Hello. My name is Don [HI, DON.], and I'm a cardaholic... It's been about five minutes since I opened a fresh deck of cards...
I'm from the greater New York area, have lived here most of my life with the exception of '89/'90, which I spent in Broward County, Florida, either in Coconut Creek or Pompano Beach.
I've always enjoyed playing cards, since childhood. Loved watching magic on TV and seeing it in person when I could (which wasn't often). I played around with a few Svengali decks and stripper decks when I was younger, but I didn't get solidly interested in magic until around mid-2010, when I was searching the web for custom playing cards for the family poker night and found Ellusionist. I hemmed and hawed, finally placed an order in December which I received on Christmas Eve. I've been hooked ever since.
Got married at 25, got divorced in a messy manner 15 years later, and now, four-plus years later, I'm engaged and very happy. My fiancee, Anya, is a Ukrainian women who emigrated to the US nearly 20 years ago and has an attractive Russian accent but understands my English very well. It helps that I enunciate clearly most of the time and don't rush my speech - she has trouble understanding people with thick accents who talk fast. Interestingly enough, my mother was also from another country - she's Quebecoise and moved to the States in the middle of high school.
Anya and I were born on opposite sides of the Earth but only 30 days apart from each other (I'm the older one). She has two sons from a prior marriage, one of whom lives on his own and is graduating from the School of Visual Arts in the spring, the other of whom wants to be an FBI agent but is still struggling with the 7th grade. He's smart, but wisecracks a lot, acts very spoiled and lacks focus and time management skills. I'm working with him on those.
I practice aikido, a Japanese martial art, and my dojo is with the Takemusu Aikido Association, following the teachings of Saito-shihan (may he rest in peace) and his son, Saito-sensei. I was hoping to be taking my black belt test this spring, but I've been out of the dojo for over a month now, largely due to a pain in my hip that my orthopedist is diagnosing. It's probably just osteoarthritis, but I need to make sure it's nothing serious before going back. So perhaps I'll be testing in the fall instead - we shall see... For now, I'm ikkyu - 1st grade, the highest rank before obtaining a black belt. In dojos that use colored belts, it would be a brown belt with a black stripe. My dojo doesn't - you're white belt or black, that's it.
My wedding will be in south Florida, hopefully on September 1st. I always visit Florida in the late spring and summer, it just seems to work out that way for me. It's not as crowded that time of year, but there's a lot of sun-starved European tourists that drop in despite the heat. We're planning on two receptions: a small one in Florida with some of my friend's family (his dad will be officiating over the ceremony), and a second one a week later for our New York family and friends. Anya's never been to south Florida, so she's a bit excited about the idea. I'm still trying to convince her to stay at my buddy's apartment rather than renting a hotel room - summer or winter, good hotels aren't cheap in Florida and bad ones aren't worth the trade-offs. I'm thinking of trying to book one of those little family run motor lodges, the tiny operations with ten rooms or less - never tried that and I can't imagine it costing more than the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale, my past default hotel. Trivia: it used to be called the Sheraton Yankee Clipper, and the Wreck Bar with the window behind the bar that's also the side of the outside pool was the location for the bar scene in "Analyze This!" between Billy Crystal and Robert DeNiro. It's fun watching bikini exhibitionists swim past while enjoying beverages and bar snacks...
What else about me... I enjoy science fiction and anime, but it's been a while since I kept up with either. I enjoy reading, but these days most of my reading is magic manuals. I dabble in video games, but I'm not exactly the greatest - generally stink at a new game, get up to being about average or slightly better, but don't usually devote more time than that to it. Big movie buff, and a tech geek, but one who doesn't find it necessary to always have the latest and greatest gadget if the one I have is doing the job well enough. My favorite color is black, I am often wearing something black, my favorite food is freshly-made Tokyo-style ramen with real ingredients and fresh noodles rather than powder stock and a freeze-dried brick. I aspire some day to have a company of my own, probably a retail magic shop, because I'm tired of having a schedule that's almost completely opposite from that of my partner.
Any questions?
