Memories ~
From Falls Church to Kilmarnock
© 2007 Abilini's Computer Services
A.K.A. or
Also Known As (1980-1982)
Most people go to
college to get a degree. Then there are others who go to college because they
are forced to go. I fell into the latter grouping. I wanted to go directly into
the computer field, from High School, but mom and dad convinced (told) me, that
I needed a degree – even if only a two-year degree. I didn’t qualify for the
college that I wanted to go to, with all my friends from high school – Virginia
Tech. So I was forced to choose a smaller “cheaper” school. Mom and I went to
three different colleges to ‘check them out.’ Northern Virginia Community
College was nice but it didn’t have any technical training in computers and it
was to close to home. Shepherdstown College also had a nice campus but again, no
technical computer training. The last college on the list was Potomac State
College of West Virginia University located in Keyser, West Virginia. Potomac
State offered a two-year, Associate of Sciences, degree in Computer Programming.
Most of the students, in this field of study, would complete this degree then
transfer to West Virginia University to complete the four-year Bachelor of
Sciences degree. I said ‘most’. I wasn’t interested in any of it, but I was
still forced to go to college so I chose Potomac State – or as students there
called it “Pot State.”
First day at Potomac State College, a Saturday – check-in and registration day.
Each new student was assigned a ‘resident assistant’ (RA) for the weekend. The
RA would show the students around the campus, take them to the library to get
their books and then take them to their ‘class counselor’. The class counselor
was usually a teacher who the students would be spending most of their time
with, because, this teacher taught the major classes. In my case, Mr. Hoy was my
counselor and he taught Computer Sciences. The last place the RA would escort
the new students was the cafeteria.
I walked into the cafeteria, around 7 pm, and a guy at the back of the room
stood up, pointed and shouted, “Hey! That guy looks just like Avilini.” At that
time, Mark Avilini was the quarterback for the University of Maryland’s Football
team. I didn’t know what or who he was talking about, so I continued to the
food. The cafeteria was free to the students, as long as they had their student
identification. I went through the line and then sat at one of the many open
tables, by myself. My RA (Doug) and his brother came over to my table and sat
down. Doug introduced me to his brother, Dave, and then told me to ignore those
guys in the back of the cafeteria: “They are football jocks.” I laughed a bit,
and then started to eat. After eating Doug, Dave and I went back to the dorm.
Both of them helped me set up my dorm room, make the bed, set up the stereo and
generally just put clothes away, in the drawers. Then we went over to their
room, which was three doors down on the left. We talked for a while, they told
me where they were from – Brandywine, Maryland and what major they were planning
on achieving. Both Doug and Dave were going for an Engineering degree – Doug
Civil and Dave Electrical Engineering. About 9 pm, there was a knock on the
door, Dave opened it and they introduced me to Danny. Danny was also going to
school for computers. So he and I would be attending most of the same classes,
if not all.
The next day, Sunday, I woke up to a knocking on the door, around 8 am. I got
up, threw on a pair of sweat pants and answered the door. Doug was standing
there and asked me “would you like to attend church with me and my brother?” I
didn’t know what to say since I don’t do church, so I just said, “Sorry, not
today, but maybe some other time.” I went back to bed and woke up to another
knock on the door, around 10 am. This time is was Danny. Danny said, “Come on
get up, you can’t sleep all day.” So, I got up and got dressed and we went
outside and he showed me all the “cool places” around campus. The first place
was the Student Union. The Student Union was set up like a ‘pool hall’ – arcade
games in one section, pool tables in another section, a TV room and the an open
area with a concession stand. Behind the Student Union and down the hill, was
the Student Tavern. The tavern was accessible to all students, but you had to be
18 and prove it, to be able to get beer. It was a nice place to hang out, watch
TV and be able to smoke. The tavern was the only place on campus where you could
smoke – and smoke anything: Cigarettes, cigars, and joints were all visible.
After a few hours in the tavern, Danny and I headed back to the dorm. We got
there and someone had hung a sign on my door that said, “Abilini’s Room”. We
thought it was funny and I left it there. Doug and Dave had made the sign, but
they misunderstood what the jock had said.
