: About Me

In July of 2009, I had a life changing experience. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer, and spent two months in a hospital in Thailand undergoing surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. The cancer is stable, but not cured. I'll need to live the remainder of my life doing things that might benefit others and contributing to this site more often.

I don't plan to write another cancer memoir, that's already been done too many times. Before I left Vietnam, I was ordained as a Buddhist monk at the Bamboo Grove Meditation Center in Dalat, South Vietnam. I live and practice the Way at the Dai Dang Meditation Center here in Bonsall, California, about 30 miles north of San Diego. I meditate and run dharma discussion on Sundays for local people who are interested in Buddhism.

For further info on my current activities check this link: www.dharmadoors.net

From June of 2008, until January of 2010 I was based in Hanoi, the capital of a Vietnam in the midst of rapid change. I taught a business and communications curriculum to young students at a large Australian University, RMIT. I enjoyed living and working there very much.

Before moving to Vietnam, I worked in corporate communications, marketing and training for over 20 years. During all that time, I developed and delivered marketing, PR and product launch programs for key executives in the major markets of Asia and Western Europe.

I was certified by the University of California, San Diego to teach English as a Second Language (ESL). I taught business English to executives from companies like Accenture, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Credit Suisse and UBS for about a year.

I have also been fortunate to have lived and worked in Western Europe and Asia as a senior sales and marketing executive. I launched internet infrastructure and enterprise software companies in the major markets of Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. Along the way, I held senior positions at a variety of companies from startups to Fortune 1000 companies such as Ascend Communications, AT&T and Lucent Technologies.

I earned a bachelor's degree, cum laude, from a great Jesuit university, Boston College, in Economics and Foreign Languages, and an MBA from The Garvin School of International Management (Thunderbird) in Glendale, Arizona. I have developed fluency in French, Italian and Spanish. I can order food and beer in Japanese and German.

My passion is ...

Learning new languages, and using them when I travel.

I know too much about ...

Italian Food

My parents always told me ...

Never give up, never quit. Start something, finish it.

My childhood ambition ...

To travel the world in my private jet.

My favorite memory ...

Whale watching on the Sea of Cortez with my son.

Why I write ...

I enjoy self expression and I like to share my knowledge and experience.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Founding Father Biographies, current cinema, and modern Jazz - 1950 to 1967.

My first job ...

Taking care of my father's watch dogs at his place of business.

My best moment ...

When I first held my son.

My inspiration ...

My Italian immigrant ancestors.

Creative Writing > Essays Essays: Self-awareness through sailing

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Why are we drawn to the challenge of the sea? Why have humans for centuries looked out past our limitations, both physical and spiritual and sought to understand what lay beyond? There is something in the human spirit, call it curiosity or the seductive nature of discovery that drives us to understand the things that seem to us at first, incomprehensible and unknowable. I've gazed out over the Pacific Ocean many times and wondered what lay beyond the finely etched boundary of the horizon that blurred, and finally disappeared in the orange glow of the setting sun. I realized that these phys...

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