David Boggus - Art

This is Toby, when we got him the guy at the pet store told us he was the same kind of dog as Toto from Wizard of Oz so at first we were going to call him Toto, but I didn't really like the name and then one of my wife’s friends suggested Toby. I have had a lot of pets growing up mainly dogs. The first animal I remember having was a golden retriever named Lady. I don't remember a lot about her because that was when I was less than 5 years old. When my mom and dad got divorced, my dad took Lady with him and then ended up giving her away. After that my mom bought both my sister and me little puppies. They got sick and died probably a month later. After that I don't remember much until we lived with my step dad. My mom bought me a girl rat. I didn't name her until I got a male rat and called him Splinter. I was a big Ninja Turtles fan. I called the female April. My step dad had a dog named Star; I don't remember what kind of dog it was. We ended up getting another dog and we named her Lady. She had puppies and we kept one of them and named him Fluffy. My step dad bought two boa constrictors. We started breading rats to feed to the snakes, so at one point we had two dogs, two birds, two snakes, a bunch of hamsters (those where my sisters), and a ton of rats. Splinter was very smart. I got really close to him. I took him for walks inside the house and sometimes I would tie a string around his neck and let him wander off. As long as knew where the string was I could find him. He was able to get out of his cage, and he did so quite a few times. We assumed he was wandering around the house and then coming back when he was tired or hungry because we always found him sitting on top of his cage. One day while I was at school he was killed by one of the snakes. My mom said he must have gotten out and then went behind our fish tank where the snakes liked to hangout. After that I didn't get close to another pet for sometime. After my mom and step dad got divorced we moved into an apartment complex. That is where I met my friend Jason. He gave me a rabbit and a guinea pig. The guinea pig was very sweet and shy, the rabbit was not. She was mean, you couldn't stick your hand into her cage without getting bit. I'm sure it had a lot to do with the fact that Jason never held her and that her cage was a pet porter that doesn't allow much light in. Anyway it took me a long time but I finally got her to the point where she would let me do almost anything to her. She still didn't care for other people but she didn't bite unless she was harmed. She lived for a long time, we had moved up here to Wisconsin a few years before she died. The guinea pig also made it up here but she died a while before the rabbit. After the rabbit and guinea pig died, my mom bought another rabbit and guinea pig. She also bought a cat just after moving to Wisconsin. I bought Toby last September and I have become very close to him. I love having the challenge of taking care of and training pets, and I’m sure Toby will provide me with more of those challenges.

I'm running late for my math class because I lost track of time typing the stuff for the previous picture. I meant to get my hat in the picture more. It is one of my Jeff Gordon hats. I have been a Jeff Gordon fan for about 5 or 6 years now. I don't watch the races very often but when I get a chance to I do. Racing is one of a few things my dad and I have in common. It's horrible, I call him and we talk about stupid things like the weather and racing, and then we don't talk for a long time. When I was 5 my mom and dad got divorced. I used to go see him almost every weekend and then he moved to West Virginia and I only saw him during the summer. After a while it was only 1 month during the summer and then it was 2 weeks. Last summer was the first time I had seen him in two years. We grew further and further apart.

It's time to go back home for a while. That's my van in the background there. It's actually my wife's van but I have been driving it because she doesn't have her driver’s license yet. I have a Cavalier now but I remember my first few cars. My first car was a 1988 Ford Tempo. I bought it for $50 and it ended up lasting me for about 6 months and cost me a lot more than that in the end. My second car was a Chrysler Fifth Avenue. I think it lasted me a year. I drove that thing until it wouldn’t move anymore. The rear axle broke and the car would not move. My next car was a Plymouth Acclaim. The transmission broke on that car and I replaced it and it broke again. Then I got an Oldsmobile and it would have lasted longer but it had an oil leak and I never checked it. I ended up throwing a rod through the oil pan. My Cavalier has lasted the longest so far (it is newer than all of my previous cars). Now we have two cars and Mandy is working on getting her license.

This is my computer. I am a computer science major and I love my computers. I started getting big into computers the summer that I moved to La Crosse. I'm not very outgoing and so I didn't make any friends until school started, and since we moved at the beginning of the summer I had a lot of time to waste. My mom's boyfriend at the time helped in my interests, he knew a lot about computers and taught me some pretty cool stuff. I started to design a website that summer and after getting sick of the way Geocities' page builder worked I decided to learn HTML. I learned at first by reading a little tutorial that I found on the internet. After that I looked at other people’s code and also bought some books. This has been my main hobby since, and I have actually made some money from it. As you can see I have two monitors (one is actually my laptop). I found that this makes it easier to work on projects that require a lot of programs being opened at once.

