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I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I reside today. I grew up in a household full of musicians, so it was my destiny to become a musician, too. I started playing the piano when I was just tall enough to see over the keyboard, received my first drum set when I was ten years old, started taking tuba lessons in the 4th grade, picked up the bass guitar in the 7th grade, and somewhere in the middle of all that, I began playing the accordion. I officially started my musical career at age 11 occasionally playing drums with Don Nedobeck's Water Street Tavern Band. I'll never forget my first "big gig" back in 1982 in Lake Geneva, WI, from where I returned to Milwaukee with a crisp $100 bill. No one in my 6th grade class at that time believed I made a hundred dollars. In 1986 at the age of 16, I joined my first polka band and performed with them for twenty years. During that time, I also became involved with several other bands in the Milwaukee area. I occasionally help out other bands as a sideman, whether it's playing drums, accordion, keyboard, or bass guitar. I run a business called Polkasound Productions out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It started in 1990 as a four-track recording studio and has since grown into a 24-track digital studio with its name a respected label in the polka recording industry. Through Polkasound Productions, I administrate several websites, including Wisconsin Polka Music. WPM is one of the top-ranked polka websites in the world, receiving over one million hits a year. I
am currently a member of these fine organizations:
BICYCLING
I
am an avid
bicyclist. I ride several hundred miles a year, primarily for
fitness and recreation.
CATS I
don't consider myself a
"cat person", but I was blessed to have the
most wonderful cat for nearly seventeen years. I found Kittling
in
1993, wandering as a stray kitten in the cold, snowy parking lot of a
rural Wisconsin
dance hall.
She passed away peacefully on November 4th, 2009.
In 1998, I adopted a tiny farm kitten from Lena, Illinois. Unfortunately, he had a disease and died from dehydration after just three days in my care. When I noticed he was ill, I rushed him to a 24-hour emergency animal hospital, but they could not save him. A few weeks after Kittling passed away in 2009, Snickers came into my life exactly the same way as Kittling. Not only did I meet him wandering as a stray kitten in a cold, snowy parking lot of a rural Wisconsin dance hall, but the day I found him happened to be December 20th, Kittling's birthday. Knowing it was a sign from Kittling, I adopted him on the spot. Three years later, a friend called me and asked if I could help find a home for a stray that had wandered onto her mom's property and had been living there for the past few days. I offered to pick up the kitten the next day, and then I realized that day, once again, happened to be December 20th. Kittling must have known I had been thinking about getting a companion for Snickers, so she sent me this one. I adopted him into my home and named him Arthur. Snickers and Arthur have become the best of friends. The Kittling Brusky Memorial Fundraiser has been established to honor Kittling's memory. To date, the fundraiser has donated over one-thousand dollars to local, non-profit cat shelters. The fundraising period begins on November 4th and ends on December 20th. Please consider making a donation in 2013.
COINS It's
not too often you
receive a Susan B. Anthony
dollar or a Kennedy half-dollar
in
your day-to-day transactions, but then you're
probably not
doing business with me! I regularly collect and recirculate these
and other seldom-seen coins to foster an interest in others about coin
collecting.
PHOTOGRAPHY As
a photographer, I'm as
amateur as they come, but I'm not too
shabby at digital editing. Click the link to view a selection of
photos
that I've made available as
complimentary desktop
wallpaper for your computer.
SONGWRITING I
occasionally compose new music both
inside and outside the polka genre. I've
written/composed over thirty songs to date, many of which have been
recorded
on my CDs over the years.
STUDIO
RECORDINGPolkasound
Productions
Recording
Studio, which I founded in 1990, has turned
out many polka recordings, countless demos and other
projects over the years.. It's also where I record the music
for my own
CDs. Polkasound is a DAW-based studio running Cubase 7 on a Windows 7
64-bit operating system.
TENNIS I
am an avid tennis
player. I
belong to a league, but also play recreationally with various players
throughout the Milwaukee
area. You can find me on
the
tennis courts three or four days a week from April through November.
WEBSITE DESIGN I
estimate
that I have created roughly 1,300 web pages
since 1996. Besides this website, some of my other website
creations are: Kathy From
Canada, Neighborhood Handyman,
Polkasound Productions,
and Wisconsin Polka Music.
Although I am frequently asked, I do not provide website design as a
service.
XBOX GAMING I'm
an occasional gamer, and in my spare time I'll
play many types of
games on my XBox 360, from first-person shooters to sports.
ARTWORK From 1984 to 1992 (age 14
to 22) I was an avid artist specializing in
oil
landscapes. I
created roughly a couple hundred works in oil, acrylic, charcoal,
graphite, and
ink
during
this period. Below are four of my original paintings from this
period.
CHOCOLATE MILK CONTAINERS Wherever
I traveled by
car, I
always checked out the dairy coolers of the local gas stations to see
what
brand of chocolate milk they carried. As a
former connoisseur of chocolate milk, I've collected well over fifty
chocolate
milk containers
from across the United States and Canada, each from a different
dairy.
DIECAST POLICE VEHICLES I
own just about every commercially-released diecast car of Wisconsin law
enforcement agencies. The link will take you to a page showing
all the cars in my collection.
In
2001, I combined my hobby of
collecting
diecast
police cars with my capabilities as a graphic designer and spent a
little over
a year making
customized, limited editions
of
various Milwaukee-area police agencies. I
either donated my
cars or
sold them at auction on eBay. Some of the cars sold for over a
hundred dollars. Below are four of my creations.
NOTARY PUBLIC From
2008 to 2012, I served a four-year term as a Notary Public of
the State of Wisconsin. This is an office reserved for
exemplary citizens to provide such services as certifying copies
of legal documents, administering oaths and affirmations, and
witnessing the signing of affidavits.
OBSCURE FACTS I could throw a baseball 70 MPH. I aced the Navy's preliminary entrance exam. I once won a game of computer solitaire in 61 seconds. I am related to a Green Bay Packer Hall of Famer. |
