Stan Cocheo lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife, Shannon, and two boys, Stan III and Anthony. Amongst those listed, the other residents of his household include Jade, Obie and Hrolf. Then there are the pets, Simba, Aslan, Leilani (a.k.a. LeeLoo), Tribble, Syd and Popo, four of which are felines, one a ferret and one a rat (you figure it out). In addition to all of those that live within the house, outside the house is even more populated as Stan lives on an alpaca farm -- his neighbors are the alpaca farmers -- and there are on average 90 alpacas roaming about. If nothing else, they provide a source of entertainment.
Stan is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a bass guitarist, a writer, an embroiderer (industrial machine embroidery) and digitizer for embroidery (again, industrial machine embroidery). Stan prefers vinyl over any digital form of music and absolutely despises the .mp3 format as it reduces the quality of the music at lower bit-rates. The problem with this is that he relies heavily on the .mp3 format as his source of music storage.
As far as reviews go, Stan started off with the intent to be prolific, reviewed two CDs and then life got in the way. Things have changed, situations reworked themselves and now, in addition to being extremely busy, at the time of this writing he finds that he has time to do reviews again.
Stan's tastes in music generally run the gamut of variety. When asked what kind of music he likes, Stan usually responds with a resounding, "Yes." Then he tries to clarify. More often than not, he lists '60s and '70s rock 'n' roll, a.k.a. the classic-rock era. That is not always the most accurate response as he tends more toward folk and well-performed harmonies than anything else. An appreciation for the well-played guitar solo exists within Stan (as well as any other instrumental solo), yet also vocal harmonies and a cappella music.
Stan is an admittedly slow reader. His perspective is that a book is something that should be cherished and enjoyed and each word is important. His tastes in books lately have run toward biographies and autobiographies of musicians; however, he intersperses those with fiction from the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres. Arthur C. Clarke is his favorite of authors in the SF genre, a tie between Stephen King and Clive Barker in horror (depending upon how deep of horror he likes at the time) and fantasy realms are fair game as he is still trying to find a "favorite" beyond J.R.R. Tolkien. This, of course, isn't to say that he doesn't read anyone else's work, it's just those are his favorites.
Now, movies are a different thing. Stan's movie knowledge and enjoyment are extensive, as well as his collection of VHS and DVD films. It is rare that one gets a movie reference past Stan without him being able to quote the lines prior and following. Favorite movie of all time? Probably something like The Breakfast Club, but that opinion changes with his mood. Favorite director? Must be Alfred Hitchcock, yet Stanley Kubrick comes in a close second.
What else is there? Stan hopes to have someone else at Rambles.NET review his work when he is finished with it, whether it be novel written or music (he's working on both). Stan's spare time is filled with making sure everything is, because if things aren't, then they're not. Stan also has quite a few ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign games going on at any given time.
Stories by Stan include:
The Nonchalants, Drive
Vivian Slade, Vivian Slade