gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
The "granddaddy of all phone phreaks", the predecessors of the computer hackers died of a heart attack a couple weeks ago. I used to be a fairly close friend of his but we had drifted apart many years ago, in fact I was surprised to learn he was back in Minneapolis. Once, just a voice on the phone (when I was big into the phone phreaking thing in college), I first met "Highrise Joe" (the moniker he used before changing his name to Joybubbles) when I took him out to lunch during a business trip to Denver, his home town at the time. He moved to Minneapolis in the 80's and realized his dream of living in a high rise apartment connected to the Skyway system.
He was quite the character and admittedly never really grew up nor did he want to, he had too much fun playing with the telephone system and thinking up ways to make other kids happy (his other "hobby"). His first apartment in Minneapolis was on the 15th floor (had a nice view of the Mississippi too but that didn't do much for Joe) and he often talked about jumping off the "Lanai" so he could hear himself scream all the way down.
Now that he's gone, I'm wishing I'd kept in touch.
http://www.lospadres.info/thorg/joy1.html
http://www.telecom-gear.com/Death-of-Joybubbles-(Joe-Engressia)-article3581--2.htm
He was quite the character and admittedly never really grew up nor did he want to, he had too much fun playing with the telephone system and thinking up ways to make other kids happy (his other "hobby"). His first apartment in Minneapolis was on the 15th floor (had a nice view of the Mississippi too but that didn't do much for Joe) and he often talked about jumping off the "Lanai" so he could hear himself scream all the way down.
Now that he's gone, I'm wishing I'd kept in touch.
http://www.lospadres.info/thorg/joy1.html
http://www.telecom-gear.com/Death-of-Joybubbles-(Joe-Engressia)-article3581--2.htm