What is one of the stupidest things you've ever done?

Not all stupid things end up having bad consequences, and very fortunately so in my case.  Back in my twenties, I had a Yamaha 400 motorcycle which I enjoyed immensely.  This was before drivers were distracted by their mobile phones and potholes seemed few and far between.  I was a very careful rider and was very good at anticipating danger, knowing that, regardless of fault, I would end up badly hurt or worse.

I rode my motorcycle to a family picnic one day, somewhere out in the country west of Dayton, if my memory serves correctly.  Rain moved in and I decided to ride home through it.  But there was so much water coming off the road that I decided to put my feet up on the handlebars to keep them somewhat drier.  So I’m flying down a country road at fifty miles per hour, tires hydroplaning and I’ve raised my center of gravity and given up some amount of control.  It took a few minutes to piece all this together and reverse this stupid decision.  

But I was smart enough to stop riding motorcycles after my daughter was born, realizing a whole lot more than myself was on the line at that point.

Who are your favorite artists? What makes their work so compelling to you?

My favorite print, photographed by Gary Crandall, is an image of a male mallard duck floating on water.  I bought this years ago from a store in Park City, Utah during one of several skiing trips I took to the Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons southwest of Salt Lake City.  I had been searching for a lone duck print for years and when I spotted Crandell’s work, I immediately went to a store clerk and said I wanted it, without bothering to ask how much it cost.  I didn’t care, I was going to buy it no matter what.  The most compelling feature of this duck picture is the gently falling snow landing on the duck and surrounding water, adding to the story that a duck, as I’ve often thought of myself, is someone that is calm on the outside while paddling like crazy below the surface.

My second favorite print, photographed by David Whitten, is a bright white picture of aspen trees standing in several feet of winter snow.  It reminds me of the several snowmobile excursions I’ve taken in the mountains around Park City, usually on an off day between skiing Alta, Brighton, Snowbird, Solitude, or other northern Utah slopes.  A typical snowmobile trip took a couple of hours, a combination of high-speed races across large meadows and guided, single-file forays dodging aspens and other high-altitude species.  Those peaceful moments cruising through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world had me on the lookout for a print to bring back those memories, and when I found Whitten’s aspens, also in a Park City shop, I knew I found the perfect memory.

I’ve read a lot in my life, particularly in my younger days, and science fiction was always my favorite genre.  Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Scott Adams, and David Eddings were among my favorite authors, with my first choice being Raymond Feist.  I’ve read about twenty-four of Feist’s books, including The Riftwar Saga, The Empire Trilogy and The Serpentwar Saga series, and more.  All author’s ability to write books containing hundreds of pages of deep storylines and interesting characters amazes me, knowing how hard it is to write just a few pages before getting stuck.  My all-time favorite book, and the only one I’ve kept for decades to re-read, is The Number Of The Beast by Robert Heinlein.

I was fortunate to have grown up during the best decade of music, the 1970s.  Picking a favorite group or individual is tough, but I’ll choose Chicago.  There were few groups that were truly unique and Chicago, with their eleven members including Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, and Walter Parazaider on trumpet, trombone, and saxophone respectively, and one of the best voices ever, Peter Cetera, playing bass.  Having any horn instrument represented is rare, but having three in a rock band is remarkable and if you get to see Chicago in concert, you’ll be amazed at the energy they still bring.  

There are only a few athletes that I would put in the category of being an artist, but those that compel you to watch them time and again are special.  Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is one of them, playing a hard-nosed game with incredible eye-hand coordination that’s beautiful to watch.  Pro golfer Pill Mickelson also comes to mind as he’s a master at the short game with an unbelievable imagination, making impossible shots look easy.  But my all-time favorite is ice skater Peggy Fleming, the 1968 Olympic ice skating champion.  I really respect those people that were first, changing the course of a sport or an industry, and like Star Wars and Jaws did in the movies.  Peggy’s beauty, style, and perfection would be copied by skaters for decades, and yes, improved upon, but she started it all, at least in the mind of this 12-year-old boy staring at his parent’s black-and-white TV screen.

You came of age during the Vietnam War. Share some of your impressions of the war from your teenage/young adulthood. Did you, your parents, or your siblings have strong opinions about the war and/or the draft?

The biggest concern I had was with the draft, as you might expect for teenagers at the time.  The actual reason for the “war” (not really, the U.S. never declared war) and why it was needed didn’t really concern me, I was focused on high school, getting ready for college, working, and camping.  Nobody I knew cared, at least not until 1969 when the first draft lottery took place.  

