs, that’s CPUs that you drool over. Anyhow, I asked him about the “Brain Chip” project at Intel. He was stunned! Literally stunned. Here is a high school kid who knows about what’s going on at Intel. Yeah! Well the two girls behind me, that I mentioned above, missed that day. 3 days later the teacher had received a letter and some information about the “Brain Chip”. What is was, before you keep wondering what I’m referring to, is AI or commonly known as Artificial Intelligence. The two girls where there and they thought it was my lab partner who had asked that question. They were stunned when they learned that I had. Maybe the smartest kids in class aren’t the straight A students, but the quietest. The ones who watch. When I was in 11th grade, I was in a political science class. Our assignment was a fictitious country called, “Bedlam”. Well it was pretty much landlocked but we had to campaign and come up with an effective solution to the problems of this country. We had weeks to prepare for it. People paired off in groups. I was alone, again. Remember 5th grade? Never trust anyone on a group project. You’ll always get burned in the end. When presentation day came, nobody really gave a presentation…. Except me. I gave an 8 card flip chart presentation that stunned them all. I never did find out what my grade was, but she strongly suggested that everyone else had failed and I had received the only A in the class for that project. I could read it in the tone of her voice. I think I ended up getting a C in that class. It was the advanced political science class.
High school didn’t excite me at all. I felt like there were invisible walls made of plastic. Everyone inside of those walls couldn’t see past the solid brick ones and how fake everyone was there. Yet I could see right through them and through the walls to what was beyond them… COLLEGE. In high school, I conformed to what the world wanted me to be… a computer science/science/math major. In College, I became what I wanted to be… an artist. Not artiste. Don’t even go there. 10th grade was ok. I liked hanging out with my best friend. I think I drooled over more girls that year than any other. Vicky Haring was hot but she was a year older than me and in HS, 1+ year is untouchable. At least I thought so. I took French, hated biology and other boring subjects like english, history and math. 11th grade was a rehash of 10th grade. Took up comp sci again. I had dropped it during 10th grade. I stayed with it in 12th grade also. My teachers hated Outdoor School time. Every Fall and Spring, I’d go away for a week to teach 6th grade kids at ODS. I loved it. ABSOLUTELY loved it. It was a place that felt like home. I loved camping and backpacking in the mountains with the Boy Scouts. ODS was out in the forest. So it was perfect and not the square walled dungeon that I knew as high school. I taught about plants, soil, water, animals, and 2 resources that the other counselors never did… multiple handicap and special needs children. Vicky’s brother Josh was a cool guy. We became friends at ODS. I had a crush on Vicky in 7th grade, when she was in 8th. She was a pretty blonde who was intelligent! She was an advanced math student and was in calculus, like I was, during her senior year. Soccer players are hot! I was after Kera Franzen also during my senior year. She was the captain of the women’s varsity soccer team. She wasn’t the reason that I coached it though that year. I was bored with playing. I had a chance to play mens varsity or coach the womens. Well I already knew about the one man game that every guy plays on the field. All for me and none for you. Passing was a chore. The women played a different game. It was all about the team and not about the individual glory. They were more concerned about another girls feelings than the game. If a girl was hurt emotionally, they’d stop playing. As weird as that was, I was intrigued by it. In college, my photography prof said that a photographer is ½ psychologist, ½ artist. People interest me. I watch them, how groups interact, but mainly what stupid idiotic mistakes that they make. Then I make a mental note NOT to repeat their mistakes. Think about it… don’t get a girl pregnant in HS. HS was not a happy time in my life.
College on the other hand was! I went to St. Louis Community College at Meramec. I studied subjects like engineering, architecture, photography, theater, aviation, digital imaging, acting, even more photography, and eventually 3D computer modeling, 3D animation and video editing. I had found the fun that I was lacking from WHS. Acting and Video Editing classes were like Outdoor School. In one word, BLISS. I made so many friends in those classes. My acting monologue was from the short play, “Eat Cake”. It was all about rape but in a way that forced or controlled my partner’s weight. She’d have to “Eat Cake” for I think it was months. Anyhow I borrowed a trench coat, a hat and gloves from a friend and totally pour my heart into that performance. I was menacing. That was cool. All of the other people in the class loved it. I drew from the movie True Lies for the character, which is a sharp contrast from who I am. Speaking of being on stage, I have been in 2 plays. One in the smaller stage and one mainstage productions. I was in a play called, “Bringing It All Back Home”. It was a play about a family that had lost a son in the Vietnam War and what happened in their home as the body was brought back to them. I was the deliveryman for the coffin and the hippie cameraman. I liked that play. During opening night, something went really wrong… well duh, something always goes wrong opening night… and everyone knows about it too! The sound girl/AD or Assistant Director was supposed to plug in the right tape recorder for doorbell and then the phone. She switched them. So the doorbell rings and someone picks up the phone and says, “Hello”. Then the phone rings and they answered the door. The father figure looked like Gerry from Big Brother 3. The girl looked was a blonde and was playing a dumb blonde role. We had actually flirted for the first few weeks in school but it ended up disasterous. We hated each other, and we hadn’t even slept together. Not sure how that fell apart but it did. Anyhow those two hated each other also. So when the dad started laughing under his breath and couldn’t keep it quiet, she yells, “Oh Shit” and breaks character. Oh the director was livid! The next few productions went smoothly after that. The mainstage play was called, “Fun and Nobody”. It was a play that had no set. We painted 3 10 foot by 10 foot cubes completely black. Then the position of those boxes became an abstract set. There were about 18 scene changes with the curtain up. We used velcro to stick things on the boxes as needed. We also had two black staircases that we painted and rolled around the stage. We had rehersals for moving every piece around and we were well correographed with the spike marks (colored tape) that was on the floor. The first act was all about the son and his friend. They would get busted for doing coke, and being drop out teenagers. The second act was about the boy’s deadbeat father who lost his job, became an alcoholic and shoots his wife… nearly killing her. She files for a divorce in the finale. I was one of the set workmen. I had tan coveralls and ran around on stage between major scenes. My scene was at the end when the father, Carl, was all alone and talking to himself. I was supposed to be the “voice inside his head” that talked to him. We rehearsed several versions of the ending. I’d walk out the back door, I’d leave the chair on stage and exit to the left, I’d take the chair with me, we’d just sit there silent in the same position until the audience got up and left. You name it, we tried it. Nothing worked for the director. Eventually she opted to cut my scene and have the other guy, who was also 6’2”+, talk to a pre-recorded message of his own voice. Yeah, whatever. It wasn’t my acting ability, the director didn’t like any of the endings. I don’t think she liked that one much more than the others. Anyhow, someone threw a punch at me on stage. So I playfully threw one back. The director went ballistic. Let’s go back to Referee training 101 shall we? Or how about Newtonian Physics 101! Every action has a reaction and only the reaction gets noticed. I lost all respect for her because of that. That was after the first scene was cut. Well whatever. It was a play that I’ve never watched on tape. I did watch my first one.
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Copyright © 1993..2008 by, Brian M. Kueck. All Rights Reserved.
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