Before becoming a husband and father, I lived the same blessed life I live now, but I lived it mostly alone. I have traveled the world, first as a marketing communications specialist for a giant process control multinational, then as an independent IT consultant for numerous domestic and global technology companies.

I have written and published daily / weekly news and feature articles and internal sales support magazines, developed / conducted training for industrial software implementations and maintained / disseminated system design / development information to drive computer system core and interface construction. In years past, I worked and lived, not really knowing what it meant to have a home. Then I met my wife; we had our daughter and work became what it should be: just my day job.

Along with my day job, an addiction to music and performance led to my fronting two classic rock / groove cover bands, then starting my own project... still in the works. When I sing and get the crowds on their feet, I am transported by music to ALMOST the best place I know.

The best place I know is right now, right next to my wife and daughter. I can't believe I've seen so many places, eaten so much fine food and made a very good living, doing with language what comes naturally to me.

And I can't believe I've made so many packed-bar crowds shout and dance. On top of all this, I've been writing steadily, "seriously," for about 15 years. My BA in Technical Writing / Journalism, a college internship at a daily paper and a brief tenure as a full-time reporter gave me practical writing skills.

When I left journalism for marketing communications and eventually IT consulting, I started writing fiction (short stories / novellas) and non-fiction articles / essays. I guess the stuff of my writing has always been in me and had to come out.

So, while my IT work still pays the bills, I am constantly caught up (obsessed, you might say) by the need to interpret and write about some remembered experience, current event or passing image. I am very grateful to Helium for giving my obsession an outlet.

So yes I do live a blessed life, having done and continuing to do so many things, yet still apparently deserving the privilege of being right next to my wife and daughter. Amen, I guess. Yes indeed, baby...

My passion is ...

my family, music, books, photography, hiking, cycling, travel

I know too much about ...

it's impossible for me to know too much

My parents always told me ...

be who you are

My childhood ambition ...

college professor / professional writer

My favorite memory ...

the birth of my daughter

Why I write ...

if i don't, my ideas will consume me... or die, and i can't accept either

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

bill bryson, susanna clark, kenneth roberts, hunter s. thompson, stephen hawking, james gleick, mad men, classic rock vids on YouTube, amc movies, johnny depp movies with my wife, mozart-to-metheny-to-marc cohn-to-marvin gaye-to-vivaldi-to-metallica-and-tool

My first job ...

washing pots and pans at a fine bakery

My best moment ...

on stage at club caroline, grooving on "play that funky music" with over 200 people in a small space

My inspiration ...

my wife

Entertainment > Music Genres, Trends & Scenes Rock music: Past, present and future

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RECYCLING THE ROCK GUITAR SOLO

Those were the days: long afternoons playing baseball in a fallow, late-September cornfield, your best friend's house up the hill behind home plate, stereo speakers propped in half-open windows, with Foghat, maybe Bachman Turner Overdrive making their glass rattle; or riding on a logging road back to Big Creek in a beat-up Ranchero field car, an eight-track deck in the metal dash and a woofer behind the bench seat giving every kidney-crunching rut just the right Black Sabbath or Lynyrd Skynyrd accent.

If you grew up a boy in small-town 1970s America, ...

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