My older brother, then seventeen years old, would face the draft in 1970 and while he probably would avoid the draft using a college deferment, it wasn’t a sure thing.  For the next couple of years, we would listen to the news as they selected the birthdates that would be chosen first, hoping for a high number and dreading getting a low number.  As I recall my brother was fortunate to have pretty high numbers, and we shared a sigh of relief each time.

I turned eighteen in October 1973, nine months after the draft ended in January.  I never had to nervously sit and wait for October 8th to be called.  

When the draft started a whole lot more people paid attention, demonstrations became heated and more people wanted to understand why our country was involved in a conflict halfway around the world with no end in sight.  The draft was probably the biggest reason, in my opinion, that we eventually called it quits in 1973.  The all-volunteer soldiers that powered the military from 1964 through 1969 were one thing, but being forced to fight was another, and people needed a really good reason to do that, which clearly wasn’t there.

The other lasting memory was the disrespect shown to soldiers as they returned home.  Today you hear “thanks for your service” all the time, but in the 1970s all you heard was contempt and disdain.  I remember how mean people were, releasing their anger on these young men who were following orders, not the politicians and senior military staff who gave those orders.  Cowards berating soldiers.  That’s pretty low.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

I think the actual question is how much time does one spend being extroverted versus introverted, as everyone is some of both.  According to my last Myers-Briggs personality profile, many years ago, I’m fifty-two percent extroverted and forty-eight percent introverted.  That made perfect sense to me as sometimes I need to interact with people and other times I just want to be left alone.  I know that if I’m scheduled to present to an audience for a few hours, I need to schedule some alone time afterward.  The reverse is also true.  If I spend a morning alone in the office working heads down, by the afternoon I’ll be wandering the halls looking for someone to talk to.  As long as I maintain a balance I’m good, but too much of either will cause me to feel tired and uneasy.

My complete Myers-Briggs profile is ENTJ, having Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging attributes.  The direct opposite, ISTP, is characterized as Introverted, Observant, Feeling, and Prospecting. There are fourteen other combinations and all sixteen have their unique set of strengths and weaknesses.  For ENTJs, we’re efficient, logical, efficient, and ambitious, and they make natural leaders.  Pretty spot on, in my opinion.

But the way I like to describe myself is a combination of “others-future”, meaning my first evaluation of a situation is how it will play out and affect others in the future.  While I will eventually consider how it will affect me and how it will affect myself and others in the short term, that’s not my major concern.  While something might seem good right now, for example, feeding the ducks at a neighborhood pond, the longer-term effects on the animals becoming dependent on humans to get fed override the enjoyment of the flock swimming over and enjoying some bread crumbs.  

What do you like most about each of your siblings?

 My only older sibling, by about three and a half years, Greg could have easily ignored me but instead included me when I’m sure others would not.  My second-floor bedroom, in an unairconditioned house, was pretty warm in the summer, so I asked Greg if I could move down to the basement with him, and he agreed.  The other major inclusion Greg allowed was to go camping with him and his friends at their Bus, which they bought and parked along the Stillwater River west of Troy, Ohio.  A little leary at first, the group accepted me and found that having someone to drive them into town for more beer Saturday night was very useful. 

My sister Mary Rose was the only girl and just fifteen months younger than myself, so it was natural for us to grow up playing together and I remain closer to her than my other siblings.  Like our mother, Mary Rose is very sweet, kind, and giving of herself.  At one point when I suddenly needed a place to live, she opened her home to me and let me work through my situation.  Mary Rose is the thoughtful one, always the one to host family get-togethers and never forgetting to call and wish us a Happy Birthday or a Merry Christmas.  

Martin is the musician and actor of the family.  All the boys seem to have inherited our parent's desire to perform, and while all of us like getting up in front of an audience to teach or perform, Martin has taken it way further than the rest of us.  Our parents met at the Dayton Blackfriars Guild where they both acted on stage, and like our parents, he’s active in a theater group in Tucson, Arizona.  Martin, like Greg, is a lefty, and also plays guitar right-handed and jams far better than Greg or me.  

David is the youngest, two years younger than Martin, so they also grew up together, but unlike the nice brother/sister relationship I had with Mary Rose, Martin and David were quite often at odds with each other and argued quite a bit.  He’s the real programmer between us, so while I performed smaller efforts, David has delivered and supported very large and complex programs, including external websites.  

What is the most valuable thing you learned from being a parent?

I think I paid closer attention to my children than anyone else ever, in fact, I’ve told many people that the key to parenting is exactly that, paying attention.  When you know what’s going on and you know your children, the rest isn’t rocket science.  What that taught me that’s so valuable is how very different people are from each other and how they change over time.  My son and daughter are very different people, wonderful in their own unique ways, with their own set of challenges, skills, and preferences.  Maybe I should have known that’s how people are, but I never paid close enough attention to notice until it was my job to be a parent.

