Lance Votroubek

Hello! My name is Lance Votroubek, I am 23, and I am from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I recently graduated from the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Psychology, a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Management, and a minor in religious studies. I currently work at a place where children who are victims of emotional, mental, physical, and sexual abuse, and have emotional and behavioral disorders live. The goal is to give them therapy so that they may move on past these problems and grow up to live a more productive life and not be as affected by the trauma they have lived through. For the kids with behavior disorders, we teach them how to behave in socially acceptable ways. Once treatment is done, we send the kids back to the parents (who generally have been undergoing therapy, too), or if there are no parents to send them back to, we send them to foster families or find adoptive families for them. This is a good job, and obviously lets me apply the things I've learned while earning my Psych degree, but I really want to use the BBA Management degree, so I am job hunting for positions along those lines.

My minesweeper career started when my family first got a computer, in 1995. My dad and I just played it competitively back and forth, but before too long, I was much faster than him. I got my time down to 101, and thought I had pretty much hit a plateau, so I didn't play much for a couple years. My dad and I instead played custom levels - 24x30, 202 mines. He has finished two alone, I have finished two alone, and we finished one together. In September of 2000, I found Damien's site and began posting, and learned how to bring my score down to where it is now. For a while, I was playing maybe 3 hours per night, after homework and before bed, while I was in college, but I have since reduced it quite a bit, and now play maybe 1-2 hours per week, because of spending time with my girlfriend, working, job hunting, and being social with friends. Once I find a job with better hours (I work 3pm-11pm as it is now), I think I will be able to play a little more often. My current records are 1-13-56, though I know I can drop that 56 to a 52 if the right combination of dexterious fingers, mental alertness, and low 3BV board comes along. Lately I've been doing most of my sweeping on a generic (as far as I can tell) ball mouse, on a different computer than I have obtained my records on. Since I installed WinXP on my other computer, my Logitech Optical Wheelmouse hasn't had the same motion as it did before, and so it is hard to have a productive sweeping session on that computer. Hopefully I'll just get used to the new movement and start getting some excellent times again!

Outside of Minesweeper, I enjoy reading. I have a very large pile of books that are on my must-read pile, so I hope to sit down and enjoy those at some point. I also enjoy clever comedy, so I guess that's why I like The Onion. The Onion is a completely fictional website that pokes fun at modern headlines. I definitely recommend that everyone check out this website if you haven't already (www.theonion.com). I also like watching sports, and my favorite sport is in its off-season right now - Major League Baseball. During the spring and summer, I check sports.yahoo.com/mlb at least twice per day to check up on scores and news. My favorite team is the New York Yankees.

It is a pleasure to be part of the Active Ranking team. I am the newest member, having taken over the list assembly process from Roelof when he retired from the game last May. I check the email and ask/answer the questions at the Hotmail account, and forward the list to Dan to post on Stephan's webspace in Germany. This Active Ranking truly is a worldwide effort! I thank you all for being active, interested participants in our community, and it's so nice to see such a variety of people from all over the world participate in this forum. Happy sweeping, all!

Lance