4. Autohyperbiography

Oh yeah, that too. I'm not real fascinated with history, but I never deny its determining status in reality as we know it. Last change to this page on July 14, 2005.

• August 2004: Met Elizabeth Gannaway!
• December 2003: After a year of separation, I was divorced peaceably from Jamie, who started a new life for herself in . . . Honolulu!
• February 2003: The Lilies of the Alley and I mutually discover each other.
• October 2002: finally got my first real job at age 34, working for lifelong learning at UW-Madison. I run a program of online liberal arts courses as well as the German program.
• July 2002: as my graduation present to myself, I spent a month mainly in Sliabh Luachra, Ireland.
• April 2002: finished dissertation and began teaching myself melodeon, following an urge which was a long-withheld carrot I had hung in front of my nose as an incentive to see the dissertation through.
• Winter 2001/2 to present: Irish set dancing becomes increasingly important to my social and aesthetic life.
• September 1997-July 1998: a research stay in Berlin, Germany thanks to a grant from DAAD. I liked it! Yes, there are Irish sessions in Berlin, but I spent most of my time in the pleasant archives of the Akademie der Künste and the Bundesarchiv in Lichterfelde.
• Married Jamie July 1, 1995. A Nederlandse Taalunie course in Nijenrode on a scholarship from the American Association for Netherlandic Studies provided an excellent excuse for a European honeymoon the next month. I took my fiddle along and went busking for the first time (in Utrecht and Aachen). I also discovered a great session in Amsterdam (at Mulligan's).
• 1992-2002: Grad student at UW Madison since Fall 1992. M.A. earned Spring 1993. Finished coursework May 1997, passed prelims in August 1997. I had planned on finishing my dissertation in the year 2000.
  • Worked as a Teaching Assistant instructing German and Dutch for six semesters. I developed some Web homework in Dutch and German. I founded the German dept website in 1994.
  • My first book came out 1996. I published my first academic hypertext, on the early poetry of Paul Celan, in the early months of 1995.
  • Madison's Irish music and dance community got Jamie and me active and turned me into a tune junkie and session addict. My band, The Snug, had its first gig in June of 1995.
  • Brian Blais introduced me to the Internet in early 1993. Back then I had a 2400 baud connection to a VAX mainframe and the coolest stuff was bitnet chat and gopher.
  • Jamie and I actually like Madison, despite the weather.
• 1991-92 Lehrassistent teaching English at 2 vocational schools in Linz, Austria. Part-time work at translation agency there. Made good friend Bernhard / "Bernie," a psych student in Salzburg. Became member of Linz's university orchestra and read lots: Schiller sowohl als Österreicher der 70er und 80er Jahre.
• 1986-91 B.A. in German & Physics at Univ. of California at Berkeley. I started, however, as a double Physics and Music major. I was about halfway to a degree in composition/theory when I had to give it up in order to pursue German, which led to a much more promising career path. Played violin with the University Symphony all 5 years. Met Jamie as a fellow German major in 1990. Became a Brecht fan after taking a Brecht course with Prof. Bluma Goldstein. Took a creative writing course 1987 with Central Valley poet and Cal prof Gary Soto, where I got my first taste of the creative poetic juices that had flowed in Berkeley and San Francisco during the 50's and 60's. Yummy. My favorite poet became Gary Snyder (Gary Snyder link #2, #3, #4, #5). Got into building and selling PCs as a business.
• 1982-86 Cupertino High School in Cupertino CA. Any alumni reading this? I was a model high school student, which had its drawbacks and its idyllic side. Did computer programming coursework on the side at the Institute of Computer Technology and De Anza College. After tastes of a career in programming I decided I didn't want to do the obvious and become a programmer. (It's still tempting to me, however, especially at stressful points in the academic schedule.) I am still thankful to the great English teachers at 'Tino, Miss Stimson and Mrs. Davis. I learned German in proper Silicon Valley fashion with Herr Morrey. This is also when I discovered the fascination of connecting our Atari 800 to other computers over a modem, which was called "hacking" back then. I think I stayed in legal activities, though.
• 1979-82 Hyde Junior High School. School was still boring to me. I did find out from Kirk that I had a knack for throwing discus, though. Too bad I didn't have any muscle to go with it.
• 1976-79 Idyllic life in Seaside CA, where I learned how to catch and clean squid and read good books, among other things (like program in BASIC on our TRS-80 Model I). But I got lousy grades in school. I did start violin with the school music program (which was one of the kinds of programs that California Proposition 13 "property tax relief" later killed off). This is also the age when I started bike commuting (to the public library).
• 1974-76 Nashville, Tennessee. Nice house, great climbing trees. Began musical career thanks to my mother's instruction on recorder. Spent 1st and 2nd grades at Eakin School. What ever became of Keith Sykes?
• -74 Down South. Primal scenes. Creek in backyard.

My father's a "helluvanengineer" from Georgia Tech. He also taught me how to be such a good cook and intelligent (. . . that doesn't mean accomplished . . .) soccer player, if I may say so . . . My mother's a full-time activist.