Something About Me

Born in Lindsay (1947) and raised in the village of Coboconk (1947-1966), both in the Kawartha Lakes region of south-central Ontario. I attended the University of Toronto (1966-1971) and then things began to happen.

During the years 1971-1974 I lived in London (the real London, that is) where my work history reflected the life of a footloose youth. The best thing I did during that time was to be married.

The years 1975 to 2012 were spent in my nuclear phase, during which time I worked for two years as an editor at the United Nations in Vienna, four years as a safety engineer at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited in Sheridan Park, twelve years as a private contractor, eight years as an employee of Ontario Hydro where I became a minor expert on iodine chemistry and the remaining years before retirement in the private sector working for a medium sized and then a large engineering consulting firm. Those years with the consulting firms were a fantastic time, during which the variety of the work, the technical challenges, and especially my outstanding colleagues were the greatest reward.

Along the way, I picked up a serious travel bug, a deep interest in languages, an addiction to cycling in Europe, a taste for wine, the enjoyment of many cuisines, a love of cooking, an urge to make bread at the drop of a hat, and a fixation on history that roared back to life from a fifteen year pupation. Throughout my life, there have been powerful undercurrents of philosophy, reading, and writing, and in my retirement the last-mentioned of these, writing, has been fanned to vigorous life. My wife and our two cats look at all this in bemusement.

For all these reasons, I consider myself a lucky guy.