My Real Studio is also known as Jeppy's Room, after my son (now "Jep"), who lived there before Going West in 1991--all the way to L.A., to be precise--to seek his fortune. An actor, musician, and *serious* hockey player, he served his time waiting tables until his father took pity and sent him a computer. At that point, he quickly picked up HTML and began spinning animated Web sites for celebrity friends under the name of "El Dorado." When I saw the first one, I almost hung this up. Then I remembered that he had been my first computer teacher, having "dragged me kicking and screaming" into the Information Age on his Mac 512. Besides, as a parent, I still aspire to the model of Kahlil Gibran, who said of children, "You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday." It seems appropriate, then, that this room came to house my Mac--a souped up LC--and the professional me. Although the LC has since given way to a PC, required in order to share files with co-teleworkers, I remain a loyal Mac fan and will return!

Although my son has not given up Web design altogether--his latest is here--his focus shifted abruptly when he discovered Silicon Graphics and visual effects (VFX). After a brief period as a 2-D compositor for Todd AO, he joined Dream Quest Images, where he did several sequences for Deep Rising, Armageddon, and Inspector Gadget before moving on to become a senior digital artist for Sony Pictures Imageworks. (Click here for complete list of credits.)

What Jep always loved most about this room was the double, floor-to-ceiling window on the northeast wall that looks out upon a thicket of native trees and, beyond them, tomorrow. It is my window on the Real world as it stands side by side with its virtual counterpart, an open invitation into the new and magical realm of Cyberspace.