(I'll be writing this in third-person since it sounds cooler)

Mike was born on 10/29/74 at Mt. Sanai on Miami Beach. An only child, Mike was raised by his mother and grandmother after his parents divorced when he was 6. He was a quiet and reserved child who had trouble making friends in school.

At 14, his interests turned to music and he begged his mother to buy him a drum set. She did, and he spent several years mastering his instrument. At 16 he got an electric guitar, at 18 a multi track recorder.

After high school, Mike and some of his friends rented a warehouse and started recording bands. His makeshift recording studio grew as he charged thousands of dollars worth of audio gear on his visa and mastercard. After 6 years of trying to break even, he quit the recording studio biz and moved on to webmastering.

To his surprise, Mike got a call back after responding to a "Media Company seeks Webmaster" classified ad in the local paper. Having previously worked at Taco Bell and 5 different record stores, Mike had no real experience for this very REAL job. But he put on his best poker face and with a bagful of bravado he walked into the 11th floor of a very tall building for an interview. He got the job somehow, then got a raise, then got promoted, then got moved to the dot com and promoted again, then two more raises and a group of subordinates. Then he got fired. They like to say "let go" and mention the economy and then file for chapter 11 and stuff, but you FEEL fired.

What really sucks about the getting fired part, was that Mike was two days away from closing on the purchase of a very nice condo overlooking the water on Miami Beach. Not only did he loose the condo, he also lost part of his down payment.

Do you feel sorry for Mike yet? If so, you should give him money!

Mike spent the next 9 months in limbo (or job board hell depending on how you look at it). He posted his resume on over 60 different job boards. He even used one of those resume forwarding services that sends an email blast to hundreds of recruiters. In the end though, he ended up relying on plastic to get him by, and drunk. Once the layoff frenzy subsided, Mike was able to find a job webmastering again, but by now he had accumulated of $30,000 in credit card debt.

So now, Mike has become so desperate that he has resorted to building a website, asking for strangers to send him money, which you are now reading.

Want to know more facts about Mike?