- Community: Work history, Other contributions.
- Household: Housing, Vehicles.
- Personal: Education, Traits, Journaling, Family.
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I've organized this page according to the pyramid in "My Pyramid Process". I'm starting at the top of the pyramid, because I'm guessing that you might want to see my work history before my housing projects and personal traits. It's also more of a "big-picture to lower-level details" approach.
As I listed the jobs I've had in my life, I see a couple of things that are significant:
Community: Other contributions
Once again, the writing, teaching, building, and helping themes are showing up in my non-paid activities.Household: Vehicles
I've always been blessed/cursed with an over-abundance of unusual ideas. Here is a list of some of my more memorable purchases, adaptations, and creations.
I've briefly explained some of my traits here, to help you understand
why I'm continuously re-designing my life. I'm inventive. When I was a kid, I was always taking apart toys and
using or putting them together in different ways. Like when my trike wheel
broke, I learned to ride it around in circles with two wheels. And those roller
skates made better wheels on my rocket ship than they did on my feet.
I like to experiment--try things out in a small way first, before investing a lot
of time and effort in bigger ways. Unfortunately, I didn't do this with my first stint in college,
and ended up expending huge amounts of both in a field that I didn't enjoy as a career.
(I do still use engineering as a way to understand the world and create useful life-tools,
but it's more like a hobby than a career.) So I'm using my sub-optimal investment
to help both you and me seek what is most meaningful in our lives,
and also to do it in a more investment-savvy way. I'm investment-minded. I don't buy stocks and bonds, however, which
have only managed to lose me money. But I always look for things that appreciate
in value, or which at least depreciate slowly. For instance, my houses have
always appreciated in value. They provide a place for me to live, and because
I've bought fixer-uppers, I've earned good "sweat equity" on the improvements
that I've made on them. I also minimize buying/using things that
depreciate, lose value... like new cars and fancy clothing.
Investments bring you money, and expenses take it away.
Two of my favorite books
really capture my beliefs about using money and other resources:
Your Money or Your Life, and Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
In a nutshell, I don't spend a lot of money on costly things like new cars,
trendy clothes, or dining out. Instead, I've invested in my houses.
I've expanded my current residence by four bedrooms,
two living rooms, two bath rooms, and two lofts.
It has nearly tripled in value over the last 10 years.
This investment strategy has allowed me to say what I say in the next paragraph.
I'm semi-retired! I've only worked part-time for the last eight years.
I love my lifestyle. When I used to work full-time, I always felt harried--like
I could never catch up. I didn't do many things for myself, things which I truly enjoyed...
like being outdoors every day, keeping up on current events, and tinkering with
bicycles and other human-powered vehicles. I achieved this by buying/remodeling/selling
several old houses, and now have big "sweat equity" and appreciation in one house--which
I rent half of (my tenants pay my mortgage). Three of
my favorite books can help you
do the same: Your Money or Your Life, UnJobbing,
and Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
I am ecology-minded. During a backpacking trip, I became very aware
of the difficulty of gathering resources. Even tasks like making a quart of water
safe to drink took a significant amount of time and effort. So as I use
even the simplest things--like knives, pens, and shoes--I am so respectful of
the large amounts of technological know-how that goes into our products.
(Read about the life cycle of a pop can,
for an eye-opening lesson in resource mis-management.) I do wonder if we have polluted
ourselves out of our current lifestyle... at least for the next several generations.
Will humans be able to live on the surface of this planet in 100 years?!
I love to acquire and maintain a wide, comprehensive perspective.
I see this culture believes strongly in specialists, and I also believe that they
have helped us make great technological strides. However, I also believe that
we have too few people who work at seeing the big picture, and how all of the
new developments can work together to improve the quality of our lives. One such man,
who I highly revere, is R. Buckmister Fuller. "Bucky" described this philosophy as
"comprehensivism".
I'm unconventional. I see and do things in ways which are different from
other people in the US culture. I won't stereotype what is the "norm", because
nobody exactly fits any norm. But I do sense that I'm different from most people
that I've met over the years. I question assumptions--the US culture's, my community's, as well as
most of my own assumptions. I've learned this partly due to my training
as a psychotherapist, and partly because of my curious nature. When I was little,
I took apart my toys to see how they worked. I've got a huge appetite for
learning about everything. I spent many years in a career that did not fit with my personal style and goals.
I went into my Masters Degree program partly to find answers to my questions about
how people choose jobs/careers. I didn't like the highly structured corporate
environment, nor the engineering culture which developed that environment.
I felt sensory-deprived, which I've heard is a form of torture which can produce
insanity in less than two days. (I withstood it for 17 years, but when I started
having neck/back problems from sitting in front a computer for most of those years,
I decided that "life is too short to do anything you don't like for very long".)
Personal: Journaling & Creative Writing
Personal: Family In my immediate family, I have three wonderful sons: My extended family consists of:
Personal: Education
Formal Education Highlights:
Informal/Self-Directed Education Highlights:
For more details on my writing, click on this link.
Andrew, 23 
, Mike, 21 
, Tim, 16 
.
We have a big, fat, lazy cat named Lily 
.
(See memorable parenting experiences
for more details of my kids.)
one sister Vicki (four years older than me) and her family;
my sweet little old mom (80 now);
my granny (93 and still walking daily!);
some aunts and cousins.
I probably won't have time to include photos
or other biographical info at this time
(and I don't have their permission to post it here anyway).