Meet Bill the PinWiz
Hi - Glad you could come and visit!
I'm Bill the PinWiz and this is my story.
I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1948. My mother was from Lafayette, Indiana, and my father was from Poplar Bluff, Missouri. They met at a USO dance while Dad was getting special training for the Navy at Purdue University. After the War they married and my Dad finished up his education at Purdue.
After I was around a few years, we moved to Richmond, Indiana, where I entered school. I was in a rhythm band there, a precursor of my later interests. When I was seven we moved to the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. During grade school I met my friend Rocky, who introduced me to the joys of electronic experimenting, which turned into a lifelong hobby. (More about him later.)
I finished grade school, and played the tuba in my high school band. When I was a senior, the band voted me their 'Outstanding Musician' award. After graduating from high school, I went to Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, Texas, where I studied classical music. During that time I became interested in composition and electronic music, doing a few pieces in the 'musique concrete' style, taking tape recordings of 'found sounds', and random beeps and bwadns from oscillators I built, and assembling the compositions by scraping and splicing the tapes into finished works. During my junior year the record 'Switched On Bach' by Wendy Carlos arrived on the music scene. This was my first exposure to synthesizers and I was suitably amazed.
Having no money to purchase what was then a very expensive and complicated instrument I decided to bone up on my electronic knowledge and build my own synthesizer. Over the next ten years I did just that, putting together an instrument that followed the pattern set by Moog, Arp, Serge, Buchla, and others.
I met my wife, Martha, in 1975 and we were married in 1976. We have many common and similar interests and I love her dearly.
Rocky, in the meantime, had been working in electronic parts sales for years, when by a happy occurrence he got a job repairing electronic amusement machines for the game concession at the local amusement park, Kings Island. After being there a time, he approached his employer with the suggestion of hiring an assistant, as the work there was overwhelming for one person.
With his recommendation and the existence of my synthesizer to prove my ability, I was hired for the job. I eventually became the Vice-President of Engineering and Director of Research and Development for this company, who manufactured coin-operated remote-control tugboats and racecars for the amusment park trade.
Following the sudden and unexpected collapse of that business, I started my own business in 1982 fixing classic and antique pinballs in the Cincinnati area. I also maintained two small 60-80 piece gamerooms for Malibu Grand Prix in the area from 1983 to 1998.
Martha went back to school, got another degree, and became a professional computer programmer.
Our house also resounded to the sound of many little feet. No, we never had children, but our seven cats kept the area plenty cluttered with toys. Here, counterclockwise from top, are Galahad, Bluebeard, Whisker, Callie, Button, and Punkin.
And here is the newest member of our household, Missy.
I had also been working with computers during this time and and I am now on my eighth. I got on the web in January 1998 and have had six websites, and have friends all over the world.
While at college, I often had to cook for myself, as a student's budget demands, and during that time I developed my love of cookery, learning to make many things that I still make today. I have been encouraged in this pursuit by my wife, family, and friends, who often gather at my table on holidays to enjoy the fruits of my labors. I now am reasonably proficient at many Mexican, Chinese, Italian, French, Greek, and traditional American dishes.
1998 was a great year of change in my life. Not only did I become a web-head, but the gameroom I had been maintaining for 15 years closed its doors in October. Without this customer I did not have enough steady work to make up the loss, and it was necessary to give up my service business and get a real job. I went to work for a company called Namco, which operated many amusement places around the country.
The place where I went to work was a large mall amusement center called Time Out. It had three gamerooms, a midway with lots of simulator type games, a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, kiddie rides, miniature golf, and a beautiful carousel. If you would like to see some larger pictures of the Time Out carousel, horses, Ferris wheel, and gameroom, click here.
Unfortunately the carousel didn't have a band-organ, but they did put a tape of my band-organ music on their sound system, so I guess that's ok. In addition to myself there were three other technical people and a host of managers and attendants who kept this operation running smoothly. Time Out was a fun place to work.
Then, in 2000, Namco decided to close Time Out. Once again, I had to scramble to find a job. A large indoor sports center, Sports Plus, ended up hiring many of the Time Out employees, including me, my boss, and his boss. This place was on a downward slide, and their parent company, Family Golf Centers, went belly up after only two months. A group of local businessmen bought up Sports Plus and I continued to work there until I retired in 2010. I started building this website in 1998. I just loved Geocities Vienna. In 2000 Yahoo! bought up Geocities and began to make changes that ultimately ruined it. Yahoo! closed Geocities in 2009. Luckily, several archive sites managed to save a lot of the Geocities webpages. You can find out more about that here. I started rebuilding this site in 2011. With luck, maybe the Geocities Venna Community will rise again!
So that's the story of how a Pinball Wizard came to reside in Vienna. I hope you are enjoying your visit to my little piece of the web. Send commentssend email to pinwiz.geo @ yahoo.com. (remove spaces). Thanks for stopping by!
The PinWiz (as Mr. Magic) is now playing keyboard and digital horn in a band! Check out:
Burnin' Dr. Feelgood and the Feelgood Posse
Last update May 23, 2011 © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2011 Bill the PinWiz
