they say it's the anniversary of my birthday. what do i know. i must have been there but i don't recall the event. stanford hospital, california. 1942. my earliest memory is a severe earache. maybe i was two. i have lived an interesting life so far. i heard dustin hoffman describe a novel way of thinking about age the other day. when you are twenty you can imagine being forty. when thirty, imagine sixty. when forty, perhaps imagine eighty. i'm
in the manner of tens, and following the example set by my life and blog partner:
ten personal things about me
(the threes)
i have three daughters, ages 35, 28 and 24. i was present at all three births, and took an increasing role each time.
i have three siblings, sister 60, brother 54, brother 52. we have distance. one lives in california, where three of our grandparents were born, one in mexico, one in hawaii, and i in washington state.
i have been married three times. the first two marriages were good in their own way and produced my daughters. the latest, and ultimate, is the best.
i have had three, uh, careers. computer programmer, carpenter, and property manager. i have had other jobs. i was production manager at a candy factory, and the same at a teabag factory. carpenter is way the best.
three houses have been built from plans i drew. one that i built burned down. long after i sold it.
(a three and a half)
i finished college, for a BS degree in business administration with a minor in production technology, in three and a half years. my GPA was not stellar. i started graduate business school at uc berkeley, but thought better of it and dropped out. i started law school at u of santa clara when i was fifty, thought better of that too, and dropped out.
(non-threes)
i have lived ten years of my adult life using an outhouse, and may increase that span before i die.
i have hiked hundreds of miles in the high sierras in thongs. footwear--not underwear.
i rode the entire length of every subway line in london when i lived there in 1970.
i had a 1932 ford model A cabriolet (sans top) when i was in high school in 1959, which i drove, and 1929 model A pickup, which never ran.
ten physical things
my beard is grey, my hair mostly brown.
my skin is thin in that anglo way. easily bruised.
i have had a beard for most of my adult life,
i wear mostly medium size everything.
i have been nearsighted since 1953, far sighted as well (how does that work?) since 1996
i have never, well, so far, broken a bone.
i had a vasectomy in 1982.
i have weighed the same, 150-160, for at least 30 years.
i have not been seriously ill for longer than i can recall.
i have a low voice. tone, not volume. check it out. the pirate speaks.
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my first present is from my partner the wonderful and wondrous Rexroth's Daughter. i should explain that have i never been a student of r. feynman in any formal way. no classes. didn't even go to caltech, where he taught. never met him. i love the way he teaches and talks (i have recordings of his lectures).
10 things you should know about DPR
1. He can build anything that he sets his mind to.
2. He can fix anything that he holds in his hands.
3. He is a student of Richard Feynman, and has made it his life practice to understand quantum mechanics and physics.
4. He is a beat, dead-head, dreamer poet.
5. He can make a garden grow-- germinates seeds, experiments, and learns.
6. He loves to laugh and tell stories.
7. He's a bit of a loner, can spend hours in the garage tinkering.
8. He has sweet blue eyes, and cries when he thinks he has hurt someone, especially his daughters or me.
9. He is a great cook and loves to take out the wok and go wild.
10. He does the NY Times Crossword puzzle completely, and with surprising ease (and, as he says, "in ink.")
You look like Gary Synder a bit.
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