This "About Me" thing is a work in progress, so don't get too excited about the absence of information; I will gradually get there. And I am not even sure this is a good idea!

(FOOTNOTE: Who ever heard of a footnote at the start of a page? The photo of me you see to the left is me standing on the wing of a P-51D Mustang. Her name is "The Flying Undertaker". This photo was taken in Adelaide, Australia in 2006 on the day after the "Stang" was moved from it's original home in Melbourne. This aircraft is owned by a very good friend of mine; Mike Aticheson, formally the President of CEA Technologies.)

I am a Navy brat, born in San Diego in 1950. In 1953 my father was transferred to Honolulu, where he served at Pearl Harbor until 1958. By virtue of his assignments, I traveled across the U.S. and lived in locations that today surprise me (there's a Navy base in Spokane, WA?). As a Navy Brat, I had the great privilege of meeting many friends throughout the country. I have been traveling internationally ever since and in doing so, I have had the good fortune to meet many people, including hundreds, if not thousands, of flight simming enthusiasts.

I dropped out of college in 1969 and joined the U.S Navy. I was fortunate enough to be selected to be in the aviation field, and electronics in particular. After Electronics School, I was sent to Helicopter Squadron 10, in guess where? San Diego! I specialized in airborne, dipping ASW Sonar systems. My life hasn't been the same since. I "graduated" from the Navy in 1973 and went back to college on the G.I. Bill. Best life changing choice I have ever made. I am an EE by degree and have done quite a bit of work in geophysics, and tectonics since my departure from the Navy. And that set the stage for later phases in my life.

Upon graduation, I had this itch to own my own business. I teamed up with a reporter with the Sacramento Bee and he and I opened a camera store, photo studio, film lab, and I ended up doing a lot of weddings, evidentiary photos and some very grisly stuff. I lasted two years doing the "photog" thing and in the mean time got married. That was not a good idea!

It wasn't long before my wife decided that me working 24 x 7 was not her cup of tea. She convinced me that being on call by the California Highway Patrol, local newspapers and an occasional gig with the Associated Press was not a good idea. I gave in and sold my half of the business and then said to myself; "okay, now what???". Thumbing through the Sacramento Bee one day, I came across an advert for the Peace Corps. Hmmm... That sounded like a heck of a good idea. She agreed, and the next thing we knew, we were interviewing with the Corps. It turned out that Fiji was looking for a PCV with some unique qualifications and guess who had the credentials to fill those? You guessed it. Fiji! Here we come! (Where the heck was Fiji???). A quick trip to the library did not help much. We located it on a map, but that was about it (this was 1977 - LONG before Google Maps, Wikipedia, or the Internet for that matter).

Because I travel so much in my real world job, flight sim enthusiasts and I have gotten together in as far away places as Tokyo, Japan; Hamburg, Germany; London, England; Istanbul, Turkey; Cairo, Egypt and many other places in the U.S.