OK, so here's my life story on a web page. As I said before, I was born in 1962, in Moline, IL on July 28th. (For those into astrology, at 6:00 AM CDT)
I was diagnosed with glaucoma when I was about 2 months old, and from then until I was 15 or so I had varying degrees of vision, ranging from none at all to 20/50 or so. I spent loads of time in and out of hospitals, (mostly the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics) and by the time I was 17, I'd had 29 different surgeries on my eyes. I lost my left eye when I was about 12, and my right eye when I was 15. Since then, I've been totally blind, but I don't really think about it much.
When I was 5, I got hit by a car while crossing the street on the way to kindergarten. I was in the hospital for about a week with a mild concussion. Some would claim that accident and resulting injury explains much about the way I am today. I can't for the life of me understand what they're talking about.
I attended Bettendorf High School, and graduated in 1980. I wasn't a very good student in high school, mostly because I was bored, especially while I was a freshman. I spent lots of time in the library reading, and stayed up nights reading almost anything I could get my hands on. This did cause some problems, since I started falling asleep in school. After I lost my sight, I actually became a better student.
I went to college at the University of Iowa, majoring in Communications. For some strange reason, I was one of those students who never changed their major. During my first year at Iowa, I started taking Tae Kwon Do, a Korean martial art. I had always had an interest in that kind of thing, but didn't really have a chance to explore it while I was at home. I went to a TKD club meeting held at one of the gyms at UI, and they didn't have any problem with me starting classes. In about 2 years, I had my black belt.
When I was getting ready to graduate, I discovered I just wasn't done with school yet. I had more things to explore, and there was just too much stuff to learn, so I decided to stay in school and get my MA. I also found that I wanted to teach. This was something I enjoyed from teaching TKD, and so after talking to a number of faculty members, I applied to grad school at UI and was admitted. Grad school was very different, since I had had many of my new "classmates" as teachers. I felt very awkward at first, but started to get more comfortable soon.
In May of 1987, I received my MA in Communications Studies, and started looking for a job.
I actually found a job too! I was pretty amazed, but was happy as well. (Duh!) After sending out applications and doing the interview thing, I was offered a 2 year contract at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where I would be teaching in both the Journalism and Broadcasting department and the Speech and Drama departments. I have to say that this was not what I had expected at all. First, Alaska is much different than Iowa. Also, teaching full time is WAY different than taking classes full time. Alaska was loads of fun, and the people there were some of the most interesting I've ever met. One of the best people I met there was Kelley, my wife since 1989. She's the best thing to ever happen to me, and she's not paying me to say that.
I spent two years in Alaska, and loved all of it. Before I left, I got married, got to know a cat for the first time, went salmon fishing, ate whale blubber (not recommended), went white water rafting, and lots of other stuff.
We left Alaska without a job to go to. We had sent out almost 100 applications to various places in the country, but I had only had 3 or 4 interviews. I personally think that being in Alaska hurt my job prospects. Not because I had been teaching there, but because I was living there, and it was really far away from almost everywhere.
I finally did get a new job though, teaching at a community college in western New York. Niagara County Community College is located north of Buffalo, NY, and east of Niagara Falls, NY, in the middle of Niagara County. It's in a very rural part of the area, and is surrounded by a very quiet village. Not much happens here in Sanborn, NY, and that's pretty much the way they like it here.
The college where I taught (NCCC) is one of the best in NY state. The faculty are really very good, and the students do credit to this part of the country. It was really a very good place to work.
Our old guest book died! Here's the new one.
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