I began really listening to people in order to find out how they viewed the world, their work, and their ideas of fun and happiness.  Not at just one point frozen in time, but how they changed as they grew older and wiser.  It was particularly useful at work and as I got a deeper understanding of each person, I developed a sense for what they were not saying, leading eventually to being able to “read a room”, fill in the gaps, and help calm nerves.  In some of the very large and critical projects, that saved as much time as it did wear and tear on people’s nervous systems.

Children move from phase to phase as they grow up, which is good because just about the time you were sick and tired of their current behavior, they change and go on to the next one.  Each phase requires something different as a parent, sometimes cracking down, other times cheering on, but you need to always be listening and thinking for new ways to help.  You also learn what’s important and what’s not.  The importance usually involves really permanent, poor choices.  But most bad choices are temporary in nature, just bumps, not cuts.  Let them take their bruises and deal with the consequences.  Dealing with little problems while they’re little teaches them to deal with the bigger ones that surely await. 

The last thing to share is one of my favorite sayings, “No is a complete sentence.”  As a parent, I really don’t have to explain why all the time.  Life is full of choices, but whether you’re going to take out the trash isn’t one of them and I’m not going to argue about it.  When I just say “No” you may not like it, but I’m not going to change my mind or elaborate.  Perhaps giving you the chance to figure out why I said “No” is a good exercise, because life is full of telling yourself “No”. 

There is nobody on Earth that loves and cares more about their children than their parents.  If you think your parents are tough, just wait for life in the real world.  No one wants you to be happier, successful, loved, and safe than your parents.

Did you work while you were in college?

 I had at least one job the entire time I was in college, paid for all my own tuition and books, and took out only $1,200 in student loans.  I lived at home and my parents furnished me with room and board and paid for my car insurance.  Everything else, like a date pizza or a movie, was on me.  Between school and work, I had little time for anything else.

I began college still working at the Sherer’s Ice Cream store on North Main street, which matched the busier summer ice cream season with having that time off from school, allowing me to work a lot of hours and bank money to help out during the school year.  It also allowed me to really focus on school since I had been at Sherer’s for a couple of years and everything was routine.  

About a year into college my friend John Sloan made me aware of a weekend, third-shift computer operator job in the Third National Bank data center where he worked.  It was really appealing to get a job in my field of computer science, and while leaving Sherer’s was sad, I knew it was the right choice.  Their IBM mainframe ran the DOS/VS operating system instead of Wright State’s MFT, and the exposure to a different system was valuable.  There’s not much to do on Saturday and Sunday nights, so I could do some homework or toss a frisbee with the guard.  I did get to run the check sorter and I was amazed how fast the machine could read the MICR codes and the mainframe process them.  

I picked up a second part-time job at Wright State’s administrative computer center as a maintenance programmer and for one quarter I worked both jobs, which along with a full course load, a girlfriend, and almost no sleep between Sunday afternoon and Monday night, was more than I could take.  I decided I had to quit the Fifth National Bank job, but before I could I was fired.  It's a long story, but it taught me how serious banks are, which later in life would seem obvious.  

The student programmer job came with an office and a terminal, two valuable resources.  I could leave my books in my office and take only what I needed to class.  Instead of using the IBM 029 card punch machines, I would type my programs directly into the computer, a huge time saver that was also more accurate, run them ahead of normal student’s jobs and view the output online.  

I spent a year or so fixing existing programs before getting the assignment of writing their first online student admission system.  I developed four 10,000+ line COBOL programs using the IMS DB/DC database and data communication framework, debugged it, and rolled it out.  This was a real-world project, I did it as a student, and it really gave me a lot of confidence.  But my career interests were leaning in a more highly technical direction where “the real action” was happening.  

As a student programmer, I met Jim Nicholas, their Senior Systems Programmer.  Jim hired me as his assistant and I learned from the best.  I did have to cut back my senior year classes to two per quarter, but it was worth extending my degree to get this type of opportunity.  Jim and I worked together at Wright State for a couple of years before he accepted a systems programming job at The Mead Corporation.  I then became the senior guy at the ripe young age of 24.  I hired Steve Silver as my assistance and completed the in-process IBM/SVS to IBM/MVS operating system upgrade.  

I left my Wright State job in June of 1980, just two months shy of completing my undergrad, for a systems programming job at Hobart Corporation in Troy, Ohio, for more money and to leave the political world of academia for the business world.   But I would only be at Hobart for eight months before Jim made me aware of an opening at Mead, which I applied for and accepted, reuniting Jim and me for another twenty-five-year stretch and a lifelong friendship.