Do You Know Me?

I put together this page of boring biographical information to help people from my past to track me down.

I was born April 11, 1955 in Teaneck, New Jersey. They christened me Edward Joseph Rhodes. I grew up as a little boy in Saddlebrook, N.J, where my father, Robert Ernest Rhodes owned a television repair business. My mother, Dolores Alberta Rhodes, stayed home and took care of my older brother, Bob, and my younger sister, Mary Ann.

Around about 1960, my dad bravely packed up the family and headed for the west coast to take advantage of the aerospace boom. What an adventure that seven day drive across the country was! What an ordeal, with three rowdy kids in the back seat, and towing a big U-Haul trailer! Dad landed a technician job at Litton Industries Guidance and Control Division in Woodland Hills, California, where he worked until he retired. (My parents currently live in Carson City, Nevada.)

We lived in lovely Panorama City, California, a piece of the San Fernando Valley that was so small, it didn't appear on many maps. It is sandwiched between Van Nuys and North Hollywood. I attended St. Genevieve Catholic school, just a half a block from our house, for all of grammar school and high school.

In 1963, my final sibling, Michael, came along. (What do you call a woman who practices birth control as approved by the Catholic church? "Mother!")

I was to be valedictorian at my high school graduation in 1973, but a prank that my best friend Michael Palladino and I played at graduation breakfast got us dis-invited from attending the graduation ceremony. I think my other best friend, John Wade, escaped prosecution for that one. How did he pull that off?

I went off to college at Cal Tech (The California Institute of Technology--NOT Cal Poly!) in Pasadena. I lived in Ricketts House and drank a lot of beer. But Cal Tech was too intense for me, so I transfered up to Cal Berkeley (The University of California at the Republic of Berkeley) for my junior year. I was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in 1977.

I worked at Intel, Tandem Computers, Quickturn, Laserdrive, R-Byte, LaserByte, Studer Editech, Intermec/Norand, LinkUp Systems, and Neomagic. Somewhere along the line I picked up an MBA degree from Santa Clara University.

In 1985 I married Anna Curci from Ceres, California. We divorced in 1990. We didn't have children.

Let's see, is there anything else interesting about me? Oh, yes. In 2002 I changed my name to Elaine and changed my sex to female. I've written extensively about all of that on my web site, www.elainerose.com/trans

I would be delighted to hear from anyone who knows me from the distant past. Walter Ruzinski, Jeff Popp? Anybody from high school? Cousins, aunts, uncles? Are you tickled to find that someone you know has changed her sex? (I understand Mom and Dad have not been generous with news of my transition.) Please write me at lannierose@gmail.com If you can, include the secret word "Cali" (my kitty's name) in the subject line and I'll know it's not spam.

Love,
Lannie Rose
10/2003


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