From whence came you?

Being a Midwesterner, my ideas about SoCal were gleaned from TV, the movies and Bob Seger songs. Most of those ideas were negative.
Then we moved out west, and had the chance to visit my wife's sister and her family in Torrance. To my pleasant surprise, the "South Bay" area of L.A. is a very nice place to live.

 

Your sister ever run into Tarantino? He grew up in Torrance.

 

Ha ... he was probably there before my sister-in-law (they moved there about 10 years ago).

But it wouldn't shock me if that 1950s burger joint that Uma and Travolta visit in "Pulp Fiction" was based on a real restaurant in Torrance. Parts of that town have a definite "retro" vibe.

 

Born on Long Island, and lived my young childhood years in Commack, N.Y. Family moved back and forth between New York and California three times for my dad's job while growing up before we settled in Southern California, and I've been here since that last move.

Got my first newspaper job in a city the next town over from where I lived while still in college. Interned at the LAT and determined that I would work there one day, regularly, full-time and on-staff. Spent about 25 years in journalism, working on staff at several newspapers, including 12 years at the LAT at the end, before losing that job and freelancing and working a series of temp and part-time jobs for a while. Always wanting to really be part of something, though, I never loved freelancing and knew I wouldn't do it forever -- that if I couldn't get a regular on-staff job, I wouldn't be long for the newspaper business anymore. After working as a freelancer and intermittently in county jobs and various other part-time jobs during more than three years of under-employment, trying, and almost failing, to hang on to my house while I was at it, I took a cashier job at Walmart.

Time has flown by, and, come November, I will have been there 10 years. I'm now the online-orders pickup/site to store department manager in my store, with other possibilities for promotion likely to be coming up in the next few months.

 

Born in Alexandria, Va. in '76; four years of school in Blacksburg, eight years at a daily in Flagstaff, then 10 years at a daily in Lynchburg before leaving newspapers for a gig in the golf industry. Will be five years in September at the current gig. Best decision I've ever made in my life.

 

Born in SF, went to college and law school within 90 mi radius and never left; live in a SF suburb 15 mi outside SF

Been a lawyer for 30yrs and enjoy helping my clients and the challenges of addressing their problems and concerns; never boring

still play hoops 1/wk with great group of my friends and tee it up as much as possible (did not get handicap to single digits until after 50 so never too late!)

I have always loved sports; did my most reading with sports pages, magazines, and those awesome “hard back” “Greatest QBs” type books in early 70s. I came here to get the professionals POV and avoid crap (shouting) like Barstool sports. You guys provide what I was looking for. (Also, a reminder that even if our political and life views differ, we can still explore other POVs).

 

Born in ‘70 in Mansfield, Ohio. Spent about 25 years in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. Worked for about 12 years at the local afternoon rag, freelanced for the other paper, a medical website, and local sports, arts mag, and various other pay-the-bills gigs after the PM paper folded. Dabbled a bit in governmental PR with the state of Kentucky before returning to Mansfield three years ago to help take care of me Mum.

 

Born in 1976 in Lawton, OK, a city in southwest Oklahoma known for Joan Crawford, Kelly Stinnett and Will Shields, and for one year in the 1980s being the murder capital of the United States. Youngest of five kids. Mom was a stay-at-home mom when I was born and was raised on a farm in Oklahoma. She went on to be a diner cook and waitress before hurting her back and going on disability. Her dad, according to her stories, was born on the ship to United States from Germany. My dad was in the Army, served two tours in Korea and one in 'Nam. He passed when I was 9, but he's the reason I'm into sports. He always made sure my brother and I got to play soccer (he paid the fees), and some of my fondest memories of my childhood were watching football at his place after my parents' divorce.

Graduated from Lawton High School (Hanta Yo!) and was a National Merit Scholar. Attended the University of Oklahoma, where I was a political science major (fancied myself the next James Carville for a spell) but started working at the school paper toward the end of my time in Norman and decided journalism was where I wanted to go. Worked at the Wichita Falls Times Record News, Lawton Constitution (where I managed to piss off half the city by writing a tngue-in-cheek, smartass column that declared cheerleading wasn't a sport) and finally landed the Tulsa World, where I've been for nearabout 15 years. Really, spent pretty much my entire working life in newspapers. Started throwing papers in junior high.

Have used three or four different screen names on this account. Started as yngokie. Eventually was GlenQuagmire (the first one of at least two of us) when I started thinking I wasn't really young any more. Might have had another one in there, too. After I found out posting on here actually cost me a gig (which I didn't know at the time it happened and turns out was a blessing), I ditched anonymity and started using my real name.

Married with two kids who are both national marching band champions with the Pride of Broken Arrow. One is graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in chemical engineering. The other is currently a TU student majoring, for now, in electrical and computer engineering. Wife works for our local school district and is pretty awesome.

Collector of comics and loving of all things nerdy. Really want to get back into playing D&D and other roleplaying games from my youth.

Also known to write too long on assignments.

 

My nephew is on TU's football team; recovered a fumble in one game on TV this past season. He might play a lot at LB the next few years.

 

That's awesome! My son is in the marching band, so we go to just about every home game. I hope we'll be seeing lots of your nephew!

 

Trivia:
My great grandparents owned about 500 acres. My grandfather was one of 10 kids, so it got divided up. My immediate family are the only ones still holding onto our portion of the family farm. We sort of have a compound.
My primary home was my grandparents house. This is the fourth house I've lived in within a few hundred yards of one another.