Yours Truly
Born in New Jersey, I've lived here for all of my
years. I'll admit that I actually like New Jersey,
although my heart belongs to New Hampshire,
where, from age 4 through 24, I vacationed every year, and as many after that as possible.
I'm the fourth of three—I was the last of four sons born to my parents, the third having died at birth. Both of my brothers live in Arizona, which is also where my parents retired, leaving me the only one to remain in our home state.
My professional life began in high school as a sign painter. After earning a bachelor's degree at The College of New Jersey (Trenton State College at the time) in graphic design and communications, I pursued careers in advertising, printing, photography, multi-media/video production and post-production, computer animation, desktop publishing, technical writing and illustration, marketing, website development and others—you could say I never figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
The irony is that, of all the career experiences I had, I liked marketing the least, yet I spent a decade working as the marketing manager for a high-tech instrument company. Eventually I burned out, and went through a devastating period of unemployment as I struggled to find a new career direction, and ultimately found it working as a software developer at a major pharmaceutical company. I also still build websites professionally on the side.
Aside from a passion for trains both real and miniature, I love movies, music, photography, home renovation, cooking, woodland walks, waterfalls, sunsets and stargazing, writing, science and technology, dinosaurs and cats. And if you're a Boomer (or, more accurately, a GenJoneser) like me, you might remember The Avengers.
P.S. I don't do Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Buzz, chat, or anything else in the realm of electronic socialization, aside from a couple of hobby discussion boards and plain "old fashioned" email. I'm asocial online as well as in life.
Let me be buried in the rain
In a deep, dripping wood,
Under the warm wet breast of Earth
Where once a gnarled tree stood.
And paint a picture on my tomb
With dirt and a piece of bough
Of a girl and a boy beneath a round, ripe moon
Eating of love with an eager spoon
And vowing an eager vow.
And do not keep my plot mowed smooth
And clean as a spinster's bed,
But let the weed, the flower, the tree,
Riotous, rampant, wild, and free,
Grow high above my head.
—Helene Johnson, Invocation