Como te llamas? Last name not necessary if you don't feel comfortable sharing. Were you named after someone?
I don't mind to share it, I'm not paranoid at all about my internet privacy because it's public in a lot of places because my work.
My full name is Ivan Carrillo Yturriagagoitia. Note that i have 2 last names, the first one, Carrillo is my father's 1st last name and the second one, Yturriagagoitia is my mother's 1st last name.
In Spain it's different than in USA. Here when a woman gets married, she doesn't take his husband last name, they keep their own, so the kids inherited both last names, the first from the father and the first from the mother. The ones lost in the inheritance chain are the second from each one.
It's a fun situation when a foreign is asked his full name here in a bank or official place, they are always asked what is their second last name and nobody understand when they say they only have one :)

Do you live in Old Toledo, or New Toledo?
In the new area. The old town is pretty nice to visit, it's like a big castle full of history in every narrow street, but not comfortable to live in. I live in a residential area, with bigs parks and surrounded by trees and open spaces, i hate too crowded places.

Why did you choose Icy as a name?
Most of people think it's related to the English "ice" word, but in fact is way simpler, just my initials from Ivan Carrillo Yturriagagoitia. Not so original uh? :D

How did you find us?

It was in the Sigames board in. I was fascinated by the sports text sims genre and I visited the SI boards daily.
One day i saw somebody naming a football text sim named FOF, i did a google search and then found FOFC, it was in 2003.

At first i was more a lurker, just posting from time to time. I remember also asking Jim for a way to buy his PRO game online as the only available was TCY and i didn't know anything about college sports.
Funny thing, I just did a search and it showed that my first post here was an answer to a question from a member nicknamed "lurker" :D

If you could travel the world, what would be your first stop and what would you like to see?
I have traveled a lot around Europe, also visited South and North America so i guess i would chose something different like Japan. It's also a really different culture that i would like to know.

Have you visited the states? Which city are you most curious about?
I have visited USA once, work related. I traveled to Miami 3 years ago to the biggest webmasters convention that is held there every year. The convention last 3 days, but i expended there a whole week visiting other places both for fun and meeting other work related persons that i only knew by phone or instant messenger.
I enjoyed a lot the visit, liked a lot Miami as it has both the USA's big city culture but with a Spanish flavor. I was surprised at how much people speaks Spanish there, even the announcers at the airport talked in Spanish.
Another thing that caught my attention is how spread are the cities there, for example, each small shop was in it's own small building, here the cities are more tight, like the center of a big city in USA, with high towers and the shops are placed in the lower floor of the buildings.
I enjoyed the food, but after 7 days eating it i started to feel tired of the fat used and that every place served mainly meat, really good one i must say as i were invited at the most known restaurants there by the sponsors trying to impress me to work with them :D
Here we eat way more vegetables and fish and i think the Mediterranean food is more healthy (don't confuse the Mexican food with the Spanish food, we both are Latins but we don't eat the same).

What is your beverage of choice?
It depends on the situation, to refresh I like Coke Zero, also because the caffeine shoot, I like also a really cold beer served in a jar that has been iced in the refrigerator.
When eating i drink usually water or wine. I drink a lot of water, like half a gallon daily.

If you were another person, would you be friends with you?
I think so, I'm pretty easy to talk with, I enjoy a lot talking with anybody even if i just knew him, so it was always easy to me to make friends. About being really close friends, I have a few and i think I'm a good friend of my friends plus i have never lose a friend because a problem or fight, if i lose them is because the change city, etc. I'm also pretty open when talking about my feelings and it helps, if you open your heart i open mine too.
It's also really hard to get me angry, i think i have been really angry less than 10 times in my whole life, and i haven't ever had a real fight with anybody.


What's the best vacation you've ever been on?
What was the most disastrous vacation/trip you've ever taken?

The best was probably my honeymoon, we spent a week in Rome (Italy) and we loved it, from the historical monuments to the food, but at same time it was so tiresome, as we wake up early in the morning to be the whole day walking to not to miss any monument as both my wife and me love history and art.
Then from there we flied to Mexico (Cancun) and there we relaxed in a great all included resort, recovering from the long walks in Rome and from the weeding stress.

Related to that and as a curiosity that i know will sound weird for you in USA. A weeding in Spain is the biggest party you can ever have. A small one like ours, as we wanted to keep it only for the family and close friends, has over 200 guests, while a big one can have around 400. We are a heavily catholic country so it starts with a religion act and then it follows with a looooooong dinner (like 3 or 4 hours) and dancing and parting until the next morning. Think of the weddings in "the godfather" movies. Of course Spanish are so familiar and have heavy ties with all the far family, all the aunts/uncles, cousins, etc and we are so social so we have tons of friends.
Now you can understand when i talked about resting from the stress of the wedding, imagine to coordinate and to get ready all that.

About the worst, I never had a really bad experience in any travel. The only problem i faced was when i traveled to usa as i forgot my passport and had to go back to pick it again, loosing the plane so i had to pay for a new ticket, but there was only first class available so i had to pay $1500 extra as it was my only option to get in time in Miami for the convention. It pissed me off at first, but i must admit it was a great experience to do a trans oceanic trip in first class, i felt like a rich businessman with all the attention paid to me. too bad for the return i had my standard ticket and noticed how different it is :D

If you could pick any age and stay there for the rest of your life, what age would you pick?
Umm I have been always pretty happy overall, so i don't know, i have enjoyed every age with it's good and bad things. I enjoyed a lot in the 20's when i was touring with my rock band around Spain, but I also enjoy being an adult even with the new problems and responsibilities but also with the freedom and living in my own house with the woman i love.

If someone offered you 2 million Euro to walk around naked for 15 minutes in a public place (without getting arrested), would you?
2 Millions? I would do it for way less, i don't have any problem with nudity nor i find it offensive, of course I would feel ashamed of doing it in public, but i would do it.
It won't also have you arrested in Spain unless you do it in in a really public place or in front of a government or very touristic place. The cops would call your attention and of course would ask what are you doing? but probably would just send you home. If you do it in a full crowded bar or disco at night, you will have all the people around you laughing and making fun but nobody will call the cops.

Nudity in Spain is not such a big deal, if you go to any Spanish beach in summer you will see 50% of the women in topless and fully naked people in less crowded beaches with no kids around, it's totally legal here.

Spanish Fly: Does it work?
No idea sorry, never tried it, but i think it's more a placebo effect. I don't think any substance can make you horny, they can open you, like for example when you drink alcohol, it helps you to liberate from your taboos, maybe making you more open to having sex, but then you need the right stimulation. I guess it's the same with the Spanish fly, maybe it can open a women a bit, but if she doesn't feel you attractive enough or she doesn't want to have sex with you, it won't work no matter what she drinks.