This is my wife Mandy. We met in 8th grade. She was my girlfriend’s friend. We became a couple during our freshman year of high school and have been together ever since. We got married in May of 2001 even though I was only 16 and she was only 17. I'm sure a lot of people thought that we wouldn't last as long as we have. My father is one of those people. Well we have been married for almost 5 years now and we are still very happy and very much in love. We currently have two kids together.

This is my son Jason. He wasn't feeling very well in this picture. He is usually very eager to jump up and smile for the camera. Jason was born on August 26, 2001, that would make him four right now. He is a very smart kid although he doesn't always like to act like it. When he was 2 he knew his alphabet, who says you can't learn any thing from video games. We bought a game called Elmo's Letter Adventure for him and he learned how to tell the letters apart and eventually what they were called. He is getting ready to go to kindergarten this fall and he is very excited. I am very proud of him and I am very glad that he is a part of my life.

This is my daughter Heather. She is too cute. Heather was born on November 15, 2004. She likes to talk even though she doesn't know a lot of words. She also likes to get into everything. Jason is very close to his sister and they play together a lot. She looks up to him and wants to be able to do everything he does. This can be both cute and rather annoying at times. She gets into his markers and likes to mark on the tables and floors and walls and just about everything else she can reach. She is also very smart. She has figured out the child gates at my mom’s house and she gets into my moms office.

This is my Pepsi can. I am addicted to Pepsi. I wish that I weren’t and I have tried to stop a few times in the past. Actually when I was in 7th grade I drank Sprite instead of Pepsi. My favorite snack was a Sprite and a Snickers. Then I joined the cross country team and my coach told us to stop drinking soda because it impaired our breathing, so I stopped. After that I started drinking Pepsi and I no longer like the taste of Sprite.

This is a small portion of my knife collection. I got my first knife when I was 5 years old. I didn’t really start collecting knives until I was about 10 though. The one that is in the front of the picture has a dinosaur on it and it was given to me by my wife for Christmas a few years ago. I only have a small collection right now, but I hope that in the future it will get bigger. I really like historical replicas and I would like to get replicas of knives and swords from historical events like wars.

Basketball is my favorite sport. The first time I remember playing basketball was when I was in 3rd grade. A group of us would play during almost every recess. I really got into basketball when I was in 5th grade. I played basketball with my friend Jason and other people that lived in the apartments near us. I have never been really good at basketball, but I still love playing because it is a lot of fun and a great workout. My favorite basketball team is the Utah Jazz.

Ok, it’s dinner time. My wife and I usually try to take turns cooking dinner and I guess it is my turn.

This is my favorite computer game of all time, Civilization. This is the 4th installment of the game. I started playing Civ 2 when we first moved to La Crosse. The basic idea of the game is that you control a civilization. In the beginning you get only a few characters and you have to found your first city. After you have built a city you can build more units, some to build cities, roads, farmlands, mines and other things. Also you can train military units to defend your cities and take over other civilizations. There are many ways to win the game which makes it fun. The game takes a very long time to play. I usually start a game and play it over a couple of days.

Dragonball Z is a Japanese anime that I started watching when we moved here to La Crosse. I was lucky to catch the very first episode and I watched it every time that I could. My very first website was a Dragonball Z fan site. As I said before, I didn’t like the way the geocities’ page builder worked so I learned HTML. I don’t think I would have bothered learning it if I didn’t start watching Dragonball Z and if I didn’t learn HTML I probably wouldn’t have gotten into computers in the way that I did.

This is my Ipod Nano. One of my favorite songs is "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed. I first heard the song a little while after my son was born and it reminds me of my feelings when I first found out that I was going to be a father. Some of my other favorite bands are 3 Doors Down, Five for Fighting, Nickelback, and Simple Plan.

This is my TV. I am watching my favorite TV show, Stargate SG1. Actually I am watching Stargate Atlantis in this picture. I have a collection of about 300 movies and I also have every Stargate SG1 and Atlantis on DVD. I love the SCI FI channel. I first watched Stargate SG1 back when it first started almost 10 years ago, and I didn’t really care for it. Then a few years ago I caught a few episodes on TV and I became hooked. Two years ago they made a spin off of Stargate SG1 called Stargate Atlantis. I like watching both shows and there are new episodes on every Friday, so when I get home from work I sit down and watch them.

Behind me is a part of my Utah Jazz memorabilia. My collection is pretty much all I have left to remind me of Utah where I grew up. I have been in La Crosse for about 8 years now and I still think of Utah as my home state. I don’t think that will ever change. The thing that I miss the most about Utah is the mountains. The mountains are very beautiful.