Parasol's Bar, Constance and Third Streets in the Irish Channel I
was born on November 2, 1958 in Methuen, Mass. My mom (who passed away a couple of years ago) was a native New Orleanian, and my dad was a New Yorker who worked for Raytheon in Boston. They met when Daddy was in the Air Force and stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi. While the job was a good one, Mom couldn't take the snow and the cold. About three my sister Beth was born in October of 1959 (my kid sister, Bridget, was born in 1967), Mom told Daddy she was moving back to New Orleans and he was welcome to join her. So, the family packed up and moved to Metairie. My folks rented a house on Bonnabel for a year or so, then bought a small place on Dream Ct. in Old Metairie. We stayed there about six years, when my parents wanted something bigger. They sold the house and we lived in an apartment for about a year and a half while they looked at whether or not to buy or build. They settled on house in Whitney Heights on Clifford Drive, two blocks from the lake. Beth moved back from Houston with her family two years ago, and Daddy sold them the house. He's now in an apartment (peace and quiet with no upkeep responsibilities)
Education Momma was a teacher and school principal, at J.C. Ellis Elementary in Metairie. I went there for first through fourth grades (after going to Kehoe-France for kindergarten).
Momma moved Beth and I when I was in fifth and Beth in fourth to St. Angela Merici, figuring it would be easier to get us into Catholic high schools if we were attending Catholic grammar schools. I attended St. Angela
for fifth to seventh, and went to Brother Martin High School in Gentilly starting in eighth. It was at Brother Martin that I began the period where I told people that I "slept" in Metairie, but I
"lived" in Gentilly. I never considered Metairie my home neighborhood because I didn't do much there. I was always at school for an extended period of time in the afternoon, participating in extracurricular
activities, etc. I really began to appreciate how much Gentilly was (and still is) a living, dynamic neighborhood, as opposed to the boredom of suburban Metairie. After Brother Martin came four years at the University
of New Orleans (a no-brainer college choice, since Daddy worked in the Physics Department as manager of the Electronics Shop, a job from which he recently just retired). I graduated in the spring of 1980 with a BA in
Secondary Education (Social Studies). Life as an Adult I spent the summer after graduation working for the Orleans Levee Board Police as a radio dispatcher, and was seriously
considering becoming a OLB cop when a job opening came my way at Redeemer High School. Redeemer was the school that resulted from the closures of St. Joseph Academy (Momma's alma mater, btw), and Redemptorist High
School from up in the Irish Channel. The Archdiocese made a call that Remptorist was worth saving, so they gave the St. Joseph's campus to them and closed the all-girls school completely. The name of the school changed
because the Redemptorist Fathers were pulling out of the school altogether. Anyway, with the addition of the young ladies from St. Joseph's, the size of the student body almost doubled, requiring additional teachers. I
taught at Redeemer for four years, working at Radio Shack as a salesperson in the evenings. In 1982, I married my college sweetheart, Helen Ann Vigo, and we lived in half a double in Gentilly (not far from my work, a
single bus ride for Helen to get downtown, and very close to her parents' house). By the end of the school year in 1984, it was obvious to us that I was going to have to make a career move if we were going to buy a
house. I worked full-time for The Shack for about a year after leaving teaching. While selling computers, I regularly got offers to do programming, setup work, training, etc., from Shack customers. These offers,
combined with meeting other computer professionals in the area, prompted me to leave the Shack and become a consultant full-time. That's how Seashell Software was born. I did consulting/training/programming/web work on
my own or sub-contracted to various companies from 1984 until 1997. In the summer of '97, I got the proverbial offer-I-couldn't-refuse, working as an analyst for Pan-American Life Insurance Company. The money was a
good offer, enough to make me give up the freedom of working for myself. When the corporate-level mis-management of Pan-American came to a head in early 1998, it was clear that my job (which basically consisted of new
project developmet for the actuaries of the Group Insurance line of business) would be one of the ones cut. I'm back to doing consulting, but I'm also on the prowl for the right job--much as I enjoy the heck out of
working for myself, the security blanket of a 'job' makes things less stressful here at home. Kids We bought a house in Metairie shortly after I left teaching, and began to give thought
to having children. Our first, Justin, was born in 1988. He was followed by Kathleen in 1990. Kathleen, unfortunately, was born thirteen weeks premature. She died 17 months later of heart failure (a result of serious
lung problems she had from birth). Needless to say, losing Kathleen was a big blow to all three of us. Some of the emptiness from that loss was filled by the arrival of Kevin on July 2, 1994. Justin still misses his
sister, and sometimes is a bit overprotective of his little brother as a result. Things are pretty exciting for me these days, since the challenges of working various contract projects are exciting. I do a lot of
different kinds of computer work, but am doing some interesting web work at the moment.. Justin is entering his seventh year of youth soccer (he's in Under-12 now, playing on a full field with 11 on a side), and Kevin
is now in the U-6 division, with big brother very excited about helping out his brother's team. I am entering my third year as a United States Soccer Federation (USSF) referee. I enjoy refereeing youth and amateur
soccer a great deal, and cheering on my own kids when they play. |
