Viktor Von Riesling

Viktor Von Riesling's father was from a tiny town in Austria called Gzstaagj, which not even the locals could pronounce, and in 1978 the entire town was sold to a circus for firewood.

After a troubled youth, he joined the Moldavian Foreign legion under unclear circumstances and patrolled the length and breadth of Pluunten, the great lake of Moldavia. It was on these travels that he met Viktor's mother Enid Tooker, a vibrant American woman who was studying the Spiny Moldavian Spacklefish on a research grant from the University of Southern Elko, Nevada.

They moved to Elko where VVR was raised Orthodox Omnibus, which appealed to his parents because of it’s strict denial of all celebrations, thus relieving them of any normal Christian duty to buy presents, hide eggs, and the like.

He later rebelled against such practices and would gift wrap his own, groceries, books, magazines, newspapers, even plates and silverware.

His father never adjusted to the desert environment, and would often use confusing Moldavian expressions, such as “I’ll throw you in the lake!” (there was no surface water within hundreds of miles) and the baffling, “Middle-deep, shore-shallow,” and whenever he would do something he didn't want Enid to know about: “Boys who fink are stones that sink,” and the increasingly comical, “Where is my Goddamn boat?”

Fast forward through a typical American childhood and education, with the occasional trip back to Moldavia to visit Granpa Poopsie. VVR left home at age 17, headed out to California and landed a job at Nathan’s Janitorial Service in Bakersfield, where he discovered his natural talent for mopping.

At a night class at Junipero-Tulare Junior College, VVR wrote an essay entitled, The Art of Mopping, which he sold to an industry magazine, Mopping Today. Subsequent articles such as Mop!Mop!Mop! and Masters of Mopping were compiled into a coffee table book called Mop, and the World Mops With You; Modern Mopping, and VVR was able to cut his non-writing job to part time.

While overlooked by critics, it was well received by the literate janitorial community.In 2002 his children’s book, Big Mop, Little Mop was made into a television series for children which aired in Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador.

Von Riesling is currently involved with a Geocache adventure, several books, and related inventions.