Can you give me something to say in Spanish for next time there's a pretty Latina girl next to me?
Umm sorry but after being married with the same girl i started to date when we were 14 years old, my flirt skills aren't the best nor i have practiced them a lot. Better tell me what you would say her in English and i'll translate it to Spanish for you :)

What are your favorite books? Movies?
What movie genre is your favorite?

I'm an avid reader so it's tough to answer this one. I like mainly historic or fantasy books, specially the ones that mix both fantasy with an historic background.
Also enjoy thrillers and WWII books.
One of my favorite books is "Carrion comfort" from Dan Simmons, about a group of powerful people who can control other's minds.
I enjoyed a lot too the following ones:
"The eight" from Katherine Neville
The 10 vampire books from Anne Rice
"The pillars of the earth" from Ken Follet
Anthony Beavor's 2nd world war books (I'm huge fan of war books)
"The Silence of the Lambs" from Thomas Harris
Old books from Stephen King, but I'm a bit tired of his books, a bit repetitive.

About movies... probably the same, Thrillers, historical and WWII movies.
"Se7en", "Saving Private Ryan", "The Fight Club", "Enemy at the gates" to name some.
Recently i really enjoyed the "Pan's Labyrinth"

I watch WAAAAY too many English speaking movies, can you recommend several good Spanish ones (and by Spanish I don't mean from Spain specifically)?
I'll name them by the Spanish titles but they have been probably translated to English there. At least you can google them.
Any movie from Alejandro Amenabar is a masterpiece, you probably know his international one with Nicole Kidman, "The others" but his early movies are great, i would recommend "Tesis".
Any Almodovar movie if you like him, I'm not a big fan of his work, i would say "All About My Mother" the the later one "volver" are the best, but... again i don't like his movies a lot.
"Devil's Backbone" from Guillermo del Toro is a great movie.
"El Día De La Bestia" from Alex De La Iglesia is a pretty fun movie about the end of the world on the 200 year, the savior is a metalhead who has no principles at all.
"Nadie Hablará De Nosotras Cuando Hayamos Muerto" from Agustín Díaz Yanes.
"Martín Hache" from Adolfo Aristarain
"Solas" from Benito Zambrano


[quote=JPhillips;1413309]What's the Spanish opinion of Christopher Columbus?

We think on him like the Spanish guy who discovered America (even when he was not Spanish), a valorous guy who pursued his dream and convinced everybody to support him, including the Catholic kings.
If your question is more related to how we see him regarding what the Spanish did to the native habitants, that is more related to the conquerors like Hernan Cortes, blind because gold and trying to become heroes.
I'm not so proud of what they did but i guess it was a different era, hard to judge them from our current culture and vision of history.

[quote=albionmoonlight;1413349]This isn't about you, per se, but I am still curious: What's the deal with the Basque people? From my ignorant perspective, I hear them described both as terrorists and and victims. Any insight would be appreciated.

You are probably going to get a biased answer from me, but I'll try to be objective.
The Basques were oppressed by the dictator Franco, not allowing them to speak their language, trying to kill their own regional culture etc, but at same time, Franco gave them tons of money to push the industry there to support the rebuild of the country, specially coal and steel mines an factories.
I can understand somewhat the Basque citizens rebelling those days (of course not to the point of terrorism) but things have changed a lot since then. With the democracy, the Basques and the Catalonians regained a lot of independence, they have their own laws, taxes, police, their culture and language now and taught in their schools, etc. Of course they must follow also the Spanish laws, but Spain also follows the European laws non renouncing to our own.
In fact, they have way more independence that any other region in Spain and a lot of advantages, for example, you can't be a teacher or work for the government in the Basque country because you are forced to speak and write their language, while as they are bilingual, they can work anywhere in Spain. also if because your work, you need to move to the Basque country, you can face problems like your kids having to attend to the school where it all is taught in Basque language, when the Spanish official 1st language is Spanish.
Knowing that, it's very hard for the rest of Spanish to understand what are they claiming now. The terrorists and it's supporters claim that they are oppressed, but when asked why, they don't know what to answer, they just want to become a country no matter what, just in an era where everybody is trying to unite to create a full European country. When you ask them how are they going to survive being such a small country, without agriculture, without resources outside coal and fishing (less and less) they don't' know what to answer, they just say, we want to be a country.
It's fun also that they say that they are invaded by Spanish forces, when as i said before, they have their own police as they requested, not the Spanish one, the military forces stationed there are less than in any other region of Spain, just the minimum amount to protect our coast.
Another thing that proves how they also shoot in their own foot, is that while claiming that they want independence, they also claim that another close region, Navarra, must be part of their "country", when the Navarra habs don't want to be part of any new Basque country, so they want Navarra forced to stay with them, a totally incongruence.

About ETA themselves, well, a big part of them are tired of the "war" as they call it and would want to end it (they are negotiating now with the government for the peace) but there are some fanatics inside that don't' want it to end. I guess the problem is that to survive they started to deal with drugs and weapons, etc, so at the eyes fo the other Basques, they are not seen as country heroes anymore, but as thief, drug dealers and assassins so it would be hard for them to go back to a normal life. it' swell known that they are close to the end and it's only a matter of negotiation, mainly related to how they can go back to normal life, about the thousands in prison etc. They have killed 3 persons in the last 3 years, it was not intended, they wanted just to blow the airport parking to have some power in the current negotiations, thinking nobody was inside, but 3 guys were sleeping into their car and sadly died.
Anyway it's only a minority of Basques that think that way, mainly old people who really felt oppressed by the dictatorship or young vandals who think they are cool burning the cars in the streets or the bank cash machines. the difference is that if you burn a cash machine in Madrid, you are a vandal, if you do it in the Basque country, you are a hero and you are praised, so of course every kid wants to do it because it's fun and cool. Most of the Basques are happy with the big independence they got trough politic negotiations and they don't want to become a country as they know there is no way to survive being that small. Of course the few radicals make more noise than the majority so that is why you heard more about them outside Spain, but right not is not a big deal anymore. In fact most of the Basques want it to end as it damages their image and it detracts the foreign tourism and investors.

I can talk for hours about it, but in another thread. I have Basque blood and a Basque surname, Yturriagagoitia, as my mother's grandfather was from there, so i have been always curious about it.

