California boy -Born in Long Beach, grew up in Sacramento. I've lived in many different parts of California, including San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Diego, Huntington Beach, the Sierra Nevada, the North Coast.

Starting with college, I lived in San Francisco, then the Santa Cruz Mountains. Later, I lived in Anchorage, and bounced between rigs in the Cook Inlet, off of Kenai, and on the tundra in Brooks Range, and in Deadhorse, north of the Arctic Circle. After returning to Sacramento for a couple years, I ended up in a log cabin outside of Ashland, Oregon.

In my early 30's I lived in a log cabin in the Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon for a few years. I've done a fair amount of rural, mountain living in the Sierra Nevada, Cascades, and Siskiyou Range. There is nothing more breathtaking than seeing Orion high above on a frigid February night with the snow all around and the air crisp and crystal clear. In the early 90's I moved back to Sacramento. I married and raised kids. Eventually I ended up traveling a bit for business.

As a result, I spent a fair amount of time in England; mostly London and the West - Bristol, Glastonbury, Somerset and Devon. I've also traveled about the States -  New York City, the Hamptons, Connecticut, Boston, Chicago, Kansas City. South Carolina, Florida, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and the Ohio Valley have become familiar  with visits to many other States. I've got good friends across the U.S. and in the U.K. I've enjoyed hiking the countryside in Devon, Somerset, Glastonbury and the various moors and rambling the cities of Europe - Amsterdam, Paris, Geneve, and more.

I currently live in Fair Oaks, CA.

Career and Education

I have a varied and eclectic career background. The main thrusts of my career have been food, technology, writing and communication, networking, and relationship building.

After college, I worked as a roughneck and cook on oil rigs in Alaska, operated heavy equipment in construction, and co-founded and sold a small furniture business.

I dabbled in music promotion Sacramento, worked in sales, and started focusing on gourmet cooking. I trained with accomplished chefs in Italian and French cuisine, regional foods, Cajun, and other cuisines in fine dining restaurants from Sacramento to San Francisco and Ashland,Oregon. I cooked American country cuisine and diner food at a hunting and fishing lodge in the Oregon Cascades. I love cooking, and the restaurant business.

However, with family and marriage, the hours of the food biz didn't work. So, I moved to political publishing. I was always interested in computers, and had completed a computer science course in 1982 in San Jose near where Apple's new campus was being buit.

While in publishing, I developed guides and electronic products, maps, databases and other tech type products in the 90's, just as the Internet exploded. I also directed customer relations and fulfillment, and I was successful in helping to grow a small but significant business in California's Capitol. After close to a decade in publishing, I moved on to a position as a technical writer and trainer in the IT/data processing industry in 2000 right as the Internet exploded.

Currently, I work for the State of California on Medicaid and Healthcare EDI.