My quick Biography is as follows: Born 1958-06-21 in Detroit, attended Our Lady Queen of Peace Grade School, and Bishop Gallagher High School in Harper Woods, and even attended a High School Summer Science Institute at Lawrence Tech University. Later I attended Wayne State University in Detroit on a full academic scholarship, and began working for GM in the senior year, but graduated anyway with a double major in Physics and Math. 1981-1984 attended Michigan State University also working as a teaching and research assistant and finished with a M.S. in Physics and a M.E. in Computer Science, although I didn't learn too much about C.S. there. Attended University of Maryland at College Park from 1985-1988 on a GM Fellowship, and continued studying Computer Science but didn't receive any kind of degree (I already had the M.E., and GM wouldn't pay for the full time needed to get a PhD).
I continued to work at GM until 1990, and then went to work for Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books in Detroit, hoping to write some sort of computer based version of his role playing games, but there were just too many other things to do. I did end up writing a suppplement to one of his games though, which was published, and actually sold okay.
I went to Germany in the summer of 1994 for a German course at the Goethe Institute in Freiburg, and finally Wanderlust settled in on me, along with desire for a Maedchen. I gave up working at the end of 1994, and moved to Germany and settled in Trier. There I completed a further language course at the University, and moved to Berlin to start teaching studies as a full time student (again) at the Technical University. Unfortunately, it was finally explained to me that the likelyhood of getting a job as a teacher in Germany without citizenship was somewhat slimmer than slim.
The thought occured to me that since I was planning not to work for the next couple of years anyway, I might as well go further east. So I went to Krakow, and enrolled at the Polonia Institute at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow for a Polish Language Course. And so I've been in Krakow for a couple of years now, and rather like it here. I've gotten more interested in history lately, and have been doing a little genealogical research. I've thought about settling down, but of the young ladies I have met who have been able to enchant me, none seem interested in anything serious with me.
Now begins a new chapter in the travels. In fall of 1998 I moved to Aix-en-Provence near the southern coast of France, with the primary intent of learning French. The course ran through June of 1999 and I did, in fact, pick up a smattering of French. But now I've become disillusioned with learning languages, just for the thrill of it. I started leaning them because it was a real challenge, something I was rather certain would not be possible. And now that I've gone this far, I realize I've met my goal, and time to find a new one.
So in Fall of 1999 I took a break from learning, and talked my way into a lecturer job at WVU in the CSEE department, where I've spent the semester teaching computer science. And what have I learned from teaching? That what I really want to do is combine teaching with cutting edge research. However, as a lecturer, this is not reasonable. So I've decided to actually go back to school again with the serious intent of getting a doctoral degree in Computer Science. This time I hope to do it without feeling obligted to any third party (that is I hope to get departmental funding as a teaching or research assistant wherever I go). Stay tuned for the decision on where to go next...