Can you talk a little bit about the regional differences within the country and maybe any experiences you've had with them (for us uninitiated Western types)?
I would say you can divide Spanish regions on three based on the culture differences, north, central and south. Of course what i'll write here are just wide generalizations, not everybody is the same.
North: Basques, Catalonians, Asturianos and Gallegos. The most close to the rest of Europeans, good and very polite people, but less open than the rest of Spanish. I guess the bad weather makes them more reserved, as they are less making relationships in the street. They are polite and educated too, with an high cultural level and the strongest economy.
South: Andaluces and Murcianos. Pretty open people, they enjoy being the whole day outside, drinking, partying, making friends. High sense of humor, bit talkers and a bit lazy regarding work. The economy is poor there, lots of people work in the farms. The weather here is great, there is never winter but it's too hot on summer. They have also nice beaches and slowly are being invaded by north Europeans who are buying houses there without stop, looking for the party, food, weather and beaches.
Middle: Castillians and Madrileños. A mix between the other two, the closer to the north, the more like the Basques and Catalonians, the more to the south the more like the Andaluces. Let's say the pure Spanish is spoken here, the capital city Madrid is in the middle of Spain, Toledo where i live is also here and used to be the capital city some centuries ago. It's really a mix of the other two regions, you can find both kind of people and cultures. Most of the economy here is business and industry in Madrid plus tourism and government/administration related work in Madrid and other cities like mine, Toledo.

(...at the risk of abusing European FOFCers as travel agents...)
If one were to fly to the U.S. to Spain for a weeklong vacation (landing in Madrid, say), what would be, in your opinion, the ideal itinerary?


Have you ever done/seen the Running of the Bulls?
I have seen it in TV, but not a big fan of Bull's running. I think it's really prehistoric and that the intelligent animals are most of the times the ones with the horns and not the ones who run.

As a director who's worked on Lorca I'd love to know if you have any thoughts on his plays?
Sorry not a lot to say here, i have read his most famous plays, like "La Barraca", "Blood Wedding" and "La casa de Bernarda Alba" but I did mainly because i was required to do it in high school when studding Spanish literature. I'm not a big fan of 20th century Spanish literature, i prefer the classic writers like Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca etc.

Does the rain there fall mainly on the plain?
Uhh? Lol i had to google it as i guessed it was a joke... is that Eliza Doolittle's line from the movie My Fair Lady?
I haven't seen the movie so i don't get it well, but in fact no, i live in the plain part of Spain and it doesn't rain here a lot, it rains way more at the north, in the mountains but i guess that was not the answer you were looking for :)

Who are your five favorite athletes of all time?
The following are athletes I admire for a reason, not the best athletes ever.
I enjoyed a lot watching Carl Lewis in his prime.
I also admire Michael Jordan for being one of the best and more versatile athletes ever.
Michael Schumacher if you consider an F1 car drivers an athlete (i really think they are).
Drazen Petrovic was incredible when playing basketball in Spain, had two good seasons in NY in the NBA too but didn't shine as much.
Miguel Indurain, the Spanish cyclist who reigned before Amstrong. He was the real ice man, his face looked always the same, you never knew if he was doing a real effort or just having fun.

I've been a big fan of your graphical mods for awhile. I absolutely love the mod you put out for Total College Basketball. How did you develop such mad graphical skills? What tools do you prefer to work with?

Thanks :)
I use mainly Adobe Photoshop and about learning, well it's all about hours of practice and googling for tutorials, all self taught.

Piggyback onto the assmaster's question.

I am a big fan of your mad graphical skills.
What are some of your favorite logos and why? Real and Fictitious.

What professional logo do you think is the worst?

Thanks again :)
My favorite logos, umm I like or modern and aggressive logos or with nice fonts and "in your face" style, simple but eye catching. For example, the White Sox logo is so simple, just the 3 letters but i like it.
I like also the new 2007 Diamondbacks one. Orlando Magic's one is nice, Houston Texans and Seattle in the NFL are original too. Nashville Predators in the NHL is an aggressive logo i like too.

The worst umm i would say the Cleveland Browns if you can call it a logo, Seattle Marines one is too outdated, the Chicago Blackhawks one in the NHL is ugly for me too, the big indian face. I think some prop teams have really outdated logos but i guess they want to preserve tradition.

What's the deal with David Beckham, anyway? Is he still any good?
What did you think about Beckham's arrival to Real Madrid, and what do you think about his departure now?
I think he is and has been really overrated. He was good and dangerous shooting free kicks and corner kicks, but never a top overall player. He was brought to R.Madrid just because his fame and because the amount of T.Shirts with his name he could sell, the same reason he is in the Galaxy now, more because his "off the field" skills than because his soccer ones.

I am always fascinated by the siesta. Do you take part? If so what kind of hours do you work?

I don't like siesta and never take part. The main reason is that when i sleep, I do it so deep, and it takes a big effort to me to wake up. For example, like most of Spanish, after lunch, my wife always sits in front of the TV and sleeps like 15 minutes. then she wakes up and she feels nice. If i sleep a siesta, i end sleeping like 3 hours, i need an alarm clock to wake me up, and then i feel really bad, with headache, dizzy, and feeling guilty for loosing a lot of useful time, etc. So after lunch i always take a strong espresso and surf the net or play a game or start to work.

The Spanish work journey is 8 hours, usually from 9AM to 2PM and from 5PM to 8PM. From 2PM to 5Pm you have lunch and sleep siesta. That is mainly the offices and commerce journey. In the factories is more a straight 8 hours journey, or in the morning, or afternoon or night.
About myself, well as i work from home and for myself, i work when i want to. I'm usually in front of the computer from 9Am to 3Pm, then I cook the lunch and wait for my wife to come from work (she works on mornings only, 4 days per week, 6 hours per day), we have lunch and then I come back to the computer at like 4PM. Then I'm with the computer until 9PM or so, when i usually go out running, or to the gym etc. One hour later i have dinner with my wife and we both watch TV, but usually i have the notebook on my knees. My wife usually goes to bed at at midnight and while she watches TV in bed, i take a fast look at the main computer again in case i have an urgent message or issue. I usually go to bed at 1AM.
as you can see I'm the whole day in front of a computer. Not always working of course, i also surf for fun, play games etc but i don't have a fixed working schedulle, for example, i could be playing a game, receive an email work related and then start to work for a couple of hours, then once it's done, i talk with my wife for 30 minutes or so, then work again, or play games etc. Total freedom and that is why i love my work. On the other hand I dedicate overall more hours to work than the Spanish average 8 hours per day, as i also work on weekends.

Are you going to turn the Giants around, or is the NL too tough?
For those wondering, he is asking about the team i manage in the RWBL OOTP6.5 MP league.
Yes, i think next year will be our year. Since i took over the team, I have been cutting the salary, trading the vets and getting young players form those trades and from the draft. I have a great and young pitching staff that debuted in the majors this year and that i expect to boom in the next season, let's see :)

Are tapas actually a part of Spanish culture, or is it basically an American culinary fad?

What is your favorite tapas?

