Joe was born at Saint Joseph’s hospital in St. Paul Minnesota on May 18, 1973.  Joe was the third of three boys in the Vitelli family and thus learned to take some hard knocks from his older brothers. 

The following pictures show Joe from his first birthday through to his second birthday in 1975.

Joe seemed to be very accident prone and became a familiar admittance to the emergency room at Saint Joseph’s Hospital.  A few examples of this follow.

At the age of two, Char found Joe standing in the sink of the master bedroom bath with an open bottle of aspirin.  Char had no idea how many aspirin Joe had eaten so she screamed for Jack and said he must taken into the emergency room.  The ER doctor asked that Joe drink as many bottles of 7up as possible.  Joe did but he didn’t want to drink 7up for the next five years.

Joe celebrated his 3rd birthday at the Ronald McDonald theme park on Robert Street in W. St. Paul. There was also a part at home as usual.

On another occasion when Joe was about 16 months old, Char was gone and Jack was watching the children play football in the backyard at their Vivian Lane home.  The older boys were playing football with neighbors and Joe was watching in the stroller.  Jack took his eyes off the Joe for a few minutes and Joe stood up in the stroller reaching back to the handle of the stroller, falling on the cement patio and driving his lower middle teeth through his lip.  It was a terrible site and Jack had to take him to the emergency room while driving and trying to keep Joe from biting his lower lip.  The ER doctors said “what did you do today Joe?”  Char arrived shortly in the ER in time to see a plastic surgeon entering about eight stitches in Joe’s lower lip.  The plastic surgeon did an excellent job and it is not very visible.

Of course, Easter was a fun day, clowning at the lake was fun and then the most special day was Christmas.

Joe took an interest in sports from the day he could handle a stick, throw a ball or ride a bike. Injuries followed.

Joe attended Saint Joseph’s Elementary School in West St. Paul from kindergarten through 8th grade.  At that time the family moved to Frankfurt Germany where he attended the Frankfurt International School in Oberursel Germany.  Joe returned from Germany and finished his high school degree at Saint Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights.  He played football at Saint Thomas Academy.

Joe traveled to many corners of Europe while living in Frankfurt Germany and attending the Frankfurt International School.

Joe continued his education at the University of Minnesota where he received a B.S. degree in economics with an emphasis in mathematics.  Jack, a mathematician, was absolutely amazed at Joe’s ability to understand mathematics and calculus.  Joe would come with a question on a theoretical aspect of calculus and with a few words of help would say OK I have it and walk away.  And he did.

Joe became addicted to fishing in the 1990s after a few trips to Crow Duck Lake in Manitoba Canada. It was like fishing in an aquarium but you just caught large walleyes, all over 22 inches and many over 28 inches.

 

 

 

From the day Joe became aware of computers he was an absolute computer wizard.  At the Vitelli home on Park Place in Mendota Heights Joe could be found in the lower bedroom on the Internet.  At the time, the Internet was not at all familiar to most people in the United States.  But Joe was busy on the computer playing or doing "MUDs” whatever that was.  Joe would often tell Jack "Dad this is going to be big”.  It was apparently about this time that Joe learned to type over 80 words per minute.

Upon graduating from the University of Minnesota, Joe took a job as a software engineer at International Decision Systems a company in downtown Minneapolis.  Later, he became a senior web developer at Dexma Inc. also a company in South Minneapolis.

Joe is now a senior software engineer at Thomson Reuters located on god road in Eagan Minnesota.  He has become a wizard in web designed and was certainly correct in his statement many years ago that the Internet was going to be big.

Joe’s favorite hobbies are watching football and hockey, anything that is media related (movies, music, television, video games) and fishing.  Joe has been not only participated but also led many fantasy football organizations.  In his current home which she had built in Lakeville he has a complete theater with a projected screen and very high resolution graphics.  He owns hundreds of DVDs and is currently moving into the blue ray DVD technology.

With regard to fishing, it is certainly Joe’s favorite sport.  He loves to fish for muskies, northern pike, bass and crappies on lake Minnetonka.  He often takes his nephew Jacob.  For many years he would travel to Crowduck Lake, Manitoba Canada with Jack and other members of the family and friends.  They would always spend a full week fishing from dawn to dusk and that is where Joe caught some trophy walleye.  His biggest was a 30 inch 12 lb. walleye.

Joe’s favorite activities are playing with his two children Matthew and Mariella and watching movies.  He also loves spending time at the Vitelli Pinehill home on Pine Lake where he is teaching Mariella and Matthew how to fish.  He has also been successful in getting Mariella to water ski and wake board.