Bio
I was born on Wednesday, December 30th, 1964, in Clarion, Iowa. Birthplace of
the 4-H emblem. Seat of Wright County. Population, (insert latest census
number). Sallllllluuuutte!
For those of you who get that reference, you're like me in at least two ways:
You're over 30 and you watched a lot of TV when you were younger. :)
I moved to the Seattle area with my parents and younger sister in August 1967.
We lived in the Holly Park area (Section 8, WWII-era housing) until December
1970. I attended Maple Elementary (1971-1977), Asa Mercer Junior High
(1977-1980), West Seattle High (1980-1983), and lived in the north Beacon Hill
area until July 1987.
In December 1986, I began working at the University Bookstore warehouse, near
the University of Washington. Despite working there off and on from 11 1/2 years, my life's direction was changed in a big way by a minimum-wage
movie-theatre job I had for 16 months before the bookstore work. It was there
that I met a woman who is still a good friend of mine and she was able to get me
a temp proofreading job at Microsoft nine years later. That five-month contract
led to meeting another woman who became my wife in August 1998. So, for those of
you that believe that a job like that won't mean something to your life down the
road, I'm here to say you never can tell.
I've since worked at Microsoft eight more times and almost all of the contracts
were proofreading jobs. It's the kind of work I could do for free if I didn't
need money for things. I've written to people who make yard signs for home shows
about their grammar. I've e-mailed a TV news station about the spelling of
news-story titles. I've called a massage parlor about their window graphics'
text. Somehow, someway, punctuation and spelling aren't nearly as important as
they were when I was in school. Now I'm not saying you'll never see a typo on this website, but if
I do notice any, I will fix them as soon as possible because I want people who
read articles on this site to know how to use their punctuation correctly
because you can look intelligent if you're a good speller or good at grammar --
even if you may not be that bright. :)
Enough of that for now, though. I'm sure I'll be venting in my weblog about all
of the bad punctuation and grammar out there.
Currently, I have a job
doing administrative work for King County Finance. I first worked for King
County Elections in
early August of 2004 and despite what happened with the governor's race (note to
GOP: blame the 22,000 voters who left that race blank and not the mistakes made
or the fraud you know you can't prove), I had a lot of fun because so much of it
was very interesting work. I transferred to Finance, though, because the
Elections department was moved about 15-20 miles away further away from where I
live -- and transporter technology hasn't been invented yet.
Also, I'm almost done working my tenth season as a Gate Host/Greeter for the Seattle Mariners at
Safeco Field. I've held that position (during baseball season) since August of
1999 and I'd do that job
for free as well. Four free view-level seats every month. Half off most
concessions. 20% off merchandise. Now if they can only make it back to the
playoffs someday.
My interests/hobbies also include sports (baseball, football, basketball),
traveling (been to 35 US States, three Canadian provinces and two foreign
countries), listening to (and buying) a wide range of
music, reading "hard" science fiction, playing softball, and watching movies.
One way or another, I'll get all of that across on this website.