Oh yeah they are for sure, one of the things i like the most from my country. the tapas exist almost everywhere in Spain, the main difference is that at the south the tapas are usually give for free when you pay the drinks, while at the north you need to pay for them.
For example Granada city is the paradise of the tapas. There every time you ask for a drink in a bar, you are also served a different food for free. Like a full plate of Spanish food, or a full sandwich, or even a full handburger etc. so if you drink like 3 or 4 beers, you have a free lunch or dinner. Of course not as comfortable as a restaurant as you are standing in the bar or mainly outside because the great weather in that city.
The tapas are also famous in the Basque country, but there re more elaborate and you need to ask and pay for them.
In my city some bars started to serve free tapas too some years ago, and as soon as a couple started, all the others had to follow as all the people went to the ones serving free food so tapas are pretty nice in Toledo too.

About my favorite, umm well I'm not sure if i have a favorite, i like them all :D
I would say a good cooked "paella" is nice, but also a "pan tumaca" slice of bread with tomato, garlic, olive oil and jam is something great.

I know you've said that if you couldn't live in Toledo, you and your wife would live in Granada. What non-Spanish city would you most like to live in and why?
I like Murcia too, at the south too, close to Granada so it has the same weather, maybe a bit better as it's closer to the sea (45 minutes driving). As all the cities in the south of Spain, the nice weather make them a really colorful cities, full of people in the streets and bars the whole day and night, with a great social life.
Barcelona is a nice place too, but too big for me, i don't like huge cities.

And the obligatory: Would you want to meet me when I'm studying abroad in Granada?
Sure, I'm always ready to travel to Granada to taste their incredible tapas and to enjoy their amazing historical places :)

(...at the risk of abusing European FOFCers as travel agents...)
If one were to fly to the U.S. to Spain for a weeklong vacation (landing in Madrid, say), what would be, in your opinion, the ideal itinerary?
Umm hard to visit a whole country in a week. If you land in Madrid, i would expend there 2 days, then to travel to my city Toledo one day (35 minutes trip in the high speed train), you can even come to Toledo in the morning and go back for dinner. You can't come to Spain and to not to visit Toledo as this is one of the oldest and most historical cities in the country. Then the next day i would take again the high speed train to Sevilla, it's a 3 hours trip but you visit one of the most typical cities in the south, were you can learn the whole typical southern culture (bulls, dancing etc), you can sleep here one night and go back to Madrid the next day. Then if you can afford it, i would pick a fly to Barcelona, it's not that expensive, like $200 per person the two ways ticket. It's an one hour fly and with that you would have visited the most important cities.
Of course you would be missing a lot of great cities like my favorite Granada, but you can't visit a whole country in a week.

How successful do you think the Barcelona Dragons were in terms of growing interest in American football both in that particular region of Spain and in the nation as a whole?
Do you think that American football could ever become widely popular in Spain or do you think it's doomed to be a niche interest sport?

They were a bit successful during a couple of years, an Spanish football league was born those day (1996 or so) and it was when the Spanish TV started to show also American football here (only the superbowl and some resumes). It was also when i started to feel attracted by the sport and to learn the rules. Later it failed mainly because it's an expensive sport for amateurs. For example, we don't have football fields here, a few soccer or rugby fields where used, but you had to paint and then delete the field lines every time, the helmets and pads are so expensive if you need to pay them from your pocket etc. For all those reasons, the kids never played it, and without a good players base, not any sport can survive. Once those pioneer players retired, the sport was gone.
There is still an amateur league here, but most of the teams don't have more than 20 or 30 players so they need to play both offense and defense. I thought past year about joining a team in Madrid, but the training field is at 1.5 hours drive from my city plus they trained late at night, once all them went out of their jobs, so it was too late for me to drive back home.

In the last couple of years, one of the paid satellite TV's here seems to be trying to attract people to the USA sports, they have a dedicated channel that shows a live NBA game per day, 2 live and 2 recorded NFL games per day during the season, and some recorded MLB and NHL games too. also in the summer, they show the recorded past season full NCAA basketball playoffs.
For what i see in some related forums, the love for the USA sports here is growing thanks to that, specially for the NBA as we have some good players there now. But i doubt that football, baseball or hockey will ever be more than niche sports, fun to watch but impossible to practice.

How did you come to enjoy American football?
As i said before, i started to watch it in the late 90's, just a superbowl and resumes from time to time. I felt interested mainly in the contact part of the sport at first. In the early 2000's the satellite channel i said before, started to show 1 or 2 recorded games per week, and they used the timeouts and halftime to explain the rules, strategies etc. It was then when i started to understand the rules, and specially the strategies, when i noticed how strategic the sport was, like a chess game between the coaches mixed with the player's battle in the field. I felt in love and started to follow it more and more, to the point that i started to lose the interest in soccer, "the sport" in Spain.
Right now i can say i know more about current football than about current soccer that is really weird in a guy from Spain. Sadly i don't have anybody that shares my love for the USA sports in Spain, so i can only talk about them in online boards or with my online buddy Emiliano who has the same problem in Italy.
FOFC and the text sims genre also helped a lot to increase my love for USA sports. Before i knew nothing about baseball or college sports and now i love both. I'm a huge fan of baseball, my second sport after football and i just paid the premium subscription in mlb.tv to watch all the games in internet.
I really love and envy the USA sports culture, the college sports, etc, but i would mix the with the European sports ladder system, with different levels divisions and way more teams. Or at least i would import the minors teams idea to football as the NBA is doing with the development league. I find weird that in a huge country like USA, with millions of habs and a strong sports culture, only a few chosen players can become sport pros. I'm pretty sure that a lot more could become stars if they would be given the chance to play after college.

Icy - Are you going to make a triumphant DKBL return here soon?
I wouldn't mind to start it again with OOTP2007. For those who want to know, the DKBL was an OOTP 6.5 league formed mainly by FOFCer's. I helped MrBug as co-commish and webmaster on it and it was really fun, we had a really nice core of owners.

Are you ready to switch college allegiances from South Florida/Baylor to UCLA?
Lol, I'm not a real South Florida or Baylor fan in real life, i follow them only because i coached them in the FOFC FBCB league and i tend to have simpathy in for the teams i have ever coached in MP leagues, but i don't' think i have a really favorite team in college sports as I'm pretty new to them, by now i enjoy watching every good college game no matter which teams play in it.

What's your favorite kind of wine from Spain?
I'm going to talk about my favorite affordable wines, of course everybody likes a bottle over $100 so there is no point to talking about those.
I like a lot the red wines from my region "La Mancha", as we are probably one of the best producers of wine. The problem is that in the past, most of the good wines from here were sold to other regions or countries without brand, for them to mix with their own and to sell under their own brand, so even being one of the best producers, our wines were not known.
From "La Mancha" i like "Casa Gualda" and "Señorio de los Llanos".
From the north of Spain, the most known regions are "Ribera del Duero" and "Rioja". I like a lot the "Marques de Caceres" and "Marques de Riscal" from "Rioja" and "Protos" and "Sangre de Toro" from "Rivera del Duero".

