A Little Bit about Me

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Happydoodle looking at the camera Welcome to my site. I hope you enjoy your visit. Please feel free to send me an email. I'd love to hear from you, and I'll probably write you back.

I'm a 48-year old guy who lives in Wheaton, Maryland, which is just outside Washington, DC. As you've probably guessed, I'm a computer jock--not one of those developer types, but a technical writer, an occupation of mine for the last 21 years. Time flies when you are having fun.

I grew up in Moscow, Idaho, attended high school in Potlatch, Idaho, and attended the University of Idaho, also at Moscow. I spent a year of graduate school at Normal, Illinois being a Redbird fan at Illinois State University. I think that the winter of 1976 was probably the coldest year of my life, out there on the plains watching the blizzards blow and deciding that graduate school was not a great idea.

My parents were college professors, and my father was also a lay minister in the Methodist Church. He had a small congregation in a little town south of Moscow. The church was tiny, but its spirit was great, and Dad was a good pastor and a gentle, wonderful man. His example has done much to form my own character and quest for spiritual understanding.

While in high school and college, I checked out the Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and converted to that faith when I was 19. That Church promised me a new, wonderful, and different life, and it was an important part of my spiritual life for many years. I married in the church in 1973 at the Logan, Utah temple, and I have four children from that marriage. I was excommunicated by the church in 1981, and I divorced in 1982. My former wife remarried, and she and her husband adopted the children in 1985.

In 1977 after returning from graduate school, I moved with my wife and children to Kennewick, Washington. I started working with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and quickly discovered that I hated selling insurance. In a serendipitous turn of events, I went to work for Battelle-Northwest, a Department of Energy contractor at the Hanford Atomic Works. I was a technical editor and writer there for five years.

I got into all sorts of trouble at Battelle-Northwest. I felt that the Department of Energy was covering up the nature and extent of its radioactive releases from the reprocessing of spent radioactive fuel, which the department used to manufacture plutonium for nuclear weapons. I joined a group called World Citizens for Peace, and I was eventually fired. That's the very short version of the story. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, because I got up off my duff and moved to Washington, DC, where the streets are paved with gold, and every person can make a fortune.

I moved here during Holy Week of 1983 (earning the nickname of "The Easter Bunny" -- ask Jerome). Within a month, I had met my future partner, Ron. We dated for several months, and started living together in Silver Spring in 1984. In 1989, we bought a townhouse in Wheaton, Maryland, and have been living the happy suburban life since then. He is a writer for a news magazine, and I work for a large financial services company as a software development analyst.

I met my boyfriend, Perry, at a gay men's social potluck in 1994. In 1995, he moved into our condominium, and lives in a townhouse across the parking lot from Ron and me. Perry's living companion is Mookie, a very queenly cat that rules with an iron paw. I guess that the arrangement that Ron, Perry, and I (a.k.a. Ricky, Lucy, and Ethel) have is unusual, but it works for us. All three of us appreciate the special friendship that we have. I could not be blessed with two more wonderful companions.
My partner, Ron

Well, that was a breathless paragraph that covered the last sixteen years of my life. During the years I've been here on the East Coast, I've discovered a few things: I don't think I'll ever end up living in Idaho again, although that's where my heart is. I share a rich, loving life with my chosen family. I've found a wonderful, loving community of faeries and other spiritual folk who offer me the opportunity to explore my path while they skip along on their own.