John David Cholewa
One of the many Johns of the Forum, JC is a fortysomething Forumite who continues to occasionally visit and contribute to the Forum. He is an avid (albeit amateur) ballroom dancer and enjoys occasionally baking for friends. He reads books nonstop serially but slowly, but he typically only watches films and television with others. In the future, he plans to go to more SF Cons.
Pre Forum History
John was born on November 3rd, 1975 in a Long Island Jewish hospital in Queens. In 1976, after his parents' apartment burned down, he and his family moved to a house in Valley Stream, NY, where he has lived for the bulk of his life. He went through the local primary and secondary schools, being generally nerdy and playing cards (most notably Bullshit) with a small group of outcasts in his high school. Notable among his friends and acquaintances at the time were Gerry Garcia and Rob Kopp, both future Forumites.
He started working at the age of 12 initially doing delivery for a periodical called "Pennysaver". Afterwards followed years of lawn mowing, gardening and snow shovelling. In his spare time, the television and computer found themselves on frequently, and many BBSes were visited.
When it came time to look for a college, he found Stony Brook to be an ideal match and decided that it was the only school he wished to attend. It seems that this worked out quite well.
Forum History
Introduction to the Forum
John's mother worked for a pair of pediatricians in Valley Stream, and among that office's patients were Colleen and Kerry Skadl. Since it was known that he was so focused on going to school in Stony Brook, he was invited to their dorm in the Spring of 1993 for something called a "Science Fiction Convention", a thing that he'd not heard of before. He went and it was amazing. Many interesting people were met, many sights were beheld, and he was told to come back and visit a place called the Forum, which was moving from a place called Central Hall to a place called Harriman.
Upon beginning his Freshman year at Stony Brook, John helped with the latter stages of moving the Forum into its new home. He had a chance to see the water damaged Central Hall basement that held the old Forum room and rooms of associated clubs.
Signing up for many, many hours of shiftholder duty, John donated his soul to the Forum to the detriment of his grades (he did not, however, manage to make it into the Square Root Club). This, in addition to panic caused by a slightly abusive roommate and depression caused by his initial major not quite working out, put him on academic probation.
During his first Semester, John was introduced to "Born Again Christians" -- or "Rebos", as the Forum called them. A nice fellow named Tom handed him a book called "1994", which explained that the world was going to end in that titular year.
1994
The world did not end.
But John's grades did not improve enough to keep him in Stony Brook. Placed in academic suspension, he took classes at Nassau Community College, a place with far better teachers but without awesome cool clubs. This was an interesting tradeoff, but John learned that he was much better off as a commuter than as a dormer.
In the meantime, John stopped mowing lawns and started working at his new school. He was an assistant librarian, a Mac lab aide and an administrative assistant for a procurement department.
1995
Finally coming back for the following year's Fall Semester (after taking an intensive Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer classes at NCC in order to make up for lost time), John met a newer batch of Forumites. He commuted all the way from Valley Stream, occasionally going through Jamaica, occasionally taking a car-based short cut via Mineola. After a little bit of doing this, he was invited to crash at GAMYR House, where he often brought gifts of food (according to Ryan -- John no longer remembers this factoid) and admired the smokin' hot women who lived there. Crashing during the week and only commuting back for weekends helped in dramatically increasing his grades.
Work initially consisted of doing stock room work and occasional computer administration for a dental supply company. In May, John was hired by Chip-Tech, Ltd. for a part time salary that was -- at the time -- very attractive for a naive schoolgoer. He continued working for this company until at least 2007, though the salary did eventually become very, very unattractive for a less naive CS graduate.
1996
It was likely during this year that John became Activities Coordinator. He had been running TV Night -- even so far as to produce a weekly newsletter of the same name -- for some time before this, so it seemed a natural fit.
Additionally, he and Gerry started renting in a cheap house in East Setauket.
1997
This was the year John finished his classes and started working full time. He occasionally visited the Forum, but most of his energies were focused on an online journalistic website (these days, one would call it a blog) that became an occasional slashdotee and eventually worked up to a regular daily readership in the thousands.
1998 to 2003
The Dark Years
These were years of hard work and depression. The Forum was occasionally visited, but it was expensive in both time and money to do this regularly, so it was not often done. John still went to I-CON religiously and made it to the 35th Anniversary Party, which happened during this time span.
2004
Late in 2004, John was invited to Jim's birthday party. As with his initial visit to Stony Brook many years ago, it was an incredible experience. He was invited to visit a place called Selden House, which allowed people to randomly hang out once a week. A bit shy about this, his decision to try going there was strengthened by the fact that half the population of this house were former Forumites whom he knew (notably, Casey, Conrad Schnakenberg, Bri and DK]).
2005
Going to Selden House was amazing. It felt like going to a one day Science Fiction Convention every single week. Watching television and films and eating with a bunch of geeks, some of them female, was an experience that John had sorely missed since his college days. After this, it was easy to make the shift towards going to the Forum meetings before visiting Selden House. This worked out fantastically, and John was introduced yet again to a new set of awesome Forumites.
2006
It's crazy how life throws a grenade into the works now and then. Selden House imploded unexpectedly in March, leaving the residents there in disarray, searching for new places to live. For a time, there were no places to hang out after the Forum meeting, so John and others started going to a local diner to get their social fix. This practice continued even after another house -- Fang Keep -- became available for hanging out. And, for a time, things were good.
2007
It's crazy how life throws a grenade into the works now and then. Fang Keep imploded unexpectedly in March, leaving the residents there in disarray, searching for new places to live. For a time, there were no places to hang out after the Forum meeting.
It is still that time.
2010s
John achieved a Social Singularity at some point in the late naughties (naught-eight and naught-nine, more or less). He became heavily involved in the Burning Man community, even acting as Lead Ranger at a New York state burn, and participates in many flash mob and mass performance events in New York City. He avidly hula hooped and played with stilts and occasionally costumed, and he enjoyed baking for many events that he attended.
This was also a decade where, fresh from getting a career-defining job, he bought a house and started hosting parties. All Forumites were invited, and for a time some of them were able to make the long trek from mid-Suffolk to mid-Nassau. Good times were had.
Closer to his roots, he went to seven or eight fan-run science fiction conventions per year, often bumping into Forum-originated SMOFs like Jeff Warner. This led to a long tradition of attending the World Science Fiction Convention, and using it as an excuse to visit new parts of the world.
Meanwhile, the Forum underwent some odd changes which made it nearly impossible for alumni to continue participating. The annual picnic lost the interest of active-student Forumites, to the point where the last few consisted almost entirely of alumni and was eventully dropped. Forum meetings moved to daytime hours from the previously much more easily accessible evening times. And, most oddly of all, the Forum began enforcing open and close times, with off-season library and lounge availability entirely undisclosed. Alumni attendance to the Forum spaces eventually dropped off. Still, John spent some time as one of the administrators on the Forum web site and spearheaded the incredibly slow and tedious process of digitizing old Forum LOGs, the results of which can be found here. Although John handed off administration of sf4m.org to the Forum's officers, he is occasionally useful in website-related emergencies.
2020s
This next decade, John began to explore more outdoor activities. He became a caver, helping to explore and preserve underground cave systems with the National Speleological Society; got certified for SCUBA diving; started running with the Hash House Harriers, a drinking group with a running problem; hiked several mountains; and began using solar eclipses as yet another excuse to travel different parts of the world, though still mostly in the US.
Links
- Mastodon https://tooters.org/@john
- Facebook http://facebook.com/brainguy
- LJ http://jcholewa.livejournal.com/ (defunct)
Coined the term "useful people".