Do you happen to have Nicole Kidman's phone number?
Umm let me check my agenda, must have it somewhere... :D

On a side note I think your english is very good written, but I was curious if you speak it often?
Nah, that is my biggest problem, i write and read it everyday but I speak it like once per month or less when i receive a business phone call. lately I'm downloading Tv series not available in Spain like Friday night lights etc and watch them in English trying to understand it all. I also watch DVD movies in English from time to time with my wife, but we need to have the English subtitles in the screen as we are not used to the accent.
When i need to speak English i get nervous and it affects how fast i can think on the next word to say, but after I'm speaking for 15 or 30 minutes with somebody in English, the nerves are gone and i can keep a good conversation. For example yesterday my father in law brought to have lunch with us a guy from Ireland who just moved to Spain and my in law rented him a house. I started to talk with him and after some time, when i lost my nerves, we spoke for like 2 hours without stop.
Also the two business partners i have had in the past where one from Netherlands and another from Germany, so i had to speak with then in English by phone or skype so i was more used then than now.
If any of you offers volunteer to speak with me from time to time by skype it would be nice :)

Why did you find omerta, and waste 3-4 months of my life?
Lol, I was those days doing a work for the local government, they gave me an office and i had nothing to do for most of the day (sadly the pace of work for government workers in Spain is like half of the pace of a worker working for a private company, and like 1/4 of the pace of somebody who works for himself). So i was looking for something to do in the computer, as reading a book etc was too obvious so doing a search i found that game and felt pretty addicted. Then it lead to me starting that thread that is one of the most viewed and with the biggest amount of posts in the FOFC history (i think the maximum football one beat it).
Then once i ended that job for the government, and once i was back to my home work, i saw it a a lost of time and stopped to play it. I saw some of you kept playing it, did you finally make a big FOFC family?

Have you and/or your band made any more music recently (the last few years)?
No, sadly we dissolved the band a year and a half ago. There was not any special reason, i guess just that we grew older and at same time we realized that were not going to make a good living from it unless taking all the risks and going for it 100%, something we were not whiling to do.
The other guitarist had to move to another city because his job, he could only come to practice like once every 2 weeks. The drummer had a rotating turns job, one week mornings, the next afternoons the next nights, I was pretty busy with my own company, plus my wife was going to give birth, and the singer was also busy starting his own business making it so hard to find time to practice. After some months almost not playing together, we talked about it, if we wanted to make something in the music industry we should leave our accommodate life's, to take a van and to tour around Spain for a few months, then get back to the studio to record a full CD and then back to tour. the decision was already taken, none of us wanted to give out that much as it would mean to leave our jobs, to forget about wifes/girlfriends for some time etc and we were 30 years old, too late. We are still close friends and the singed and the other guitarists still play from time to time time for fun.

Ooooh you're in a band?! Didn't know that. What is your band's name and how did you come up with the name? I'd love to hear some stuff if you can provide links.
The band's name was Swamioms, to tell you the true i think it doesn't have any real meaning. The singer's mother gave us the idea when we were 20 years old and starting. It's something related to yoga, but we just took it because we liked how it sounded :D
A funny thing is that most of the times it was bad written in the concert's ads, like "Swami ones".

How far did (has?) your band "make" it? Did you play in front of any large crowds or have any memorable performances?
We "made" it way more than we every imagined when we started. While never making big money from it, we opened for some of the biggest Spanish rock bands a few times, in front of a big crowd once, and in small but nice places others. We also managed to be invited and to play once in the Hard Rock Cafe from Madrid that was something we won't ever forget. It was one of our best performances ever, the crowd liked it and we sold and signed a lot of CD's that day.
Our other biggest moment was opening for the Spanish metal band "Sober" in out town, we played with really high energy to the point that the "sober" band members and manager asked us to play more times with them and they ended being the producers of our last and better 5 songs CD demo, that was played in some national rock radio stations. The third best moment was when we opened in the Spanish biggest rock festival (a mini woodstock like festival with 50k persons).
We gained the chance to open there as we won a new bands contest and that was the price.
We never dreamed with something like that, so it was incredible, plus all the trips we had to some small clubs in different Spanish cities. We earned just enough to pay for the trips, equipment, hotel, food and party for us, our girlfriends and some friends who always traveled with us. I won't ever forget those days in my mid 20's.
That was when we had the chance to make something, but... at the end i guess we liked it as hobby, but not to dedicate our lifes to it.

Any chance of you posting your old songs again (I lost them in a hard drive crash and have meant to ask you about it since the old links no longer work )?
Sure, just uploaded them for you and Dodgerchick. Here are the 5 songs from our last studio CD demo.
They are a bit more pop than what we sound live, where we are heavier but the producers wanted to give it a more commercial flavor. The last song is a bit darker and heavier.
The lyrics are in Spanish language and i have read in your husband's FTB that you speak Spanish dodgerchick, this will be a good practice :)

http://www.prodeportes.com/swamioms/swamioms1.mp3
http://www.prodeportes.com/swamioms/swamioms2.mp3
http://www.prodeportes.com/swamioms/swamioms3.mp3
http://www.prodeportes.com/swamioms/swamioms4.mp3
http://www.prodeportes.com/swamioms/swamioms5.mp3

Who were/are some of your musical influences?
If I remember correctly, you're into heavy metal; who are your favorite bands?
I'm into anything with a good distorted guitar, from blues, to punk, to rock to grunge to old metal or to new metal, even into industrial metal.
I like tons of bands and I'm always looking for new ones to listen to.
Here are some of my influences an favorite bands:
Ramones, Bad Religion, Pennywise, Helmet, Tool, Nirvana, Perl Jam, Creed, Metallica, Machine head, Deftones, Korn, Red Hot Chilli Pepers, RATM, System of a down, and tons of other rock or metal bands, I'm more a fan of good albums than a band's fan, i love some albums from some bands and hate others from the same ones.

Do you still play Hattrick?
Yes i do, I'm currently in Spanish III division but it's starting to get boring. Once you each a high level you have problems to pay your players salaries because the income is not high enough, so you end having to sell your players and then you are not competitive. They need to fix the financial model as lots of old timers are leaving the game because that.

What do you think makes web-based multiplayer games appealing?
Mainly that you can play them anywhere and anytime, at work, etc and you don't need anything hardware related to play them. Also that you compete with other human players, that are always (or should be) more smart than any programmed AI.

What do you think are some of the drawbacks that need improvement?
The ones available are not as deep as a good computer text sim, they are more for the ocasional player, but can't attract enough the deep simmer for a long term, they end becoming repetitive.

