Alexandre POLOZOFF's Autobiography

Alexandre Polozoff was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The family eventually settled down in the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills living on Fairfax Road. Alexandre was one of the few multi-lingual students in the elementary school system. This proved to be a problem with peers at school. The narrow mindedness of the Forest Hills population and cold-war anti-Russian sentiments were an never ending source of turmoil. Chain gangs were not uncommon in the elementary public school system which did nothing to protect the supposed "communists." Ironically, most of Alexandre's ancestors died fighting communism in Russia and the family fled to avoid communist rule. Pittsburgh is a very prejudicial town and I do not recommend living there.

Alexandre started studying the piano at the age of 4 and had his first recital at the age of 5. He started studying the cello in the fourth grade of elementary school. His first cello duet was in fifth grade with Rhonda S(??) of the sixth grade from another elementary school in the district. Alexandre attended Hawthorne Elementary in the Churchill School district. The school building was torn down in 1990 to make way for a subdivision.

Alexandre then attended Forest Hills Junior High School which was the combination of about 4 or 5 elementary schools. Here he played in the school orchestra on cello.

He then attended Churchill Area High School for the 10th and 11th grades. His mother then moved to a house in the Fox Chapel High School District. His father left for a job in Saudi Arabia. Alexandre also started to attend Carnegie Mellon University in the summer of 1981 to study computer science (Applied Mathematics as it was called then). Earlier that spring Alexandre was also asked to take over the piano chair of the CMU Baroque quartet at the age of 16 taking over for a graduating masters student 26 years old. He turned down the position to pursue computer science under his mother's insistence.

In 1982 Alexandre left home at the age of 17, never to return to Pittsburgh again except for a couple of brief visits. He transfered to the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in New York City. He transfered the next year to New York University citing problems with rampant cheating at Polytech which was not addressed by the faculty and the almost non-existence of any decent computer hardware. Polytech thought Commodore Pet computers were a big deal, what weenies. At NYU, Courant Institute of Mathematics, Alexandre studied computer science and mathematics under such greats as Prof Robert Dewar, Prof Issacson and other Nobel prize winning mathematicians. He worked for the Graduate School of Public Administration running statistical analysis of 1980 census data for two of the researching professors. The summer of 1984 he did a job for the City of New York running statistical analysis on National Institute of Health data on the mortality rates of city run hospitals. The results pointed to avoid the Central Bronx Hospital where you were more likely to die from non-fatal problems.

In the fall of 1984 Alexandre started working for Prof. Frank Bress head of the NYU Law Clinic. Prof Bress was working in conjunction with Prof. Tim Hallahan at Harvard Law School on developing an interactive video disc teaching courtroom skills for law students in the clinic. Alexandre provided the computer programming that allowed the students to interact as defense attorneys through an IBM PC with help from the Center for Computer Assisted Learning at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The program, first shown at the AALS convention in Washington DC, was a smashing success eventhough there was only a few months of work in the project and the temporary video disc from 3M had a tendancy to warp in the drive from the heat of running all day scrambling the frame data. Upon leaving the hotel Prof. Frank Bress had no clue how much money Alexandre had spent on having breakfast served in his room every day. Subsequently PC Magazine wrote a one page article about the project.

On Sept 7, 1986 Alexandre married Vicki another NYU student majoring in marketing. On Sept 5, 1987 Stephen Alexandre Polozoff was born at Mount Sinai Hospital by ceasarean section at about 07h30 in the morning after several unsuccesful attempts to extract the child with giant foreceps! Alexandre started working for a small company called Music Pen a few months later. Founded by two former Juliard graduates Wee Ping Wu and Philip Lui. There he met Roberto Edwards whom Alexandre still considers to be a great programmer. Music Pen was in the business of developing music notation software on the Windows 2.1 platform. Alexandre left Music Pen at the end of 1987 shortly after Roberto's earlier departure.

