I’ve worn so many hats I’m amazed I don’t have a headache.
I was born in 1980 and grew up in a small town near Calgary, Alberta, Canada. While I grew up during the ’80s and ’90s, I’m not a product of either decade as I had no television at home, so my view of the pop culture then is, shall we say, a tad limited. My enjoyments were mostly books, music (mostly older than I am), and Merkur (a metal construction set).
I graduated from high school in 1998, but I took an extra year to get some more courses in.
In the early Noughties, I took some courses in musical instrument repair in Keyano College up in Fort McMurray (which is why I can play all the instruments that I do).
In 2008, I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from DeVry Technical Institute in Calgary (as a side note, DeVry no longer has a Calgary campus). This degree has absolutely nothing to do with my current job. What a surprise.
I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried. The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. I affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and to life in the world to come. Amen.
Blame my mother for this one. My mother used to play piano and tried to teach me to play as well; I’m not very good even today but I can do it.
I also have a large collection of wind instruments. My main instruments are the recorder (I have many) and the saxophone (I currently have four: Alto, Melody, Tenor, and Baritone). I also own a few clarinets, a bassoon, and waaaaay too many brasswinds.
And yes, I can play them all. From 2001 to 2003, I took a course in musical instrument repair at Keyano College specializing in wind instruments and part of that was, of course, learning how to play them. I’m not very good on most of the instruments I own, but I can indeed play them.
While I’ve never been in a band outside of high school, college, and the Calgary Westwinds Society, I attend as many jam sessions as I can.
Lastly, I’ve done a little composing of my own. If you go to Recordings and MIDIS
, you can hear some of the music I’ve written.
Merkur—like Meccano and Erector— is a construction set in which you assemble metal pieces together to make a model of something. Or, as was sometimes the case something of practical use. Photos of my Merkur models can be found in the Photo Album.
I have an old friend who goes by the online name Wolfie Fox to thank for getting me into this.
I first learned HTML when I took over Wolvesbane Keep and got a hacking threat, which prompted me to move the whole thing over to a free host called 0catch. But while the original host, Angelfire, had a tool you could use to create webpages, 0catch did not, which meant I had to learn how to actually do this. I learned through asking others, reading what few tutorials existed back then, and going from there. About the same time I began to bash together my own site, using the same knowledge
.
Somewhere along the line, Wolfie Fox, who was in the webdevelopment community at the time, suggested I learn how to do HTML properly and introduced me to various forums and tutorials.
I was hooked.
I soon learned to enjoy coding, and went from using simple HTML and CSS to learning basic JavaScript (all I could use on FurNation), to learning SSI when I moved over to Furtopia (which allowed for Server-Side Processing). As my skills grew, I added PHP, SQL, and proceeded to learn other markup languages after that: XML, DTD, XML Schema, XSLT, and SVG amongst them.
I will admit, however, to being more than a little old-school in my methods. First, I seldom use anything more than a text editor (Crimson Editor is my favourite) to write the code (or with the case of PHP, write the code that writes the code) and whatever free image editor I can get my hands on to create the graphics. I also stay away from HTML5, sticking with HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0/1.1 for the most part.
I’ve even done a tutorial on HTML that you can see in the library. I will warn you it’s quite outdated, though, having been completed around 2014, when HTML 4.01 and XHTML was still relevant, and before CSS 3 was a thing.
I’ve had a few URLs over the years:
mrinitialman.comhad been a long-time vague dream of mine. And so, at long last, I made it happen.
(Cue the Three Dramatic Chords)
I’ve been fascinated by anthropomorphic animals almost as long as I could read: I have (yes, have) a few of John Patience’s Fern Hollow books, and I’d fantasize about living in that village with all the animal people.
My interest was renewed in high school when I found a book called Redwall (more on that later) and the discovery of the internet. Through a series of page links not only would I discover a Redwall fandom, but a now-defunct page called FurNation, which was then one of the most well-known web hosts in the Furry Fandom. I even created my own webpage (which I still have a copy of somewhere in my backup archives) which was hosted there in some form from 2003 until FurNation finally closed in 2016. I’ve also been a member of Furtopia (the first free webhost I’d encountered that allowed server-side scripting) since 2005, hosting my site there as well until 2011, when hosting stopped.
By that time, I’d already been going to conventions, joined other Furry sites and clubs, doing online roleplaying games, and so on.
And it’s been a long slide from normalcy all the way.
When I went to high school (Bert Church High School, Airdrie, Alberta, Canada), I ran across a little novel called Redwall, and I borrowed it from the library so often the librarians eventually put a moratorium on me signing it out. (Today, I have the entire Redwall series. Some of them have been read to tatters).
It also had a link to the website redwall.org (now redwallabbey.com), where I found a link to The Redwall Encyclopedia. Through that, I discovered the Redwall Online Community, and began trying to join clubs. As I mention in KinDraco Fortress: A Redwall Online Community Artifact, I joined the clubs Fort Darkmist, Moonshadow Island, Lunar Isle, Sampetra: INSU, and one other club I dimly remember (Fort Oakwood Stream, maybe?).
This was where got into furry roleplaying, discovered other furry artists, and also wrote some of my earliest works; The Tales Of The Windschreiener Family are straight out of those old clubs and two characters in Star Wolf are shout-outs to people I knew from the ROC (whom I have sadly lost touch with).
I honestly don’t recall when I got into Furcadia. My oldest current character, Donnsoren, dates from May 25, 2003. Talsyn, one of my earliest characters, was retired even before then.
As you can see if you peruse my site, I not only have a number of characters on Furcadia, I also do dreamweaving (I have three dreams on Furcadia, all based around various puzzles) and consider myself much better at doing the DragonSpeak than creating the actual maps, patches, and skins.
You can see some of my tutorials in DragonSpeak under the Furcadia page.
I've gone to a number of conventions over the years. They include:
I plan on attending Fur-Eh! 2019 in June. At these cons, I go by my online handle Mr. Initial Man.
What is more, I’ve created my persona The Blockflute Bard as part of my Mr. Initial Man schtick, carrying around blockflutes (better known as recorders) ranging from the Sopranino in F to the Great Bass in C
Some who know me may be utterly shocked by this but... I’m not a professional wrestling enthusiast. I barely follow it.
Nonetheless, in early 2012 I was trained in professional wrestling at the Storm Wrestling Academy—and that was simply to see just how fake
pro wrestling actually was. Answer: It might not be a legitimate contest, but athleticism is important and you still really need to know what you’re doing.
Furthermore, from 2013 - 2017 I took part in the Albertan promotion Prairie Wrestling Alliance, debuting as a referee, doing stints as a bell ringer, roaming camera guy, once as ring announcer, and most notably the manager John Lynx.
I still remain on good terms with the promotion and all within it.
If you want to read more about my character, there's a biography of John Lynx under the Prairie Wrestling Alliance section of Characters I’ve Created