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<center><p><a href="index.html"><img src="images/homepage_graphic.gif" alt="Homepage" border="0" width="50" height="50"></a></p>
<p><a href="vad_frame.html"><img src="images/vadvaro_graphic.gif" alt="About Vad Varo" border="0" width="50" height="50"></a></p>
<p><a href="gamma_world_frame.html"><img src="images/interests_graphic.gif" alt="Gamma World" border="0" width="50" height="50"></a></p>
<p><a href="gamma_plot_frame.html"><img src="images/plotbook_graphic.gif" alt="Gamma World Plot Book" border="0" width="50" height="50"></a></p>
<p><a href="link_frame.html"><img src="images/link_graphic.gif" alt="Links out into the web" border="0" width="50" height="50"></a></p>
<p><a href="mailto:vadvaro@earthlink.net"><img src="images/mail_graphic.gif" alt="Mail to Vad Varo" border="0" width="50" height="50"></a></p>
<p><font size="-2" font color="#C0C0C0"><i>Vad Varo is a member of</i><br></font><A HREF="http://www.hwg.org/"><IMG SRC="images/lo-025.gif" WIDTH="64" HEIGHT="90" ALT="The HTML Writers Guild" TITLE="Link to The HTML Writers Guild" border="0"></A></p></center>
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<img src="images/vadvaro_title.gif" width="65%" border="0" alt="All About Me">
<p><font color="#C0C0C0"><strong>I am Vad Varo.
If you know who Vad Varo is, very good for you. Read <u>The Master Mind of Mars</u> by Edgar Rice Burroughs if you
don't. </p>
<p><img src="images/benjamen.jpg" align="left" alt="This is my senior picture. It left a lasting impression on my relatives"
width="166" height="233">My real name is Benjamen Earl
Severson-Hebert and I am a twenty-two year old guy in Seattle, WA. I
live in an apartment complex with my girlfriend <a
href="mailto:thumper_67@hotmail.com">Christina Bresina</a> and our friend Fawn (her pic is near the bottom.) We have two cats, Slyvester and Haze.</p>
<p>Anyway. I really enjoy Role-playing
games, both electronic and pen & paper style. Which is stated in my interests
page (the one- eyed tiger). My favorite is Gamma World, an old TSR game that they
discontinued. I still enjoy it though. </p>
<p align="center"><font color="#C0C0C0"><u><big><big>Mini-Biography
(as if you care)</big></big></u></p>
<p>My original name was Benjamen Earl
Severson. My middle name is my grandfather's. I was born in Barron, WI and
moved shortly afterward to Oregon with my mother. Then we moved back to Wisconsin
and lived in Eau Claire for a few years. We moved to Chetek, WI before I was ready
to start school. I stayed there for kindergarten, first, and second
grades. My two brothers, Mike and Jim, where born at this time. After Mike was
born, but before Jim, my mom married Bud Hebert.</p>
<img src="images/christina.jpg" width="200" height="305" align="right" alt="Hi. I'm Christina. I'm crazy. Just kidding." >
<p>After second grade was over for me we all
moved to Eau Claire again. We lived in a house that was right across the street from
one of my more recent apartments. I think that was rather neat. I stayed here through third, fourth,
and fifth grades. During this time my grandfather died. It was a sad time
because I was very close to my grandfather. When I was in third grade I was sent to
a shrink because I was hyper. He wanted to prescribe some sort of drug to calm me
down but my mom wouldn't have it. She told the doctor to give me a IQ test, she
thought I was most likely bored rather than truly hyper. Anyway, they did and my IQ
turned out to around 146. So instead of giving me drugs they just had the teacher
give me useless little tasks to keep myself occupied.</p>
<p>Anyway, my family moved back to Chetek
and I started middle school. I rekindled my friendship with Karl Brenholt (we knew
each other from the first time I lived in Chetek). Charley Southworth rode my bus
and I hung out with him because his parents gave him everything. We were good
friends but we always got into fights. After a year of being Karl's friend he made
me mad and I hit him in the eye with a penny. He then hated me for around three
years.</p>
<p>My parents moved again on my sixteenth
birthday. We stay in the Chetek area, we just moved to our grandma's old
house. She had moved into town. I meet Christina for the first time at this
point. We date for a little while, I tell her I like girls with short hair.
She takes this to heart and chops off all her hair. I then break up with her because
it doesn't look that good. (I know, I know, I'm a real jerk) So she hates me.
Karl and I make up and Chuck, him, and me become a pretty nasty team of yahoos. I
live there until I graduated (at seventeen) and then I moved to Rice Lake in the middle of
a snowstorm/blizzard.</p>
<p>I was starting college up there and I needed
an apartment. The week school was going to start up again (I began in second
semester) I began looking for an apartment. The day before classes began I got an
apartment, but I needed some roommates. I recruited Charley and still needed another
one. So I went to the school and asked if anyone needed a place to stay. I ended up
with a transfer student from somewhere. He was the biggest pig anyone has ever met.
He would ash on the floor, leave food around for weeks, and other fun stuff.
