(From the Fidonet AMIGA echodisk #6)

Ayuh.  I'm a "Maynah". I was born in 1955 and brought up in Maine
and damn proud of it. The older I get, the saltier I get. ;)

Lessee... My physical attributes are: I'm about 5'6" when I stand
up  straight,  my ideal weight is 60 kilos, but because I've been
on  crutches  for  a while, I'm about 70... That'll change when I
get  back  to my old active habits... Light brown hair that turns
wicked blonde in the Summer.

My interests are (obviously, because I'm single), women (Joyce...
heehee I had to get that in...), fast cars (I replaced the Camaro
you see in my pic with a 1987 Pontiac TransAm GTA - you know, the
one with the 350 CID Corvette engine in it - MAN that thing snaps
heads...), motorcycles (when my leg isn't munged up), boating and
helicopters (Join the WHIRLYBIRDS echo!!).

My first job was painting George Bush's pool in the early 1970's.
Since  then,  I've  been  a (in order, but I may have forgotten a
few)  photographer  for a local newspaper, maintenence man at the
Y._W_.C.A. (GREAT job... ;)

Professional  musician (backed up a few bands in the '70's at the
Orpheum  and  Gardens in Boston - I sang backup vocals and played
percussion  in  the  band, guitar and keyboards on the side (BTW:
During  that  time,  I could SIT on my hair... I was one of those
"commie  hippy  radical no good long hair faggot" types and proud
of it! I've since become rather conservative. Go figure.).

Went   on  to  play  FireFighter/EMT  for  the  local  call  fire
department  and two ambulance services. When my leg went South on
me,  I  gave that up and became a Police/Emergency Communications
Dispatcher for the Kennebunk Police Department.

From  there,  I decided all this computer stuff ought to pay off,
so   I  became  my  own  boss,  doing  what  I  call  "Electronic
Publishing"  (what  you  might  call Desktop Publishing... I just
prefer  "Electronic"...)  and  computer  consulting  of  sorts (I
travel to people's offices and homes to repair their botched hard
drives,  or  tutor  them in computer use, install chips - all for
$15.00  an  hour.  By  undercutting  the  "experts",  I  get  the
business!  Plus,  the  local  computer store that no longer deals
much  in  Amigas,  sends  me a lot of repair or installation work
they  no  longer  want to handle. :) I love it! I'm on the road a
lot  going  from  place to place and when I'm not, I'm here in my
home  office  doing what I want, when I want, making bucks at it.
I'm  not  making a killing, but I'm putting food on the table and
paying  the  bills. I may also get to work for our 41st president
next Summer...

My  computing  roots  began in 1983, when I watched "WarGames" on
TV.  Great  movie!  When  I  saw what he could do with a modem, I
wanted  in.  (of  course, I wasn't interested in hacking, but the
lure of things like BBS's is what interested me).

I  shopped  and  shopped  and listened to my brother tell me (the
engineer  -  now  computer  scientist)  "buy  an Atari", my other
brother (electronics technician - now computer scientist) "buy an
IBM". After looking at everything, I said "screw that" and bought
a Commodore 64.

In  December  of  1984,  I  opened  up  a private BBS and shortly
thereafer,   went  public.  In  1988,  my  BBS  was  reviewed  in
COMPUTE!'s  Gazette.  Shortly  after,  I  was reviewed in a local
paper,  whose reporter had seen the article. In 1989, I was asked
by Tom Netzel to pen an article on being a SysOp, and it appeared
in the March 1990 issue of COMPUTE (Gazette issue).

From 1984 to 1989, four C64's, three 128's and one SX=64 later, I
bought  my  first A2000 that I still run my BBS (Harbour Lights -
Oldest  damn  BBS in the State of Maine!), although modified with
2mb chip and accellerated 030/4mb fast RAM.

My other A2000 is soon to be Kennebunk Police Department's public
relations  BBS  (they just hired me for specifically that purpose
and  the captain was so impressed with the Amiga and DLG, he gave
me the option of selling my 2000 to them for their BBS.) An A3000
will take its place (soon with a Picasso...).

BOY,  this  is  long!  I'll end this here so as not to put you to
sleep if I haven't already... ;)

That's  me. Hope I didn't scare anyone with my pic. Hoping to see
everyone else and read the other bios soon!

Rick Lembree
Alias:
Riccardo Amiga (One of "The Three Amigas" - Carlos, Juan and Riccardo)

(Juan was on disk 4 - JTMaguire. Carlos just lurks... ;)


P.S.

Just one thing that is important that I say:

If  your  doctor  or  ANYONE  ever suggests that you need to take
steroids,  RUN  THE  OTHER  WAY  unless  it is a life threatening
condition you need them for.

Because I took steriods for a condition I had, it caused a severe
form  of  arthritis  in my hips. In 1988, I had to have both hips
replaced (Like Bo Jackson, the baseball player).

The  pic  I  submitted  was  taken  after the operation and for a
couple   of  years,  I  was  doing  fine,  being  active,  riding
motorcycles  &  bikes, boating, etc. In 1991, I lost a hip from a
freak  infection  and I've been walking with crutches since. This
past March, I had reconstruction surgery and I'll soon be off the
crutches, thank god.

The  main  thing  I  want to stress, is PLEASE, unless you have a
life  threatening problem you NEED to take steroids for, DON'T! I
wish  I'd  known  what I just told you, back then. I hope maybe I
can save one of YOU, the possibility of having this happen to you.
