Remember to bookmark this page! It will be periodically updated.

About me...

My name is Gianfranco. I was born in Val D’Or, a small Canadian town in Northern Quebec. My parents of Italian origin immigrated to Canada in late 1951. At that time, my father like many other European refugees found employment away from large urban cities. At Val D’or, my father worked at one of the gold mines as an elevator shaft operator. As employment in that region was never guaranteed, my family later moved to Montreal in 1957 where we settled in.

My parents were from Pula. Pula is in Croatia or near Trieste. The Italian Pola before the Second World War was in the Province of Istria.

Music:

I’ve always enjoyed watching some TV shows and listening to the radio. What fascinated me ever since a young boy was the piano. The teaching and price for a piano made it only a dream. A few years later on as a teenager we watched, The Ed Sullivan Show and Jeunesse d’Aujourd’hui. I’m at this moment in my mid twenties and it’s the Disco era. It’s the mid to late 70’s. That’s when Disco was born. There was action everywhere downtown. Discoteques became very popular everywhere. A few of them were so earsplitting you couldn’t hear yourself think. They were so crowded all you could do was order a drink or two and leave.

The tune and dancing was lots of fun. The ambiance and the lighting effects were spectacular. One of those special light effects was that strobe light. I remember after seeing them it was a new project for me. What’s a strobe light? A flash lamp that produces high-intensity short-duration light pulses by electric discharge in a gas. So once you’ve adjusted the flashing rate you create an optical illusion and see in slow motion.

I really enjoyed going to the Discoteques. We would sway, go round and move with the beat. I also enjoyed for years Tai Chi chuan exercises. I felt graceful when dancing.

My first experience recording using professional equipment happened at Concordia University in Montreal. Together with a couple of friends we used the radio room off line. We brought in our albums and those old 45’s. Then we completed our own Disco Mix compelations using virgin audiocassettes. This was great for parties...

I kept in mind that summer vacation trip to Wildwood Beach. This was at the Star Dust Discoteque. There I was right on stage talking to this band. They were, The Trammps-Disco Inferno. There was great music, and excellent visual effects. I had the opportunity to meet these gentlemen live on stage.

Computers:

I remember watching those very old episodes of Star Trek with Captain Kirk on TV. My first hands on a computer terminal took place in the 70’s. I was following an Electro-Tech program... One computer language required was Fortran. Fortran is a high-level programming language for problems that can be expressed algebraically, used mainly in mathematics, science, and engineering... Later on computers entered into the smaller businesses.

I recall purchasing my first home computer. It was the Commodore 64.So it was time for me to retrain by 1988. The retraining was then at Control Data Institute. Today there’s been other opportunities for retraining, Windows, email, the Internet, Scripting...

Electronics:

I remember finding this old crystal radio my Dad had built back in the early 50’s. It was simple with a pair of old magnetic headphones. In my early years of High School I picked up an interest for electronics. A friend back then approached the school’s office the idea to form Electronics Club Group...

We began from the basics... It wasn’t long I fixed the table radios, the Stereo Record player, the Black & White television, the color television set...

One of my personal projects then was that wireless FM microphone. I’ve tutored also in the lab for Electronics in Marymount Comprehensive High School... Of course today technology has much improved...

I like making penpals and thank you for reading about me.

Return To Home Page