Do you still have the desire to make your own web-based game, or have you moved on to other things?
Yeah i do, it's my dream to create another HT like monster but i have not done anything about it other than to write down some ideas from time to time.

Do you have any desire to work in the video game industry in general?
For sure i would love it. Sports and computer games are my biggest hobbies right now and i would love to work on anything related to both or either of them. I have already done stuff in the games industry but it has not really been into the games developing itself. Apart from the graphics mods i have done for some games, recently I redesigned the medleygames website and forums and i have also betatested some games like BBCF and OOTP07. In the past I talked with some games companies about doing stuff with them, but it were just preliminary talks, nothing came from it.

Do you do any graphics work professionally? If not, would you like to someday or is it something you prefer to just keep as a hobby?
If you can consider doing the graphics for my own business as professionally work, yes i do. Never done it for anybody other than because helping a friend or because having fun with it.
I like graphics design a lot, and i wouldn't mind to have it as a job, the problem is that for me to work professionally on it, it would need to make me to earn more money that what i do with my current business or to be something really fun or interesting that i could enjoy a lot so it would serve both as job and hobby.


The question for my buddy Icy is: how, exactly, did you choose to work alone? Were your past experiences bad or you just had the chance, and went for it? I'm really interested in this, and we've never talked about it, I think. Also, I should add that I really envy you, working from home!
It's not that i decided to work alone but that it was how it ended being. I started to work on internet as a side job, nothing too serious so i did it alone in my free time. Later when the work started to overwhelm me, i looked for a partner and found one. It started out well, but once the good money started to come, my partner became so lazy, like if the money flow would keep always coming not doing anything. I split from him and told to myself that i better work alone, but ended having another partner. It happened again, a lot of people becomes so lazy when they think they have reached their goal. In every business, but specially in internet, you can't ever take a long rest, you need to keep working and working, looking for new ideas and always looking forward. In the online business, if you lose year once you are at the top, you will find yourself soon at the bottom as things go really fast.
so right now i don't have any partner. I don't work totally alone either, i have two employees hired but they both work from their homes too and on their own schedule. I guess I'm a good boss, as long as the job is done in time, i don't care when or how they work or if the job takes them one hour or 8, the less time it takes for them, the more free time they have for their own stuff.

How did you manage to to get into the adult website industry? Has it been lucrative enough that it's all that you do, or do you do other work on the side?
Similar to Emiliano's question, how did you get into your line of work?
Well it's a long story. When i was studying in the university, i was also working part time in my parent's computers shop. In 1998, with the first internet big bubble starting, one of the guys working for my father started to work with adult websites in his free time. I saw him checking his sales and traffic stats from time to time and it made me curious. All the sudden, in two or three months, he started to earn mad money, like $30,000 per month when the average salary in Spain was around $600. Of course he left my parent's shop to fund his own company, and I also started to consider working on it.
I created my first adult website, in Spanish language, but not taking it seriously enough as I was busy with uni and job. One day i checked stats and noticed that the site had over 40,000 daily visitors while i was almost not touching it, so i thought, hey, let's work harder on this. I started to work in the shop from 9am to 2pm, then to go to the uni from 4pm to 9pm, then a walk and dinner with girlfriend and then to work on the websites at nights until 4 or 5 am, that left me 3 or 4 hours of sleep only. It started to work really well, i created more and more websites, learning a lot from other webmasters, reading all that i could find about html, php, mysql , javascript and unix and server management.

Soon i became a workaholic, i had never enough, it took a lot for me to be able to wake up at mornings with only 3 hours of sleep, but once i took a strong espresso it was ok, i got used to the feeling of being always sleepy and after a few months i felt ok sleeping only that. The business kept growing and growing, i was offered more and more business opportunities to advertise other websites and i started to think on working on this full time, leaving both uni and my parent's shop. The uni part was easy, i was so bored of it, i was studding computers and programming, but i don't' know why it was called that way, as we were only studding math, statistic, physics, etc etc and barely touching a computer so it was really boring and not what i expected. About the computers shop, well, as i don't have any brother or sister, my parents always planed that once they retired, i would own it as i was the manager already, but things started to be worse between them to the point that they ending divorcing (on a good way, they have a good relationship right now with me and between them), and it affected a lot the shop business.
I talked with them and with my girlfriend and told them that i was going to start my own company to work only in internet and they agreed that it was a good idea as the shop was going worse so we closed the shop once my parents divorced and i started my own company working full time on it. Once i could dedicate 10 working hours and having a good sleeping pattern again, things went even better and the business grew to the point that it runs more or less on autopilot right now with the two employees that work for me. I know i could earn probably more if i started more business but I'm fine with my current income as it's more that i could get with any job i could apply for, plus i have the freedom that not any job can offer me. I decide when i want to work, how much hours, when to skip a day etc. It has helped a lot to get over my daughter dead too, as i have been able to expend a lot of time with my wife when we needed it.

Probably some of you will find hardly moral to work with nude actors or porn, but i guess it all depends on the point of view. In Spain we are way more liberal about sex or nudity than in USA (for what i have read and seen), for example i find amazing that in some USA states it's not allowed to have oral and anal sex with your couple. How could a government tell you what you can do with the person you love into your home as long as both adults agree to do it?. A law like that would make everybody laugh out loud here and the political party to not to be ever elected again. My wife, my family, my in laws and friends all them know what is my job related to and while not being an usual job, they have nothing against it. Of course when i go to the bank or to pay my taxes i just say my companies does websites and online advertisement, not telling exactly what i advertise.
It's not that i like a lot the porn part of my business, in fact specially when i started and had to do all the images work before i had employees, it was pretty boring to watch nude actors all the time, the sex scenes become a routine and you end not seeing a couple having sex in a pic but just different colors, light effects and shadows etc that would make that pic more appealing. I guess it must be the same that a cooker working at McDonnals feels when he has seen thousands of burgers, excitement is not something that crosses your mind, it's just a job.
What i love from my job is the creative part, the advertisement technicals, to study the customers behaviors, what makes them to click here or there, to make stats based on the surfers countries, on where do they click, on when do they visit thet pages, from which websites they come from etc. I wish i could do what i do but advertising other products instead of porn, but sadly porn and casinos are the biggest online business. Most of you can't even imagine how huge this business is, the amount of daily visitors each page receive (i have over 400,000 daily visitors in my sites and I'm not into the top 50 webmasters).
Of course i have my own moral principles and if i find something i don't feel comfortable with, i just don't work with it. For example, if a model looks too young, even if i have the contract saying that she is over the legal age, i prefer to not to use her/his images. The same about extreme sex or stuff that i feel degradating for the actors, i just refuse to work with it. I have been offered big money to work with Viagra or other pharmacy products or those pennis enlargement tools we all have been spammed, but I haven't ever touched them as i don't feel comfortable with selling stuff that i think is fake and just fooling the customer, no matter how much scientific studies prove it. It's not all about money.
Anyway I'm lately less and less on working with the adult images myself as i have other people hired for that, I'm more on the organizing and advertisement part, dealing with the websites promotion, search engines and paid advertisement and relationships with other webmasters. I'm a marketing and public relationships man, it's the job i really enjoy, i advertise porn because it's what sells in the net, but i would sell cars or house if it was this lucrative and legal at same time (in my country it's totally legal to work in porn).
My dream is to find one day a product i can sell that is not porn related but that can provide same profit, but until then i guess i'll have to keep working on this.

