Things you didn’t know about me
A few days ago my friend Brett Kelly posted Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Me on his blog, and named me as someone he’d like to see a follow-on post from.
Okay Brett, this one is for you.
1. I grew up in Alaska
Although I was born in Seattle, my parents moved to Anchorage before my first birthday. I grew up with a profoundly handicapped step brother, knew quite a bit of sign language, and most of the handicapped kids in Anchorage by association.
We had a cabin at Big Lake, where I swam, water skied, and jet skied almost daily during the summer, and snow machined during the winter. Our family had a Cessna in a private slip at Spenard Lake, similar to the one shown above.
Anchorage had a very big budget for education, so I was able to spend most of my time glued to the Apple ][s in our junior high school computer lab. Most of my friends and I were in EISI, which was a very novel and life changing program for gifted students.
At this time of my life I was an avowed carnivore and spent a lot of time outdoors. My biological father moved to Ninilchik, and I spent a lot of time tramping around the bush with him and my grandfather, hunting birds and moose, and fishing for halibut and salmon.
2. I went to art school
I am a third generation musician on both sides of my family and, after several years of playing trumpet in Alaska, I eventually shifted my focus to the guitar.
By the time I finished high school I had been accepted as a jazz guitar major at the Cornish College of the Arts. My favorite classes were music theory, ear training and sight singing, rhythm, and piano. My music ensemble class was led by Julian Priester. My classmates included James Bergstrom, who played drums for Alice in Chains at the time, and Pete Droge.
3. I was a cook
After I dropped out of Cornish I decided that I needed a trade, so I got a job as a dishwasher at Arnie’s, a local seafood restaurant in Seattle. Over the next two years I worked my way out of the dish room, first as a prep cook, and then as the day broiler. The pan in the picture was stolen from the restaurant by one of my coworkers and given to me as a going away present.
This job is what kept me focused on my studies the second time around for college. It was, hands down, the worst job I have ever had. On the bright side, success at the job required phenomenal organization, time management skills, and laziness - all of which have served me well in my professional life.
Arnie’s is also where I met my friend Grace, who would introduce me to my future wife about 10 years later.
4. I came very close to majoring in theoretical mathematics
In 1992, Robin Graham, one of my math professors at the University of Washington, sponsored my admission to a 3 week Regional Geometry Institute held in Park City, Utah. I studied conformal mapping, hyperbolic geometry, and got my first hands on experience with NeXT computers, particularly with Mathematica.
It was becoming very apparent that I was much more passionate about pure mathematics than engineering or applied math. My alternative schedule for fall quarter consisted of 4 senior level mathematics courses and introductory Russian, and I half-hoped that my application to the Aeronautics and Astronautics department would be declined. It was accepted, though, and the picture above was on display at Guggenheim Hall (the aeronautics and astronautics building) in the class photos for two years.
5. I have wrecked shit on other planets
My first job after grad school was at Lockheed Martin Astronautics, developing onboard software for the Mars Climate Orbiter, the Mars Polar Lander, and Stardust.
Both MCO and MPL crashed and burned at Mars. The Stardust mission was successful, but another mission we worked on (Genesis, pictured above) crash landed back at earth after completing its mission.
Most of the software that I wrote for MPL and MCO was reused on the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter, the Mars Phoenix lander, and the Spitzer Space Telescope
6. I am obsessed with the laws of nature
I am obsessed with laws of nature, particularly body forces like gravity and magnetism. Forces like this are easily described, but very poorly understood. Gravity and inertia are incredibly unlikely and non-intuitive, but most of us accept them unquestioningly as a part of our everyday lives.
Knowing why objects resist acceleration may be the key to developing scifi concepts, like inertial dampers or antigravity. Bows and arrows were used long before the principles of motion were understood, but I’m certain that understanding how these phenomena work will get us closer to harnessing them for our own use.
7. I am deeply interested in energy research
My master’s degree was focused on advanced propulsion and energy conversion, and I have a strong interest in energy research, both for spacecraft propulsion and domestic energy resources.
Both fields are going to need serious game-changers, likely including nuclear fusion technology and antimatter systems. Another area of interest, that I’d like to do future work on, involves the consequences of adoption, including pollution, susceptibility to sabotage, potential disaster and disaster recovery scenarios, etc.