I am a retired software engineer living in the Boston area. Some of my interests that I will write about here:

Personal life. I l grew up in the idyllic town of Stratford, Connecticut, with a brief stop in Duluth Minnesota in my senior year. I came to Boston for college in 1963 (Radcliffe) and have lived in the area ever since. I currently live in a condo in the woods in Lincoln, Massachusetts. I have two young cats who are currently running my life, Jasmine and Pekoe, and a wonderful group of friends.

Family. Both my parents are gone, but I have a younger brother who lives in Orion, Illinois. He is married with three children, and they all have children, so I have 8 grand nieces and nephews (Joel, Hanna, Isabel, Riley, Nolan, Sophia, Molly, and Thomas). My grandparents were immigrants from Slovakia, and I had the pleasure of taking several trips to Slovakia with my father to meet many of my cousins there.

The natural world. I enjoy nature and gardening. I have studied landscape design in the past, and am on the landscape committee for my condominium community. I love the hiking trails that run throughout my town of Lincoln. During the summer months, I am a volunteer guide at The Garden in the Woods in Framingham and grow my own vegetable garden.

Healthy living. I was once quite overweight, but as a subject in the Diabetes Prevention Program in the late 90’s, I managed to lose considerable weight and improve my health. I have been trained to lead healthy living workshops for seniors and do that several times during the year.

Science fiction fandom. I joined the MIT Science Fiction Society just about 50 years ago, and have been involved in science fiction fandom ever since. I was the chair of Noreascon II, the 1980 World Science Fiction Convention in Boston, published the Hugo-award winning fanzine The Mad 3 Party, and was one of the guests at the 2015 Worldcon, Sasquan, in Spokane, Washington. I recently edited the 4th edition of the con-running role-playing game If I Ran the Z/o/o/ … Con.

Volunteering. Now that I am retired, I have the free time to do work that pleases me. In addition to the projects mentioned above, I recently began doing tax preparation for low-income people in Waltham once a week during tax season and maintain the web site for my condo community.

Other stuff. In politics, the older I get the more progressive I get. I enjoy schlock TV and good movies. I went through a phase when I was totally into Magic The Gathering and still enjoy gaming, particularly Dominion. When I was younger, I loved horseback riding, but the opportunities have not come my way in recent years. Although I don’t exactly enjoy the process of traveling, I have taken some lovely trips, most recently to Australia and Alaska. I don’t read as much as I used to. I indulge myself in technology, especially Apple products.