During my senior year in High School, I had ambitions to attend one of two colleges. Goddard in Vermont because of their enlightened "open" system, or the Rochester Institute of Technology, for photography. My parents were going through a nasty divorce, and I ended up enrolling in the Northern Virginia Community College.

After a disastrous first semester, I quit school and started working in the Medical Records Department of the Fairfax Hospital. It was my first full time job, and it involved working with some very interesting equipment, including modern microfilm cameras.