He once got really trashed and threw up on his floor. It stayed on his floor for
three days, the only reason he cleaned it up was because a girl was coming over. </p>
<img src="images/cats.jpg" align="left" alt="These are my kids. Haze is the tabby, Slyvester is the barn cat in front of her." width="360" height="180">
<p>After learning that Rice Lake in no way
appealed to me after my first semester I decided I would go to Madison after my semester
was over. I made plans with my friend Karl (who no longer hated me) and that I would
go to a school for music producing. One of my dreams is to create
"industrial" music. I figured I would learn to produce and while in the
studio in my free time I could work on my own stuff. Well I never made it to
Madison. That summer I ran into Christina again and we began going out again.
When we first started dating I told her I would be leaving at the end of the
semester. She said that would be okay because she was heading to Florida anyway.
When it came time for us to go our separate ways we had grown WAY to fond of each
other to just leave, so we moved to Eau Claire.</p>
<p>As a side note, I hate this town Eau Claire.
Anyway, we moved into a shit-hole house on the north side of town. I'll spare
you the details but I know there are those of you out there that had shit-holes for your
first shared apartment. You have an idea of what I mean. It sucked but it was
what we could afford on our K-mart checks. Eau Claire has an extreme case of
overcrowding in the retail area. This leads to very low wages for those jobs.
So we looked around for different jobs. Christina happened across a place
called Johnson Matthey. </p>
<p>As a side note I have never liked factory
work. Johnson Matthey was a newer factory in Chippewa Falls that made semi-conductor
packages for computers. We got work there within a week through a temporary agency
making three dollars more than K-mart. We decided to move to a better place.
During this time Charley got kicked out of his parents house the final time.
<p>Chuck had been living in and out of his parent's home since he was fourteen when we built a tree
house (with heat, lights, electricity) and he moved in there. He moved to Bloomer and started
working at JM too.</p>
<p>After two years in Eau Claire I was ready to leave. I'd been ready to leave for some time but something
always ended up in the way. That summer, however, I moved to Seattle. Johnson Matthey was so screwed up.
After two years of marketing I have realized manufacturing and marketing are polar opposites. Everything I
have learned in school applied in reverse there. That alone makes it rough to work there. Then there is
the people. Some factory people are crazy. Well, a lot of factory people are crazy. I am not factory
material. Then again, I'm not quite sure where I fit in.</p>
<p>I think the only thing that made Eau Claire cool was my friend Adam and Borders. Adam moved to Eau Claire
after I was there for about a year. He had been a friend from way back. He got me to like wrestling and
play Gamma World again. He was one of my roleplaying friends. If you have never had the chance to play, do
so. The friends you make will be worth it.</p>
<p>JM began to go really downhill after they found out they had no customers. They laid off people each week
for about three months. Chris and I wanted to be laid off. Now you may think that is funny but we were
leaving anyway. I wanted someone that really needed the job to get it. But they didn't lay us off. We
switched areas several times until we ended up in the wetroom. The wetroom was an ironic place to end up in.
It was where I first started in JM and it would also be my last area. Chris and I met Fawn here.</p>
<img src="images/fawn.jpg" align="right" alt="Hi, I'm Fawn. I stick leaves in my hair cause I am cool." width="158" height="262">
<p>A little bit of coaxing got Fawn to move with us to Seattle. Now I think she either was looking for a
way out or just plain crazy to leave with two practical strangers. Oh well, she is cool though. We were
going to move with my friend Karl also. He broke up with a three-year girlfriend to do it, but he met
someone new and stayed with her in Wisconsin. Maybe someday he will come out here.</p>
<p>I mentioned Borders making Eau Claire cool. I worked there for three months after I left JM. Best job ever.
For me anyway. Why didn't I just leave for Seattle? Well, now that is a story. You see Chris and I bought
a trailer to sell so we would have money to move with. Sounds simple huh? Hahahaha. We wanted to leave
right away in the Spring, that would have made it easier to sell the trailer. Well Charley decided
to get married at the end of that summer. Big deal? Nope. I was the best man. So I had to stay.</p>
<p>So we put the trailer for sale with an agent from a local retailer. She doesn't really help at all.
She showed the house once! Chris and I on the other hand had shown it about ten times. After getting a
buyer we found out we needed to still pay the agents commission so we worked out a deal to pay a fraction
of the commission and negate the contract. Sounds simple huh? Nope. The day we walk in with the
payment the agent gets a buyer, (or so she said) this meant we had to tell our buyer "forget it" and
accept the agent's buyer. This women told us she needed the trailer by the end of the month. Chris
and I frantically found an apartment in Seattle using the Internet and quit our jobs. We were quite
proud of ourselves that we had pulled together so quickly. One week before I was slated to leave the
agent called.</p>
<p>"My buyer backed out."</p>
<p>WHAT! So we called our buyer. She had found a new place. OH NO! But luck held out. She got out of
her contract because the trailer couldn't be moved. Good. So she bought out trailer and we moved. Check
out <a href="seattle_page/index.html" target="_window">this page</a> for all sorts of pics from our new
life. I am looking into two different career paths right now. I want to go to the Art Institute of
Seattle for Multimedia but an old love has begun stirring again. You see I have always wanted to be
a scientist, particularly an archeologist. So I looking into the state college here in Seattle.
We will see where all this takes me.</p>
<p>In any case I ended up worked at <a href="http://www.food.com" target="_window">food.com</a>, check them out to see if restaurants in your area are
serviced. I like it, I work M-F and have the weekends off. That gives me time to work on my businesses.
My goal is to set myself up so I can go back to school and use income created from things I own rather than money I earn for work.
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