Related to your line of work, I seem to remember it being in the adult industry, right? If so, how does your wife cope with it? FM
More seriously, how does your wife handle the whole "job thing that you do." She must be pretty accepting, or does she want you to quit? Apologies if you do something different now than what you used to do.
Well she has more or less the same feelings about it than me. She doesn't exactly like it but she doesn't really see anything wrong on people liking porn as long as it's not something extreme or degradating. Like me, she would prefer me working online but on other kind of websites, but she likes that I'm always at home, that i have total freedom to work when i want or to skip a day to go shopping or to travel.
Of course she also likes the income we get from this and she knows i couldn't earn this in any other business, even less with this freedom and working from home.
So while she doesn't really like it, and for example she doesn't want to go with me to adult webmasters conventions, she accepts it because the positive things it has. She doesn't have any problem with me watching other nude women or sex scenes as i guess that is your question related to, in fact we both make fun about some of them or about the fact that she is talking with me or watching TV while I'm adjusting the colors or cropping the best part of a nude women picture. :D
We are not jaleous at all as after being together since we were 14 as i have said before, we are not only a married couple, but also two close friends who love and trust each other above anything, so we are not worried about cheating on each other. Apart from me working with nude images and videos, I have been in adult conventions surrounded by porn models etc and she knows it all about business, but that i have zero interest on those women outside the business part.

This may have already been asked (I didn't RTFT, sorry) but I wanted to make sure these got in - for my own selfish reasons...I apologize if these questions seem too personal, or cut a little too deep - you are still very early in the grieving process - but I find that facing these questions, especially *answering* these questions are very helpful for parents who have lost a child. If you don't want to answer them, or don't want to answer them in a public forum, I understand completely. You, your wife, and your daughter have been in my thoughts and prayers, and I wish you all the best my friend.

How are you holding up almost a year after you lost your daughter?
Well we are better and better. The first months were so tough, we went from a dream to a nightmare, but slowly we have been recovering with the hope of trying it again. At first it was more the pain of the lost, but later the worst part has been the wait for answers that never came and that won't ever probably come.

How is your wife doing?
She is doing better, way better. She has been really strong, when it happened my first tough was that our life's were ruined for ever and that my wife wouldn't ever be the same but thankfully i was wrong.
She is a real fighter and and I'm really proud of her.

Have you had good support from your family? Friends?
Has the loss of your daughter "rewritten your address book?" Meaning, have you found some friends to be much stronger, while others have gone away?
I'll answer those two together as are related.
We received a lot of early support from the family and the friends. Everybody was surprised at the amount of people in the cemetery, over 3 hundred persons and it says a lot about the people close to us.
About your second answer, i guess you ask it from your own experience and i must say yes. We have been surprised in both ways, some supposedly to be close friends stayed with us the first days as everybody did, but once the days past, and when we more needed to have our minds occupied, they started to visit us less and less.
I understand everybody has it's own life and problems, but on the other hand, some friends that were not that close, stayed with us way more, invited us out for dinner again and again even when we rejected them, visited us almost daily, took my wife for a walk or coffee to keep her busy when i needed to work to support my family, etc.
I guess everybody should pass for something like this to know who are his real friends, you learn a lot about the meaning of friendship. There is less people now around us now, but they are the real friends who I would give everything to help if needed as they have done with us.
You always get something positive from the bad times, and for sure we did.

Do you have a support group (like The Compassionate Friends) you attend?
No, I have been searching in the net etc for groups with the same problems, but most of the groups i saw were too related about an specific problem or illness, but couldn't find a group "for the parents who lost a baby and don't know why".
My wife has been visiting a psychologist and she has helped her a lot. I'm not a huge fan of psychologists, but i guess it all depends on how open you are to talk with them and how good they are doing their job. My wife visited first a psychologist paid by the government free health insurance but she was really bad as most of government workers, who are unmotivated. She just asked her some typical questions and then told my wife to come back in 3 months as there were other women with bigger problems.
Then we went to the paid route and found a great professional. She is 30 years old like my wife, and they built a great relationship like two close friends. I went to the first couple of visits so she could ask me questions too, and i must admit she was great opening her patients hearts, in a few minutes i was openly answering all her questions. At first my wife visited her every week, then slowly the visits were more spaced, now are once every month as my wife doesn't need them as much. I know she is professional just doing her work, but I'm really thankful to what she has done with my wife.
I didn't visit a psychologist apart from those two times with my wife. I never felt i needed it. One of the reasons i think i got over it sooner than my wife was probably that since the first minute my goal was always to take care about my wife, about not letting her one minute alone, about having her happy, traveling a lot around Europe as she loves, going out for dinner, with friends, inviting friends at home for meals etc as she is a very social women. when we talked about it with the psychologist she agreed that the effort of taking care of somebody usually helps to not to care a lot about your own pain and it really did for me.

Do you take time regularly to think about your daughter?
Yes, we talk about her openly, about the most happy week we ever had in our life when she was with us and we have also photos of her in several rooms in the house, in our wallets etc.
It was only for a week, but Celia was our daughter and it's not something we can or want to forget. We wan tot get over the pain, but we won't ever forget our daughter and how happy i was when i entered in the hospital room and saw there my wife with Celia in her arms, the best moment in my whole life.

How has your grief changed you as a person? As a man? As a friend?
I think so. I value friends more than before and really appreciate the true ones i have. I also value things and problems way different than before, when i have a small problem that usually would make me worried, i think, "What is this compared with what we have fought and won?, Nothing!"
I'm way stronger than before, also more ready for bad things that could and will happen in the future. We all think that we live in a bobble and that the bad things only happen to the others... until one day you are the other pointed in the street by the rest of the people and you notice how they feel sorry about you as you probably you did in the past about them.
I find it all more relative now, and I'm more open to other's problems. For example, when i saw before in the news that every weekend 30 or 40 persons died in car accidents, i never payed it enough attention, now i never seem them as random people anymore as it can happen to anybody anytime, and every time they die, there are 30 or 40 families crying for them while some millions just switch channel thinking that it won't ever happen to them.
It's hard to say, but i think all us need a lesson like this to get out of our bubble and to give the proper value to the things around us.

