Thanks for the challenge @Brian Feutz.
Ten Things You Don't Know About Me
1) I'm not sure whether I'm retired or whether I'm on an indefatigable journey to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. Now that I'm 60, I guess I should start deciding what field I want to contribute to, whether I want to work for someone else (healthcare benefits would be nice) or whether writing might ever actually produce an income.
2) I have been to five weddings in my life and three of them were my own. Unlike many, I have nothing but praise for the time I got to spend with the lovely ladies who accepted my proposal, but as adults we also recognized the reality of Gwenyth Paltrow's conscious uncoupling. Not everyone is self aware enough to make it through until death do us part. I'm hoping that my current partner and I can make it to the end of this race they call life together.
3) I feel like I've had more careers than I have hair left on my head. I don't even think I'll be able to list them all. For a long time I thought all my jobs had to be disgusting (cleanup worker at the butcher shop), dangerous (research chemist working on solar powered electrochemical destruction of waste cyanide solutions), or really dangerous (field chemist for an explosives company, loading boreholes with our explosives and analyzing the blast results of hundreds of thousands to a million pounds of explosive), or really, really dangerous (chemical response coordinator dressing people in Level A chemical suits to respond to one chemical emergency or another). After finding that I could still count to ten on my fingers after all of that, I've bounced around from practicing law (great education, but not a field for me), project and program management (well maybe a little bit more danger as the project was destroying the Nation's supply of the nerve agent VX-the most dangerous chemical ever invented), then contract management, a little Human Resources in employee development to an early unplanned retirement. (and yea, I missed a few)
4) I've always written. My longest friend (we met in middle school Biology class, she was in 8th, I was in 7th and we've stayed in contact all the years intervening) sent me back some of the stories I'd penned over the years and shared with her. But until Medium I never really tried to pen anything in a public forum. Carrying just over 500 followers at the moment, I keep trying to find the voice that will connect all of them.
5) I'm a big picture person. My partner reminds me frequently that I'm very good at big pictures, drawing conclusions and connecting dots that many people miss. I may not be the most diplomatic about expressing those opinions, however.
6) I miss my house in Indiana. I had a great home in Indiana with a huge garage that was perfect for my burgeoning woodworking hobby. But without a partner, the home was just too much to keep and when the opportunity came to move my mother closer to Pennsylvania, I took the opportunity. It didn't work out quite the way I'd hoped, but I'd have not met Sue if I'd stayed in Indiana.
7)I have a novel idea that I'd love to write, but I find that my dialog still needs a lot of work. A couple of chapters in and most in their 10th or 15th rewrite!
8) Thor is my second Bernese Mountain Dog. Love the breed. I learned about them accidentally. My first wife and I went to a dog show in Muncie, Indiana to look into getting a dog. There were two Berners at the show and we asked the owner if we could meet the dogs. Windsor strutted regally from his kennel straight to my wife who squatted to say hello to the lovable 100 pounds of fur. He leaned right into her and it was love at first fur and slobber. Floozy did the same with me and before too long, our pup was met at the Indianapolis airport, flying at 7 weeks old from upstate New York to us.
9) I'm a stark contrast between optimism and pessimism. I always remember a painting on the wall of a gas station in Indiana. It was derived from the ideas of the John Birch Society. It was the cycle of civilization. It starts with Oppression by the Government. Revolution replaces the Government with a new one. The Society builds, taking care of the people and the people demand more and more from their Government until the Government takes control of their lives and becomes increasingly oppressive, connecting to Revolution again. While the details are deep in the readings of the John Birch Society, it doesn't take much imagination to anticipate where the US is on that cycle.
10) I often wonder if I should have been a historian. I find that tying history and the path of history to today is greatly informative about where we are and more importantly, how we got there. Seth Godin's analysis on status and its effect on how and why we do things is also important to keep in mind. When you look at the elementary school playground you will see the same dynamics, games and posturing taking place that happens in Congress and Boardrooms across the nation. We really are bigger, but not yet adults.