He then took a position with First Boston Corp as a computer consultant. In August, 1989 the young family took a trip to Greece to visit Vicki's relatives. In September of 1989 Alexandre took an OS/2 computer consulting position with IBM in Austin Texas. There the family bought a house on Wycliff Lane and moved, hoping permanently, away from New York. But the contract was not renewed and Alexandre pursued the only job opening during the Gulf War with Iraq at UPS in Rahwah NJ. On Jan 10, 1991 Kristen Samantha Polozoff (Kristie) was born by natural child birth at Columbia Hospital in New York City about 00h05 after midnight. Vicki was dissapointed that it wasn't on Jan 9th so Kristie's birthday would have worked out to 1/9/91 using the American format of date stamping. I blamed it on her for not pushing hard enough.

In Sept 1992 the family moved into a house they built on Sharpstone Trail in the Brushy Creek subdivision just north of Austin. Here Alexandre spent time building a backyard patio with a fish pond containing Japanese koi, frogs, lillypads and a small water fall. He also developed a large rose garden next to the patio. He also bought a 1976 Fiat 124 Spyder convertible to learn how to fix cars. This all came to a screeching halt as the debacle called marriage ran it's circuitous route through trying times. Alexandre finally found peace and solace on his own. The kids and dad see each other on a frequent basis.

Dec 1993 Alexandre took a contract position with IBM in Chicago where Dick Brandt and Mike Davenport were working. Here Alexandre met Chris Fox and Marty McManus (who had a baby boy the next summer). Chicago did not turn out to be like New York City and Alexandre made many friends among them Joe and Shelly Carduff, Randy Wells and Brooke Levitan.

In Sept 1994 Alexandre left Chicago due to the fact that most of the work was completed and there really wasn't much to do. He subsequently took a position working with Carmody Quinn at Sprint in Kansas City. There he met Tim Snyder, Radha and Manju Bandarapalle, Paul and Nona Fischer. Kansas City was the worst place (after Pittsburgh) that he had ever lived at. Didn't make a single friend outside of work the six months he was there.

On Feb 28, 1995 Alexandre left his position at Sprint citing lack of work. Without a job Alexandre returned to Austin. On March 13th Alexandre was on a plane bound for Paris France and a contract assignment at a company called Effix. This contract was arranged through IBM Austin. At Effix Alexandre met such notables as Jon Ryan, Mike & Jane Thompson, Julian Rowlands, Greg Babb, Miles Hobart, Jeff Clavier and many others. Stephen and Kristie joined Alexandre in Paris on March 19th. They remained in Paris with their dad sightseeing and enjoying life.

Alexandre returned to Austin on Dec 24, 1995 having finished the project in Paris.

On February 11, 1996 Alexandre left to start a contract in Research Triangle Park , North Carolina.

On April 5, 1996, Alex's Acura Integra returned from the Acura dealer after the engine had been replaced thanks to the honorable folks at Jiffy Lube.

The next year or so was markedly uneventful. Work at IBM in Research Triangle Park was undertaxing. Life in RTP is fairly nonplussed as there isn't much to do. A couple of long drives to the zoo with the kids. Hanging out with friends from work. A couple of trips to Europe on business. Pretty much the staid life of any programmer.

June 10, 1997 marked yet another turning point in Alexandre's life. He received and signed a contract to work in Trento, ITALY. Stephen and Kristie will be travelling with him and spending the summer in Italy. Here is another site to examine Trento, ITALY Alexandre is hoping more friends get a chance to visit him in Trento.

If you're really interested, I have started a web page on our journey through Italy and Trento. It is the Trento97! page. Well, the web page is down. The reason for that is our webserver moved to a new machine and I only have 20 megs of disk space. So I can't have all my photos up. Sorry, there were some magnificent photos of Italy there. I'll try and find a webserver with 300M of diskspace so I can put them back up.

Kids and I arrived in Trento and we met Vincenzo and Rosa Guida. Vicenzo worked at Sodalia and was sort of our liason with the locals to arrange housing, bank accounts, etc.

Italy, and Trento, was FUN! Being in a small town was great for the kids. Plus, Trento is located centrally in the Northern Alps so getting to Venezia (3 hours), Verona (1 hour), Milano (3 hours), Bologna (2.5 hours) was all very simply by train. The kids went back to NYC on Aug 25th. I flew back with them. We flew out of Roma and took an overnight train to get there. Then before we headed back we went to Napoli, Pompeii, Sorrento and Positano. Simply gorgeous.

