The Rakshasa's Lair [my picture]

WARNING! Still under construction

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Hello, and welcome to my homepage, V1.1.

I'm still in the process of authoring this page, and I have found that a very handy resouce for me has been the HTML Primer at UIUC. It contains a fairly robust tutorial for putting all of the pieces together to make a WWW page, and has a good list of references for other resources.

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Background

I was born and raised in and around Pittsburgh, PA. Spent most of my summers (and quite a few of my winters) swimming, either for a club, or my high school.

I was active in swimming, and marching/concert bands throughout high school, as well as trying my hand (well, voice, really) at choir. After high school, I attended Penn State University, studying geography, living the life of a computer geek wanna-be *grin*, playing in the Blue Band, and working summers at Kennywood Amusement Park (coming to a WWW page near you soon!).

I met my fiancee over the computer in October of 1990, and proposed to her 6 months later. Unfortunately, she lived in Illinois, where she was going to school, and I was still in Pennsylvania. So, for the next 4 years, we managed to somehow keep a long-distance relationship alive and well.

In the summer of 1984, I got tired of living 1000 miles away from my fiancee, and so, I packed up my belongings, and moved to my current home, Champaign, IL. The wedding date is (potentially) October 14th, 1995, so cross your fingers!

Hobbbies/Interests

My first and foremost interest is computers. I've been around them since the days of the Timex/Sinclair (remember that one, folks?), and my first computer was a Commodore VIC-20, with the tape drive and everything...

I love cooking... comes naturally, from my heritage (Italian/Slovok). My favorite recipe is lasagne, but I can do just about any cuisine, given enough preptime. Hopefully, next year, I'll be doing a formal dinner for my in-laws.

As for my other hobbies, I like kiteflying, pinball, giving backrubs (and receiving them!). I am also an avid amateur juggler. And, actually, if you are looking for more information about juggling, check out the Juggling Information Service. It's full of resources on how to get equipment, how to do tricks, records, and lots of other useful information. Check it out...

Vital Statistics

The Rakshasa

The rakshasa is humanoid tiger-demon from Hindu mythology. A good description of its demeanor comes from the rulebook for the role-playing game _Chill_, 2nd edition, Mayfair Games:

"Rakshasas are completely evil, powerful creatures that delight in spreading fear, confusion, chaos, and destruction among human families and communities, finishing the trouble they cause in a murderous, ghoulish feast upon human flesh. They are among the most feared of all creatures, for they delight in mental torture of their victims.

"Rakshasas prefer their human forms to all others, such as dog, vulture, owl, or tiger. In this form, they mix freely with humans, participate in their social, political, and economic affairs, and generally seem to be perfectly normal, extremely attractive individuals. Their goal while in this form is to cause as much division, mustrust, confusion, and hatred as possible, especially within one family or group they have chosen as a victim.

"For example, a rakshasa might spread a foul rumor about the younger son of a family of potential victims, knowing that the father in the family will react to outrage to what he thinks is his son's wicked behavior.

"The final goal of the rakshasa is to see that the mistrust and hard feelings it stirs up will erupt itno violence. Once the creature has brought the tempers of key people in a group to a boiling point, it lures the group to some lonely area, where it does everything in its power to cause the humans to begin slaughtering one another. When the violence is over, the rakshasa settles down to its ghoulish feast."

Jeff Kochosky / Juggling Home Page Service / mongoose@pilot.njin.net