Obligatory
Bio
I
was born and raised in the mountains of North Carolina, in a small community
in Ashe County. Bordering Tennessee and Virginia, the area is home
to the Church of the Frescos and an annual Christmas in July Festival
(celebrating the county's Christmas tree industry), as well as a section
of the New River that attracts fisherman and canoeists from all over.
I
went to college in neighboring Boone in Wautauga County, attending Appalachian
State University. I took a year off from college and worked as a
DJ in a local radio station (WKSK), a job that Clear Channel is trying
to make obsolete. When I went back to school, I got a BS in Public and
Applied History, a degree preparing you for a career using history in
a non-traditional setting, such as a museum or archives. My goal
was to work in film and video preservation. Now, I'm now a computer consultant,
so go figure.
There
was something really special about spending most of my early life up "in
the hills". I'm still a redneck mountaineer at heart, despite my
filmmaking aspirations and love a good book or piece of music. My
interests range from high culture to low culture, from interesting local
lore to geopolitics. So, I suppose I'll wind up being the only person
in my neighborhood who has a double-wide trailer with frequent showings
of Kurosawa films in the living room. (Hey, they're Eastern-Westerns
anyway, right?).
After
college, I worked for awhile as a bartender at the Triad International
Airport -- a job, yes, that I could tell you stories about for days.
I started working there to get a schedule and money that would allow me
to go back to college. It didn't quite work out that way, but it
was a heck of a time. (King George Bush I's "Gulf War I"
sort of put a damper on travel, so I was out of a job.) Some of the celebrities
I met while working there include Lynda "Wonderwoman" Carter, Dennis Franz,
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (anyone remember him?), and Johnny Mathis.
Of course, there were all the pro wrestlers that came through the airport
and my favorite encounter -- Kathleen Turner (ask me about the Barnaby
Jones story).
Eventually,
I wound up at Wake Forest University, working as an Academic Computing
Consultant for the Art, Music, and Theater Departments. I was at
Wake Forest for about eight years and started the new millennium as an
Academic Technology Consultant at Duke University. In both jobs,
I helped faculty figure out how to use technology in their teaching (which
is a fancy way of saying it's a living until something better comes along).
These
days, I'm pursuing screenwriting in my spare (?) time. Interested in moving
to the Southwest US, perhaps even to the heart of the entertainment industry
beast, Los Angeles or to a quiet rural setting somewhere in the high plains
of New Mexico.
7.15.02/6.07.03
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