I returned to Trento a week later via Chicago where I hooked up with Dick Brandt and then Zurich where I went to meet Greg Babb (of the Paris days), his girlfriend Jacquelyn and her girlfriend Linda. Dave Hanson flew in from London where he was working at the time. I flew a few weeks later to London for a BSC party and saw Dave's flat. It was nice and just down the street from Harrod's. It was the morning we left Zurich that the word of Princess Diana's death came in on the news. I then hopped on a train to Milano where I caught a connection to Trento. That was a 5.5 hour journey as the Innsbruck line was down!

Tom Ryan had arrived in Trento a couple of weeks before the kids headed out. He lived on the top floor of our apartment block. We ended up hanging out quite often being the only two American contractors on the project. I also made good friends with Conor O'Dwyer who has been living in Italy for years. Conor ran the local Irish Pub - Tucan Dugu. It was at Tucan Dugu where, on a saltry September evening, I met Michela Zanella who was attending university in Trento. And it was through Conor that I met Ruggero and went on an excursion with them into the mountains to take photos of them rock climbing. Well, I ended up being the one with the broken leg! Actually, just a fracturered tibia but Ruggero was certain I was dead after the 10 metre fall. Anyhow, that took a couple of months to work out and I had the kids over Xmas break then. Glenn Short and his girlfriend Sherry flew the kids over for me. And the kids got to see the huge plaster cast removed only to have the small fibreglass one put on! At least I could move with the fibreglass cast on.

And I must mention the Tomasi's. Great group of Italian-Irish (almost American) kids that were studying at the university in Trento.

So the contract ended and what to do with myself. Well, I figured I'd head up to Cologne to meet Mike and Maria Fairchild before I headed back to the states. I had Chicago as my final destination though I had no idea how my life was about to change.

Antoinette Fitzpatrick rode the long 10 hour train ride with me to Cologne. She spent a few days up there and then went back to Trento. We stayed at M&M's and then I interviewed for a contract at IBM. Got the job! Great, but I needed to get the work permit. That was not so great.

As things went, the permits were all had and life went on. I met Sandra McGuinness and ended up having to leave Cologne in August because the project was dead in the water.

Sandra was able to get to the states a few months later. We settled in Chicago and married the following year. Had a hectic honeymoon in Florida with her dad, William, and my kids.

Fast forward to 2001. I joined IBM in 2001 as a full time employee. Due to a lull in my schedule I was actually at home watching the news on Sept 11, 2001 as the events unfolded at the World Trade Center. What a horrible thing to watch. Sandra was working in the Amoco building in downtown Chicago when I called her. Fortunately there were no planes headed to the Amoco building anyway.

Fast forward to 2005. Due to a lengthy assignment and Sandra having had enough of working over 50 hour weeks at a surviving Internet start-up company we took an IBM relocation to Bloomington, IL. Here we bought a beautiful house from one of the Wizard of Oz author's descendants (okay, maybe not but the surname was the same). This isn't the house he lived in, unfortunately. We also found a Great Pyrenees dog named Sheba at the local GP rescue. Of course our cats Blows and Cindie came along from Chicago. What an experience this was because Sandra had to get a driver's license. But we made it and didn't have anything bad happen on the drive from Chicago. And we lucked out with a beautiful day for a drive and I took the Spitfire top down the whole way. We had a visit from Sandra's brother, Ian, and his family which was lots of fun driving up to Chicago to see the Cubs and White Sox play (in different games).

Sandra found a great job she seems to be enjoying at a local non-profit health system doing much of the same (programming). My work has had some good points with all the patents I have been filing and the various recognition awards I have been getting from my work at IBM.

Fast forward to 2006. I was inducted into the Hundred Percent Club at IBM this year! I'm not sure what this means yet but I am headed out in March to the HPC conference in San Diego where I am going to get to do great things like play golf, go whale watching or any other number of great activities! Then I am jetting off to present at the IBM Inner Circle (not as clandestine as it sounds) Conference in Dublin, Ireland. Of course, not a single one of my Irish friends are going to be in Ireland! Antoinette has moved to Cincinatti to live with her husband Josh. Conor is still in Trento. Karl is in London. And no word from the Tomasi clan but I suspect they are all still in Trento. So phoeey. I'm also presenting at the Inner Circle Conference in May in San Diego.