Monday morning, 7 am wake up call – by Danny. Got up, got dressed, went to the
cafeteria for breakfast and then headed to the computer lecture hall for our
first class. Mr. Hoy entered the room and said, “Good Morning. This is
Introduction to Computers and I am your teacher, Mr. Hoy. For all of you who are
actually here to learn Computer Programming, I will be holding another class, in
this same room, after this one. For everyone else, please let me cover this
topic as quickly as possible so you can get on to whatever course major you are
attending.” He may have meant well, but it didn’t sound very nice. Mr. Hoy
proceeded with the class and fairly quickly found out that 99% of the class had
no clue what he was saying or talking about. Anyway, after 5 or 10 questions,
about the same thing, I had to intercede. I moved from the back of the class and
moved to the middle. Mr. Hoy would say something and then looked toward me; I
would turn around and put what he said into ‘layman’s terms’ for the rest of the
students. At first I thought, he just couldn’t express/teach the basic knowledge
of Computers, and then I discovered the real problem. I knew more about
computers than he did and he didn’t like that. In every class, I was the
mediator - he would say something and I would translate – most of the class
quickly found out that most ‘Computer Programmers’ are not good teachers and
believe me he sucked.
Anyway, Wednesday or Thursday, after classes I would go to the Tavern. One
particular day, I went in and the TV was sitting on the bar counter. I asked
what had happened and the “Bar Administrator” (if you called him a Bartender, he
would throw you out), told me that it died. I asked, “if I could take a look at
it”, and he said, “sure, knock yourself out.” It was an old TV it still used
tubes. I went down to the local electronics store and bought a tester, came back
to the Tavern and determined which tubes were bad, took the bad tubes back down
to the electronics store, tested them and purchased new tubes. I went back to
the Tavern, put the tubes back in to the TV and powered it up. It worked
perfectly. He was shocked. He said, “I never met a student who actually knew
anything about electronics, before going to college.” I said, “When you live in
a house with 5 older sisters, you quickly learn how to fix radios, stereos and
TV sets.” He laughed and handed me $20 for the parts and the tester and said,
“My name is Thomas, Tommy. Anything you want, while you are at this college, is
free.” I said, “Thanks and you are welcome.”
Two weeks later, the TV in the dorm’s lounge stopped working. I asked if I could
look at it, but the Head Resident said, “No, the school will find someone to fix
it.” The next day, after several students had complained to the school, Tommy
and the Head Resident (John), knocked on my door. I opened the door and the John
said, “Okay, you can try. But, if it blows up in your face, I’m not taking you
to the hospital!” Tommy said, “don’t worry about it, grab the tester.” I did,
and we went to the lounge. Tommy and I put the TV on the floor so I could get a
better look at it. Another tube type, TV. I checked each tube and quickly found
the problem tube. I went down to the electronics store, got the tube and came
back to the lounge. I replaced the tube; Tommy and I lifted the TV up onto the
platform, plugged the TV back into the wall, hooked up the cable and turned on
the TV. Perfect, just like the one in the bar. John was impressed; Tommy just
winked and said, “See John, I told you he could fix it.” John handed me $20 and
said, “Thank you very, very much.”
For the rest of the school year, I would go back to the dorm after classes and
would find notes, attached to my door. The notes were from the Head Residents of
the other dorms, and would usually just state the dorm number and a room number:
D4 / Lounge 3. I would get the tester and go to the other dorm to fix a radio or
a TV, and the head resident of that dorm would hand me $20 for the job. One
day, a Friday, I came back and found a folded note (which was unusual), attached
to the door. This note said, “G1 Special”. Well there was only one “G” dorm, the
girls’ dorm. The Girls’ Dorm had a sign over every entrance that said, “NO
MEN BEYOND THIS POINT”, it also had armed security guards. I took the note
and went to the G1 dorm. I showed the note to the guard and I was told to wait
until the Head Resident could escort me to the room. I waited wondering, what
room is ‘Special’? The Head Resident, Shirley, came and escorted me up to the
4th floor lounge. There was no TV, in this lounge; there were no radios; no
electronics of any kind, the room was empty. I was told to ‘wait here’, so I
did.
