This is what I wrote for my 25th high school reunion:

"College (UI, Urbana), BS in a couple things. Married. Spent too long as an increasingly embittered civil servant (serf). Left in '91. Worked in the private sector since, where things usually make more sense. Five good kids along the way. Currently work for Vanstar at St. Paul Fire & Marine, fixing their computers when they break. Self-identified geek, Christian, gun nut, closet anarchist."

This was intended to be both truthful and cryptic. It's also incomplete.

Nothing contradicts.

• "Self identified geek". Seven or so of the whole nine yards. Naturally disheveled hair, pocket full of writing implements, inability to perceive "clashing" clothes, Gerber tool worn everywhere, long periods of my life spent reading computer manuals. No great hacker I: my programming skills are limited to short DOS batch files and tinkering with unix scripts. I do still own a slide rule ("a what?").
• "Christian". No amazing stories, it just is. Live with it. I don't handle snakes for kicks, speak in strange tounges (geek speek doesn't count), nor lay claim to special prophecies. I also tend to be skeptical of elaborate eschatological schemes (that push the scripture far beyond what it should be). He's coming back, we don't know when, and we should live a life now that we won't be ashamed of when it's judged. Nevertheless, these are distressing times. Standard evangelical Protestantism with a strong dose of Calvinist rationalism.
• "gun nut". Shooting a target accuratly at a distance is an immediate and powerful physchological rush. It's also a good excuse to go outside. There are also political reasons. As an empowering technology of freedom, it also ties in with . . .
• "closet anarchist". I range from small L libertarian to a scrap-the-whole-mess anarchist. It's a temperament thing, informed by my background in anthropology and ethology (watch movies of baboons or chimps posturing for dominance, and you'll never look a politician (or a boss) the same way again). I don't try to argue with people. I got tired of watching people's faces shut down -- most people really don't want to hear what I have to say.

Married my wife Cheryl in 1977. We have struggled long and hard to live what we consider a normal and proper life. Part of that normal and proper life consists of kids being raised at home by a parent instead of being dumped in day care. Looking at how our children are turning out I believe this was the right choice. As a consequence of that choice much of our long hard struggle has been about money, and making do with not nearly enough of it. We lived in a nasty, run down trailer in a nasty run down, white trash kind of trailer park (that was a lot more racially integrated than the rest of Urbana) for a long time--never again. Things are better now (we live in a house that we're buying. It continuously seems a miracle to me.) but we are far from spendthrift yuppie-dom.

At one point in the bad old days we were spending half my take home pay on food. I doubt if Mr. Clinton, who has said he feels our pain, has had that experience.

Slaved for Pharaoh at a low level civil service job in the University of Illinois library for 14 years. Everything I did or tried to do vanished down a silent well. I followed the rules and did everything I was supposed to do to move up in that system, and never moved an inch. To this day I look at some of the things I wrote down during that time and wonder if I was on a blacklist. Ah, to move in with shock troops, take over the place, seal the records and find out, and then roll some heads! Broke the bonds and left in 1991, which is a tale in itself.

I still have bad dreams sometimes about working at the University of Illinois Library.

I've worked in the real world ever since. For a couple different bozos for a year (anybody who sends someone out with 6 months experience in the field to restore a Novell server ("all you have to do is restore from tape.") is a bozo--I'm talkin' about you Emil), then for a small computer reseller for 5 years. Then for 2.5 years I worked as an outside contractor for one big company (Vanstar/Inacom) in the local office of another big company (St.Paul Fire & Marine). Things make more sense in small organizations. Laid off by the "flowndering" (death spiral was more like it) Inacom on 2000-jan-14. We survived 14 months on unemployment and temp jobs before starting with my current employer. High tech labor shortage, my ass.

Don't know where I'll be in 5 years--hopefully right here.

Consistent INTJ in the Kiersey personality test. Good company, eh?

I bicycle, but not as much as I'd like. I read science fiction, not as much as I'd like. I also amuse myself by writing the occasional crank letter to the editor.

I'd rather be a sage than a rich man.

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