Name: Richard Robert Ciaravino
Birthday: September 25th, 1985
P.O.B- West Islip, NY (Long Island)
Current Residence: Ocean County, NJ
Hobbies: Music, Clock collecting & repairing.
Horological Sign: Libra

It took me awhile to actually do this, and I kept putting it off, but, I'm finally making my profile of me, and here it goes. My name is Rich, I'm 22, turning 23 this September. I was born and raised in Long Island, as I was raised in a small town called, "Lindenhurst", on Long Island. I was raised there, up until my grandparents decided they wanted to sell the family buisness (Carpentry and House Building contractors), and move away, as property taxes were getting way too expensive. My grandfather handed over the buisness to my father, as my uncle no longer wanted a part of it because he wanted to go off and become a lawyer, which he did, and my father till this day, still owns the buisness. Me, my parents, and my three siblings moved away from my grandparents (we all shared a three level 8 bedroom, colonial house up until we all moved out) on January 4th, 1997, and moved into our new home in New Jersey. So, I continued my education here and graduated high school in 2004. I immediatly started college (I actually started college half way through my junior year, as our high school allowed it) for culinary arts, and I graduated witth my accociates degree, in the late spring of 2006. Stepping back a bit in time, in April of 2000, my eldest brother, Steven, moved out with his fiancee, to Virginia. They are now married, with a house, and are trying for children. Later on that year, in October, we had a house fire, which took the entire house down, forcing us to find a place to go; my parents had just divorced and my mothers boyfriend at the times mother had passed away, and luckily gave an estate to her son, my later to be stepfather. We moved into that house, so I had to switch high schools for half a year. Once our house got rebuilt, we moved back into our old house and I went back to my old high school. Later that year, in the summer, we sold the house, and finally got a new one, with my mother and soon to be Stepfather. That winter, my mother, married her new husband, my stepfather. Two years passed and my next eldest brother, Kristoffer, moved out to California, so, at this point, it was only me, my little sister, Annamarie, my mother, and stepfather. Two more years pass, and my mother and stepfather decide they wanted to move to Virginia, where everything is cheaper, and the air is more pure (as my mother has asthma). I was offered to go, but, I wanted to stay here and finish out college, plus, I wasnt ready to leave my best friends behind. They moved down, and I moved into my fathers house, which is where I'm living now. This is pretty much my biography of my life so far, only time will tell what will happen next. I am currently working full time, and as scared as I was when I graduated high school to face the real world, its really not that bad, you just gotta grab the reins and hold on.

How I came to love Gloria/How I became a fan:

Going back, to when I was, I'd say around six, or seven, there used to be a show, on "VH1" called, 'SuperStar Saturday' (anybody recall that show? lol), and its a show where all weekend, they show videos, clips, and what nots of one certain star, and that weekend they were doing Gloria Estefan. Well, me and my mother were sitting down watching tv, she was pregant with my sister and was in pain so, she just sat down all for two weeks straight, out of work, to watch tv. She was flipping through the channels, and she flipped through, "VH1", and the video for, "Rhythm is gonna get you" was on, but I only saw a 3 second clip as she was still browsing the channels. I told my mother to go back, because I saw something I liked. So she kept the channel on, and then she decided to go take a nap, as I just kept watching her for the next few hours. I remember distinctly, I saw the videos for "Rhythm is gonna get you, Cant stay away from you, Conga, Cuts both ways, and Oye mi Canto". I knew that day, that, that was the beginning of a new obsession. My mother had already had the albums, "Let it Loose" and "Primitive Love" on cassette, and for my birthday that year, she got me her Greatest Hits. Her I am now, a die hard fan, with just about everything she (and the MSM) has ever released, going as far back as the first spanish MSM lps.