I’ve got about 16 hours of my thirties left and that seems rather momentous to me. I can clearly remember my friends and coworkers in the Santa Monica office throwing me a little party ten years ago as I forever left my twenties behind.  And here I am on the cusp of doing the same…

After graduation, I moved back to my parent’s house. They lived in Northridge, California, but the earthquake earlier that year had forced them out of their house and into a rental nearby while their house was repaired.  I worked most of that summer of that summer doing computer work for the dorm cafeteria at UC…

Sometime in the spring of 1994, the last semester of senior year at college, me and a bunch of friends headed over to the local theater one evening to catch the film With Honors. I knew nothing about the movie going in, but it ultimately dealt with college kids (at Harvard, I believe) and at…

Senior year in college zoomed by. I was playing catch-up, taking extra classes in order to make up for some of the slower semesters in my sophomore year. I took 16 units first quarter of senior year, 20 units second quarter, and, with special permission from the Dean, 24 units my last quarter. I was…

My first two years in college were a kind of on-the-job training at independence. I wasn’t very focused on the actual classes in my sophomore year and my grades suffered to some extent because of that. In the summer that followed my sophomore year, however, my and two friends got an apartment just off campus.…

In between all of the classes and the work in the dorm cafeteria that freshman year at UCR, there was some occasional recreating. The first fraternity party to which I ventured was a KA party somewhere just off campus. My roommate drove there and there were three or four of us in his car. Out…

When I think of the early part of my freshman year at college, there is only one album that comes to mind: Sting’s The Soul Cages. In June of 1990, I graduated from high school. After graduation there was a big party at one of my friend’s houses and even one of our well-liked teachers…

The Cleveland Humanities Magnet class of 1990’s class song was Richard Marx’s “Hold On To the Night.” I had nothing to do with the choice. But the song does remind me of senior prom and that leads into the topic of school dances. Since that dance way back in seventh grade, I was never a…

During my senior year in high school, I went to my first concert. I wasn’t as good as I am today at keeping track of things back then. But the concert had to take place on either March 3, 5, or 6. That’s when Aerosmith played at the Great Western Forum as part of their…

I absolutely hate it when I know that I am right and no one else believes me.  I hate it. During my senior year of high school, I was still working at the stationary store in the early part of the school year and was heading into work with friends. I was sitting in the…

Do you remember the last drive-in movie you went to? For me it was in the summer of 1991, although I would have bet real money that it was during my senior year in high school. This is one of those instances where my timeline is off and my memory has failed me. If I…

Eleventh grade was a rather remarkable year. Not only did we experience the two-week bliss of the Los Angeles Unified School District teacher’s strike, but our humanities magnet program experimented with a “school without walls” program that allowed us to spend a fair amount of time on the campuses of Cal State Northridge and UCLA.…