Interests: My wife, Alex, effective use of technology, sailing (Yuma sailing pics),
and dancing.
The emphasis changes.
Personal Stuff:
Alex and I met in the Virgin Islands where I was living on my sailboat, a Freedom 40 named Ubi Libertas and were married in 1997.
I lived on Ubi for about ten years using only solar power and lived a few years before that on a smaller boat.
To keep things simple, I had no refrigeration or hot water.
I did have running water, lights, and a very nice stereo.
After marriage, lack of amenities soon motivated a move to shore and we lived on various islands for a few years then moved to Copenhagen where Alex was a manager at Hard Rock Cafe and I wrote custom MIS computer programs.
After a year in Copenhagen we decided that a life change was in order and moved to Baton Rouge, LA which is close to my parents.
We spent a few years in Baton Rouge as I earned a Ph.D. in instructional technology so that I could return to teaching, a profession that I love. I convinced Alex that she would love teaching too and she earned a Masters in Education with dual certifications on special education and K-5 instruction.
We are currently living in Yuma, AZ where I'm a professor of computer information Systems at Arizona Western College and Alex is teaching K-3 inclusive special education at a local school.
We do love our jobs.
Living in the desert is novel for me. For the majority of my life I've lived in temperate climates close to the water.
I've only visited snow.
Yuma has provided my first experience with sustained heat.
This summer (2007) the temperatures routinely were in the 120s.
It was too terrible to go outside.
Yes, a low humidity helps but you can't fight those numbers.
I miss rain -- I think there's been about a cummulative inch in the year that I've been here.
We have two dogs (a chocolate lab and a rescue) and no kids. If you want to read yet another love story, I wrote up the whole mushy story of how I met and was privileged to wed Alex.
I've done more than a bit of sailing including numerous single-handed sailing trips to South America and all but three of the islands in the Caribbean chain.
I've lost track of how many hurricanes I've been in but it's close to a couple dozen including most of the Cat 5s that hit the Caribbean and/or North America since I've been alive -- here are some my hurricane tales.
Work Stuff: Here is my portfolio.
I'm currently a professor of computer information systems at Arizona Western College
While the vast majority of my professional career has focused on higher education and computer consulting,
among the things I've been paid to do are university professor, learning center director, bartender, chef, sailing instructor, grade school teacher, ship’s captain, TV camera operator, mental health specialist, orderly, priest, welder, computer programmer, writer, and systems consultant.
I delivered newspapers in grade school.
Some years ago I ran for the Virgin Islands' Senate but didn't make it - I'm still trying to decide if that means I lost.
I think I was once paid to dance but the memory is blurry.
Hobbies: I like to write computer applications and give them away (much more fun than crossword puzzles).
In example, check out SereneSound,
Charlie's Jokes, and my ExcelToHTML macro.
My biggest current project is BIRAT an open source system to create, analyze and export data from net based survey instruments.
I also wrote a complete courseware system, YACS but I no longer support it.
Here's the obligatory photo gallery:
Education: My first degree is in Psychophysiology from the university of California at Davis.
I wrote the degree and am one of a handful in the world that have one. I admit it's not the most useful degree.
I learned mondo control of my body functions and some other esoteric stuff. I.E. I can stop my heart for a bit, but who cares? (Don't answer that.)
I have a masters degrees in Education and an MBA from the University of the Virgin Islands and a Ph.D. with a focus on instructional technology from Louisiana State University.
My dissertation focused on issues in Internet survey design and includes a companion project, birat.net, a full featured Internet survey design, delivery, and analysis system.
Outside of academia, I've got various computer certificates, am a licensed US Coast Guard Master Captain and a US Sail Sailing Instructor.
I also squeeze bituminous coal into diamonds in my spare time.
