- This topic has 7 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 19 years, 9 months ago by
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(re: Christmas design & picture) Actually …
There’s a bit of a story to that photo.
We have NO pictures from our younger days. We had a fire in our home, in Coarsegold, that destroyed EVERYTHING. Luckily the kids, and babysitter got out just in time. We were in San Francisco at a computer show when we got the call. From the first ten years of our marriage, we have no photos whatsoever. Roberta was at her parents for Thanksgiving and talked her mom out of that picture long enough to scan it.
Roberta and I had already been “dating” for two years when we got married, four days after I turned 18. Roberta looks darn close now to how she looked then, over 30 years ago. I on the other hand seem to have “grown”. Argh.
-Ken W -
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(re: re: re: Christmas design & picture) “I thought at one point I knew, or you had mentioned how your house burned down, but I seem to have forgotten. Care to fill us in?”
The fire department said the fire was caused by a powerstrip I had left sitting on top of a box of printer paper. The powerstrip was warm, and the paper got warmer.
The hot tub was the best part of that house. It was the one on the cover of the prequel to Leisure-Suit Larry. It also burned. The house that we built was newer, and lacked the charm of the original. I don’t remember if we ever lived in it.
-Ken W -
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(re: re: re: re: re: Christmas design & picture) So how big of an impact (if any) did that have on Sierra? Was there anything in its early stages that got burned at your place that led to it never being worked on anymore? Or the trauma of the event cause anything to fall to the wayside at work?
No – not that I can recall. I remember being depressed because I lost my Apple I (there were only 37 made, and mine toasted in the fire). Steve Wozniak heard about my loss, and connected me with someone who got me another.
We had moved from the house to offices in Oakhust several months before the fire — so all the business stuff was at work. I don’t remember any company impact — just the personal impact. All pictures lost. High School yearbooks. The Super 8 Movies I had made as a kid (I was already a “wanna bee” film maker as a young kid), all tax returns, financial records, Etc. Roberta and I’s history just vanished. The days after the fire were even strange. The kids literally had nothing but their pajamas. We had to go to the store to buy clothes .. they were running around in their bare feet.
It was a COMPLETE loss personally, but no impact on Sierra – other than a subtle shift in attitude. Almost losing your kids is a sort of wake up call. Keep in mind that Roberta and I were really kids at the time. Look at the picture of us on the front page of the website. The fire was a key element in maturing us, and almost going bankrupt in 1982 was a much bigger wakeup call. Without these sort of crises in our lives, I don’t know that I would have become the cynical hard-edged “business guy” who was able to win while so many other companies failed. In other words, the fire had a definite impact, but not in the way you might think.
-Ken W -
(re: re: re: re: re: re: Christmas design & picture)
The new design is great! Very christmasy..
I have an old magazine about you saying something about that fire I’m sure of it. I also remember Steve Wozniak saying something in one them about a planecrash and playing Sierra games during recovery.
Do you remember that?
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(re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Christmas design & picture) Somewhere, I have the letter that Wozniak sent me while he was in the hospital after his plane crash. It’s a very cool letter.
Brandon (one of our moderators here) is coming to my house next week to do some scanning. I’ll see if I can hunt it down.
-Ken W
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