The Vertical Game - About the Author: Webmaster's Biography

This is the second incarnation of this particular page offering some details about yours truly. I managed to overwrite the first with an unrelated file . . . d'oh! That gives me license to describe myself completely differently this time around.

[Rather than rewrite this entire page, which had become quite dated in parts, by way of updating I have added a few comments, which are displayed in green. 1/2/05]

I'm one of the early Baby Boomers, born in Washington, D.C. in 1946. My father was a career naval officer, and we moved often. I spent a lot of time on both coasts and lived for two years each in Turkey and Japan. I graduated from high school in the Boston suburbs.

After obtaining a B.A. in Classics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon—and dropping out of college three times—I migrated to San Francisco in 1971 to attend law school.

There followed another three uh .. vacations (three has always been my lucky number

) interspersed among semesters of dreadfully boring classes. I did eventually earn my J.D. degree and California bar card, and I practiced immigration law in San Francisco from 1985-97, specializing in deportation defense. For the last ten years of that period I was a sole practitioner.

I bought my first PC in 1986 and was instantly hooked. It wasn't long before the computer interested me more than law practice. From the late '80s on I dabbled in computer-related projects as a sideline to the legal work. I designed and sold a relational database application (a case management system, with billing thrown in) for immigration practitioners and did some consulting work and desktop publishing.

As far as computing goes, I'm a lost DOS maven at heart, wondering what happened to my beloved command line prompt. [Ed.: Yes, I know you say, the answer is switch to Linux.] I accept and use Windows 98 [Ed.: now, as of Jan. '05, XP Professional] as a necessary evil, but I count myself a certified Gates- and Microsoft-hater. I still routinely run a lot of DOS programs because, simply put, nothing in Windows performs as well as the old DOS standbys in many areas (e.g., databases). I've learned some UNIX as needed for putting around on servers, and I've purchased the Linux OS, though I haven't yet taken the plunge and installed it. [Subsequent to writing this page I not only installed Linux on my own machine at home, but took several college courses in both Unix and Linux, and served as a TA (teaching assistant) in Linux System Administration at City College of San Francisco.]

When the Raiders returned to Oakland in 1995 I was absolutely thrilled. I knew some Internet basics but no HTML at all. I began this site as a means of teaching myself HTML while at the same time trying to make the Raiders less distant to fellow fans scattered around the world. I've never forgotten how lost I felt when the Raiders moved to Los Angeles.

Since about 1991 I have struggled off and on with bouts of major depression. I didn't seek treatment immediately because I was in denial of the condition for the first four years or so. Me, depressed? Hah! I was Ironman! I could work 70-hour weeks, year in and year out, sleeping and eating only now and then. Also, because I was self-employed and not making much income, I had no health insurance when I needed it.

Things worsened dramatically beginning in late 1996, and by the start of 1998 I was no longer able to work. I had been doing web design, working at home for several years, but I reached a point where lack of concentration and loss of stamina—both of them classic symptoms of depression—made it impossible for me to continue working on a regular basis.

I'm married, my second time. [Alas, no longer . . . ] I have a grown daughter, 29 [34], from my first marriage, and two stepsons, ages 15 and 12 [17 and 20], courtesy of my present wife's first marriage. They're wonderful kids, even though one hates football entirely and the other one is a Jerry Rice fan; you know what that means . . . My wife has also suffered from depression and is wonderfully supportive because she's been there herself.

My obsession with the Raiders dates from 1967. That year they went 13-1 under head coach John Rauch, with the Lamonica-to-Wells combo almost unstoppable, then lost to the Packers in what would later be called Super Bowl II. Before that I was a New York Giants fan for 10 years. In those days the Giants were a physical team in the way the Raiders would be a decade later.

I've done a lot of other types of work over the years. I've been a musician and bandleader (my original love), swung a sledge hammer in a steel foundry, done groundskeeping (on grass tennis courts, no less!), production control, lots of office work (as a temp), and stock and bond work for the then-Bell System.

Finally, I've been a New York Yankees fan since 1954 and a Boston Celtics diehard since 1957. Hey, I like dynasties! I was privileged to see both Bill Russell and Mickey Mantle not merely in the flesh, but also in the primes of their careers. For you younger readers, Michael Jordan couldn't carry Bill Russell's jockstrap. Russ brought defense, rebounding and overall team play to the fore in the winning of NBA championships. And as for Mantle, he had such speed (before osteomyelitis destroyed his knees) that baseball experts used to say he could have bunted .300 for a season had he chosen to. Not only did The Mick win three American League MVP awards, but he also finished second in that award's voting three further times, even while competing in an era with such AL stars as Harmon Killebrew, Ted Williams, Frank Robinson, Al Kaline, Rod Carew, and his own teammates Yogi Berra and Roger Maris. Not too shabby!