About 15 minutes later Dave, Doug, Danny and four of the most beautiful girls, I
had ever seen came into the room. Dave and Danny carried a stereo and Doug had
the speakers. A cooler of cold beer, and soft drinks was provided by Shirley.
And Shirley said, “Have a good time and she left, locking the lounge door behind
her.” I’m not going into many details, here, but by midnight Dave, Doug and
Danny left. I started to leave with them and was told, “No! You stay put.” Danny
handed me a packet and winked and said, “Don’t do anything, I wouldn’t do.” They
left and again locked the door. The packet was ‘rubbers’! Early Saturday
morning, after finding the items I had brought with me, I said “see you later”
to the nice “young” ladies (they were young to me, I was 21 they were 18; at
least I hope they were 18). I returned to my dorm, to a to find a ‘real
wood’ plaque mounted to my door. Inscribed on the plaque was “Abilini’s Repair
Service – Abilini can fix ‘Anything’.” No one asked any details, but lets just
say the Susan and I spent many nights, alone in the bar’s back room (Tommy had
given me the only key!) And, No! Mom and Dad did not meet and never knew
anything about Susan. As a matter of fact; I don’t think I ever told anyone
about Susan, until now.
The second year of college, “Yes, Susan was still there “wink”, I didn’t attend
many classes, and I wasn’t interested in learning what the school had to teach.
(Though, I was very interested in what Susan had to teach… never mind). I did
fix several more TV’s and had devised a way to steal cable from the school.
Several dorm rooms had their own TV’s (which was against school policy), and
each room had to be wired with cable. The trick was the cable could not be
visible by anyone from the outside. It was a major undertaking, but I figured
out a method and it worked. Each TV cost $10 to hook up, and by the end of the
second week, I had over $500 and had a contract, with the school’s
administration, to fix the school’s authorized TVs, too.
The last day of school, one of the security guards came up to me and said, “I
want to talk to you in a few weeks, about fixing TV’s. How do you spell your
last name?” I said, “ADAMS” at which point, he looked puzzled and said, “Where
did ABILINI, come from?” I just laughed and said “Lonnnngggg story!” Susan and
I hugged and kissed and ‘made out’ one last time at the bar. I gave Tommy his
key and said, “Thank you for every thing.” He said, “You are very welcome, and I
hope you two have a good time together.” I said, to myself, “I wish” but Susan
had to go home to Michigan. She said to me, “Abilini, we need to keep in touch.”
We never did and now that I recall this story, I don’t think I ever told her my
real last name.
In 1983, I started working for Computer Sciences Corporation in Prince George
Virginia. In 1985, after fixing numerous TV’s, stereos, car radios and other
things, I registered the name “Abilini” with the state of Virginia and created
“Abilini’s Repair Service” as my own business. In 1990, I changed the name
legally, to “Abilini's Computer Services” and moved into the ‘building and
repair’ of computers. In 2004, I stopped building computers and started creating
websites. Search the Internet if you like; the only American
ABILINI is me!
Not related to Abilini’s Repair but it was part of college. One day, I think it
was a Sunday, after the Thanksgiving break, I went down to the tavern. Danny and
I were talking to Susan and a couple of her friends. Susan asked a question,
“which is better JD Black or Green?” I had no clue what she was talking about.
Then she rephrased the question. “Which is better Jack Daniel’s Black Label or
Jack Daniel’s Green Label?” Since I wasn’t a drinker I said, “I have no idea.”
Danny said “Black label is better. It’s smoother.” Susan said, “lets find out.”
That’s all I remember about that night! I remember waking up Wednesday, naked,
covered in vomit. My bed, my books and most of the clothes that were lying on
the floor were also covered. It was very gross. I was told by several people
that after I finished the Green label, I started and finished the Black label.
They also told me, that I am a very pleasant drunk – Just stare and drink, don’t
talk, don’t eat, just stare and drink. I don’t even remember taking the first
drink and I still have no idea as to which is better!
Now when asked, if I want a drink, I just say “No thank you, I’m allergic to
alcohol.”