(Brian's Story as told to his Dad)

My Dad told me that when I reached the 20s I had owned more cars than he ever owned in a lifetime.

Some people also wondered by attending three technical schools if I was a person aimlessly searching. But as I will explain it has all fit together.

I always tried to buy a car with the best money that it could buy. Unfortunately, there was little money with which to buy. At different times I owned an old model Pinto, Duster, and Charger. Today, in late 1997, vehicles are no longer a problem. I own a late model pickup and lease a late year Mitsubishi.

For one reason or another, the older cars were usually rather worn out and didn't last too long. One car I abandoned on a street in Los Angeles and removed the license plate after the transmission gave out. I immediately called to Sioux Falls for a $600 loan for another car which I needed to get to classes and work. Another chapter in this history relates a number of problems the Maseks had with cars.

My first operating vehicle was a go-cart which I manufactured with the help of technical training from junior high school. I rode it around the neighborhood streets. The vehicle was battery-powered.

Later, planes started to occupy my fancy. I went to two Experimental Aircraft conventions at Oshkosh, Wis. I and others my age spent some time trying to build a plane under supervision. I reached Oshkosh by filling a duffel bag with clothes, a sleeping bag, and some non-perishable food. I traveled to the conventions by bus and stayed in a tent on the convention grounds during those two summer periods.

At this stage I build and flew gas-powered model airplanes which I still do today. I also took a few flying lessons around age 12 at the Sioux Falls airport. I nearly thrust myself toward a flying career but suddenly pulled back from this idea.

I bought a guitar and began teaching myself to play it during the final months of high school. After graduation, a friend and I joined another fellow, who I hadn't known, to organize a band which probably wasn't even given a name.

Our three-piece band played jobs in the Eagle Butte area. Suddenly, our leader became aware of a band job at a club in far-away Grand Junction, Colorado. That is a city where Dad spent a summer from college working low-income jobs in a greenhouse and tomato factory.

The week-long playing assignment at Grand Junction scarcely lasted through the second night. The management complained about volume and the leader didn't comply. The band was paid off except that my close friend and I never saw the money. The leader took the money and fled.

I managed to retreat as far as Denver and made contact with some young men, all musicians, who shared a house. They let me stay there until I had money coming in. I obtained a job in a fast-food cafe and remained there until there was enough cash flow to get back to South Dakota.

Within a few weeks I returned to Sioux Falls and announced I intended to enter guitar school for a one-year course in Hollywood, California. There was a savings account in my name with which to get started.

I shared a room with a drummer from the East Coast. While the guitar course went well other conditions weren't that great. The landlady revoked my rights to parking in the parking complex because I supposedly left the security gate ajar. It was necessary for me to park the car a great distance away in an unprotected area. Fortunately, no one stole the car, probably because it looked so old.

It was also possible for me supplement my income with a part-time job in a fast-food cafe at a Hollywood mall.

Upon completion of the music course, I returned to Sioux Falls and with four other fellows organized a rock band called "Tremor." We did week-end gigs in Iowa, Minnesota, and the Sioux Falls, SD area. I also continued to work at restaurants and at one time in a nursing home. Eventually, I began getting experience in recording by obtaining a part-time job with Creative Communications in Sioux Falls.

The last job caused me to take a further interest in the recording industry. I enrolled in a three-month recording engineering course in Orlando, Florida. Dad had contact with a Craney family in Sioux Falls whose son, Mark, was a well-accomplished West Coast drummer. Mark and I were both home for the holidays and Dad brought us together. Mark had contact with a former South Dakotan in a Los Angeles studio. The relationship was enough to set me up with a job at the recording studio.

The job went well for a few months and I was pleased with the operation. However, it was a surprise to learn the studio was on the financial skids and it folded. I relocated to another studio but the pay was meager and the owner was harsh.

It set me to thinking. Brother, Dick, had been doing well in the computer field. I enrolled at a computer school in Los Angeles. It was not easy sledding to financially support the new effort. The savings account had played out. However, I received student loans, some money was arriving from home, Dad took over payments for a few months on a newer car I obtained, and part-time work was found with two different computer firms.

Dad flew to California for a visit. We camped in the upper elevations of Northern California. I never took Dad to my substandard housing which I rented in the interest of economics.

Approximately two weeks after Dad's visit I flew to Sioux Falls feeling it was time for a change. I noticed an ad for a computer programmer in the Twin Cities after reading a copy of the Minneapolis Tribune at the Sioux Falls Library. I made contact by phone, had a personal interview and was hired by the SKAMP Corporation.

It meant living in the Twin Cities area but I began organizing another band in Sioux Falls called "Closet Monster." I came back nearly each weekend to practice or play gigs with the band.

Eventually I obtained computer programming consulting work as a special assignment with another friend for the Minnesota Education Department. It was possible for me to return to Sioux Falls and do most of the programming work at a distance.

At the end of one year, the work for the state of Minnesota was finished and I had to look for work again. I was hired by the Cargill Corporation in the Twin Cities. I resumed living at an apartment in Chaska, Mn., for several months. Later, I made Cargill a proposition. It was to allow me to return to Sioux Falls living, spend three days in the Twin Cities Cargill offices and to do other work for Cargill from my Sioux Falls computer. The company was in accord.

In 1997 the practice has been to leave Sioux Falls to drive 250 miles to the Twin Cities early Tuesday morning and remain there through Thursday afternoon. If I am not in Cargill's headquarters or in Sioux Falls, I might be traveling by plane for the company in other states.

There have been advantages to living in Sioux Falls, especially because my girlfriend, Shelli, and other friends are here, keeping the band going and residing outside the boundary for Minnesota state income tax imposition.

I remarked at the beginning that training from the three technical schools would fit together, for example: Guitar school -- music training has led to organizing a band; recording engineering -- I record bands at my rented home on weekends in Sioux Falls, and computer school -- It has led to financially fulfilling work.