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who is out there?

Alright - I'm Dan Shapiro.  I came to giant pumpkin growing through a back
door - as an ace *consumer* of pumpkins.  It seems Halloween is my adopted
holiday.  When I was a freshman in college (in 1972) I was hitchiking
towards Half Moon Bay, CA and bought half a dozen pumpkins on a whim.  When
the farmer heard I lacked a car, he offered to drive me back to Santa Cruz
if I bought alot of pumpkins.  So I did.  That started a tradition.  For
the last 25 years I have thrown an enormous  pumpkin carving party for all
my friends, with 50-100 people and 1-2 tons of pumpkins in attendance.
(It is a Bring Your Own Knife event).  I've always included at least one
Big pumpkin, but as the years went by the center piece kept getting larger.
When it hit 650 lbs I knew I had a problem, if only for the expense.  So, I
started growing.

Last year was my first year out.  I had excellent tutoring (from Bob
McLaren, with comments from Doc Pumpkinstein), and managed to grow three
pumpkins in the 300-350 lb range.  I've taken better care of the soil this
year, so the size may go up.  We'll see.

In my spare time, I am a researcher in artificial intelligence at Stanford
University, which is a few hundred meters from where I live.

	Dan
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