(Hopefully not too tender a subject, but... one I would be interested in hearing you answer, so please feel free to skip if you don't wish to answer) Have you and your partner considered trying for another pregnancy?
Yes, we thought and talked about it as soon as we were told our daughter's life was in danger. When the end was close, I was told by the doctors and some friends to not to say anything to my wife until the final moment, but i didn't agree.
We have always talked openly about everything, never hided anything from each other so this was not going to be the first time. I took her apart, and told her that our daughter was going to die in hours or days. I wanted we both ready for that, eating it slowly instead of all the sudden. We both acknowledged it was going to happen soon and we both decided to stay strong, to keep fighting to recover our happy life no matter what happened and to try it again as soon as we could.
Since that day we have discussed it a lot of times, but the doctors told us to keep waiting for the final test results, mainly to know if it's something genetic than can happen again. We have been waiting for almost a year (our loved Celia was born on March 28th) and by now, all the tests have been negative. It doesn't mean that the illness is not a genetic one, but that the more common into the very rare group has been discarded. That is both good and bad news, good because we can discard those illness, but bad because we don't know what exactly happened.
The doctors say that it's really hard to detect the illness in a baby as their defensive system is not totally formed, so for example, if they suffer a sever infection, their whole body collapses instead of one organ like in adults, so it's hard to find when the problem started and why. By the simthoms, it looks like a metabolic disorder, that are really rare but that can happen or because a genetic inherited error in the genes or because a random error when the cells were being formed.
The doctors are going to keep investigating, but now more in behalf of the science than in our own, as even if they end finding something, it will be as rare that it won't have any cure or way to pre diagnose it.
We have been told that if it is a genetic inherited error, there is a 25% for it to happen again but if it was an one time random mutation, the chances for it to happen again are really rare. They haven't even discarded yet that it was just a severe infection that collapsed her whole body.

So as we are not going to known if it can happen again or not, and as we really wanted to have a kid, we decided past month to go for it again. To be strong and to fight for what we really want, and if it happens again, at least we will have tried it and anyway there is not anything we can do to prevent it.
The good news and you here at FOFC are the first ones to know about it, is that we discovered past week that my wife is pregnant again!

We are both so happy and so scared at same time. We have at the worse a 25% of it happening again, but we can't do anything to prevent what happened, so we have been told to relax and just keep the faith. I really hope it all will be ok this time, but if not, at least we would have closely fought for what we wanted, and it can only make our love even stronger.
We have also decided that we are going to research about adopting a girl from China. The process if you are approved takes around 2 years so we better start it soon just in case something goes wrong again, to keep something motivating us. We want to have at least two kids, and i doubt we will take the risk another time no matter what happens.
Of course we would prefer our own kids, but we have nothing against adoption and who knows, maybe while egoistically adopting for our own interest, we can also help a Chinese girl to have a better life.

What are you and your wife planning to do on the one-year anniversary of your daughter's passing?
To avoid being in our city those days, we had a trip planned to Paris as it's one of the few European cities we have not visited, but as we just found she is pregnant, we are going to avoid the plane and instead we are going to travel to San Sebastian in the Basque Country that is a pretty historical city we have not visited yet. Anyway we will pass those days way better that what we thought, knowing that she is pregnant again and that a new life is starting for us.

First FTB that I've read the entire thing of, and let me be one of the first FOFCers to say: Congratulations on the new pregnancy!!

I remember those days last year so vividly, because it's difficult to grasp how the fate of someone that you only know through a messageboard can affect you so much.

your wife is pregnant again Icy!?!?

let me be the first to offer congratulations and best wishes!

dola
dammit coder...beating me by a minute.

Wow congratulations on the baby! It took a long time to get to the important part... :)

Great read again. Thanks for being so open with us, and best wishes on the new pregnancy!

Another terrific read. Thanks!

Thanks guys.
Damn, now that i see it posted... i see wrote too much, thanks for reading it all and i hope it was not too boring. It has been a good experience to open my hear that way.

Great to read so much about someone I've come to know online. And Congrats on the pregnancy Icy!

Thanks guys.
Damn, now that i see it posted... i see wrote too much, thanks for reading it all and i hope it was not too boring. It has been a good experience to open my hear that way.
You didn't write too much. It was excellent. Thanks very much, and I wish the best to you and your wife.

Fantastic read as always. Congrats on the pregnancy.

Congrats!

Man....I felt bad I didn't get to ask my round of questions for your FTB, but everyone else asked some great questions and you did a great job opening yourself to the community. Congrats on the baby and looking forward to your family's happiness in the future. Good job.

Thanks for the tracks and congrats on the pregnancy!

Awesome answers, Icy and congratulations on the pregnancy! :)

Congratulations on the news!

Congrats on the pregnancy, Icy! Best of luck to you and your family!

Great answers, I really enjoyed reading this... :)

Yes i do, I'm currently in Spanish III division but it's starting to get boring. Once you each a high level you have problems to pay your players salaries because the income is not high enough, so you end having to sell your players and then you are not competitive. They need to fix the financial model as lots of old timers are leaving the game because that.

Quoted for truth.

Thanks for being so open and informative, Icy. I still can't imagine how hard it must've been for you and your wife to lose Celia and to go through every parent's nightmare (can't imagine how Todd handles/handled it, either), I've often thought about you guys.

This was a great read, and
congratulations on the pregnancy!!! :)

/tk

I'm going to praise Icy for a great read, thank him for sharing his thoughts, congratulate him and his wife on the pregnancy, and, most importantly, wish all the best to the baby.

Awesome read! And congratulations on the pregnancy (even if you've already told me privately), I wish all the best to you and your wife. BTW, The Swamions' songs are great! What are the songs' titles?

Ivan, Congrats.

And I hope one day will be here to see the photos of two fathers in the wedding of his/her child.

:D :D

The answers are a great stuff

Nice answers Icy, and big congrats on the pregnancy. I've been to Sevilla and Grenada and I can echo the tapas comments you made. :)

To answer your Omerta Q, there was eventually a FOFC family (Calamari), in fact I think it's still around in the most current version (if it hasn't been killed yet), though many of the original players no longer are with Omerta. However, a number of us have stuck together since our Omerta days and are busy ruling or making plans to rule other games. ;)

congratulation Icy

Icy - I cant thank you enough for your answers - I know it must have been hard, but I appreciate your honesty and openness. Best of luck to you and your wife and congratulations on he new baby!

Time to pile up: congrats to you and the lady Icy with the pregnancy!

Ah yes, Miguel Indurain, those were the times...

Hey, great news !!

Congrats for both of you.

A huge "abrazo", my friend :)

K.

I just finished reading (started a big part of it yesterday.) Congratulations on the pregnancy! Great read, btw.

Awesome stuff, again.