"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx.
Well, I'm just this guy, y'know?
A Little LearningI'm waaaay over-educated:
| Boston College High School | Dorchester MA | 1962 | Diploma (Classics) |
| State College at Boston | Boston MA | 1966 |
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| Newton College (Institute of Open Education) |
Newton MA | 1973 |
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| Paideia | Cotati CA | 1980 |
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My poor colleges - they've all lost their identities!
State College at Boston (originally named Boston Normal School and then Boston Teachers College) has been absorbed by the University of Massachusetts.
Newton College (actually, Newton College of the Sacred Heart) has gone out of business and the program I was in - Institute of Open Education - became Cambridge College (after having done a stint at Antioch College).
Paideia, a general studies graduate university founded in the mid-70's by a great visionary named Malcolm Mcaffee, went—well—Internet! This may be the ultimate extreme of the distance learning model, the virtual university. Even when I went there, Paideia was based on the University Without Walls model made famous (and acceptable academically) by Antioch. Most "class" meetings took place locally at the homes of instuctors or guest professor-types. I got to hang out with the likes of Robert Anton Wilson, the wonderful Arlen Wilson, Sam Bassett, and early computer luminaries such as the late Dean Gengle (author of The Netweaver's Sourcebook, Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley, 1984)—polymaths all! (I think I shall not meet their like again.) But it was a local phenomenon, and the Internet was still strictly a military-industrial complex sort of thing. Distance learning as such didn't exist. Paideia became a truly world-wide (at least) phenomenon, with degree-granting branches in Amsterdam, Australia, Canada, and the United States. I've totally lost touch with it today; it may no longer exist.
A Little Work HistoryFrom 1971 through 1975, I was an instructor in psychology and social sciences at Middlesex Community College in Bedford MA. I specialized in working with adult learners. It was very cool - I found adults to be much more motivated learners than adolescents. Big surprise, eh?
From 1973 to 1976, I was a psychotherapist in Bedford MA, part of a group practice collectively called Expansion Inc. I did mostly individual work, with some couple and family work thrown in along with the occasional group. I would have been pretty good at it eventually, but I burned out.
I moved to San Francisco in 1977, bought an Apple II computer (serial number somewhere in the 200's - I can't remember anymore), taught myself to program in BASIC, and became part of a phenomonally creative period in technology.
For 20 years I made my money writing computer books, manuals, and on-line help systems, and the occasional Web page. But I left the profession on January 4 1999 to start a new project called The Justice Store (now defunct).
In march of 2002 I got my Oregon real estate license. I did that for three years before I realized that the practice of real estate and I are diametrically opposed. So it goes. So I went back to contract technical writing. You can read my resume here and see a bunch of stuff I wrote here. I retired completely in 2006 to devote myself to criticising the government full-time.
A Little Bit More Personal
Stuff, Bringing You Up To DateAfter 20 years in San Francisco I decided it was time for a change. So on September 23rd of 1998 I moved to Portland Oregon with my dog Wally. Wally passed away on April 6 2003, and I was soon thereafter joined by Charlie—who himself passed on September 1, 2011. The short lives of dogs is perhaps the Universe's cruelest jest.
I have plush but not overly ostentatious digs on a beautifully curvey street with lots of trees and no traffic. (The only other place in the world where I could feel at home is Amsterdam , but it's a bit too cold and far too expensive.)
These days I spend my time reading (usually on my Kindle), studying Buddhism, maintaining this website, and -- for some reason I haven't figured out yet -- learning about amateur radio.
So it goes.
