What's in here? Only a few of the things I care about, that I've put here for my own purposes. You're certainly welcome, though, and I hope you can find something that interests you.
This page acts its own menu. If you click on a link, it should open up in a new window, leaving this one intact. Each other link should then open in that same new window. (Except for two links that open in independent windows.)
Everything else should be listed on a page called Other Things.
There's College Teaching--or, rather, there was. I recently became eligible for Social Security and decided that 40 years of teaching was enough for a while.
Well, then, it was college teaching--most recently at a comprehensive community college, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. (At conferences, people would squint at my name tag and say something like "Jay Sar--what?!" Or maybe it was "Jay Sar--weird!" I was never sure.) The place is a college, but quite a distance from those conventional, traditional institutions most folks are used to.
Read the story of how I quit a perfectly good job at a traditional university for one at a community college.
Care to see What I did at JSRCC and some other professional interests?
There's also alternative education for kids: The Richmond Montessori School and Gifted Children Coordination.
Now my profession is Breather. It's a pretty good job. I work at it all the time.
And I fly a small amphibious flying boat that I built from a kit. You can read about it here.
One of our sons, Chris, is a reformed computer professional who is now a Montessori elementary school teacher. You can go to his home page if you like, or have a look at him as a college student.
Our other son, Jon, is a software engineer and is hard at work in the Washington. D.C. area. He prefers to go by "JAM" these days, and you might find some of his programming work on the web under that moniker. He's hard to photograph, but you can sneak a look at him as he was in college.
Jon and Chris a few years ago. All three.
Another is where I am, and when. I live now in Prince George County, near Virginia, USA, but...
I had a cousin, Christine, a lovely person who lived all of her 54 years in the same community, except for when she was in college. She had a wonderful sense of who she was and where she lived--and of belonging. My own family and upbringing were a lot like hers--except that I've lived at 28 different addresses, in ten of the United States and five other countries so far. That's given me a different sense of place and time than Christine had and it's made it impossible for me to be a national any more. (In this photo, for example, the left part of the background is Chinese and the right is American.)
So although it sounds silly, where I feel I'm from is Earth. (If you're desperately curious, you can see all of the places I've dwelt so far. This includes Richmond, Virginia--a strange place, indeed. I even know some natives of Richmond who feel like aliens here.)
But I keep thinking about that annoying term "postmodern," which when you slice though the academic baloney is just a temporary name for the era we've moved into so recently that we don't quite realize we're already there--here! I suppose it results from "the jet age" and "the information age," but it's probably more an eclectic state of mind. Anyway, I've been thinking about when I am and how I got here, and if this doesn't seem to make much sense, it's only because I'm a bit confused about it, myself. I've already told the story (the link is above) of how I came to Richmond and what I'm doing here. But it doesn't seem that simple. For example, in many history books, Richmond is an evil abstraction: the Capitol of the Confederacy and the very last bastion of school segregation. But plenty of enlightened people live here now, and it's becoming a wonderful jumble of people from all over the world.
How you got here, of course, is probably due to a chance of the World Wide Web. Where you've been, on the other hand, might suggest something about who you are and how you see the place where you are now. Why not write...
...and tell me where you are and where you're from.
Lost Ones. Help me find some old friends--people I've lost track of in all that moving around (and a few who've turned up again).
Here are some Other Things --essays, scanning experiments, my "learning flying" logs, baloney, and the like
BLOG DISABLED BECAUSE OF SPAMMERS. GRRRRRR! NEW!!! A blog where you can leave feedback about this site or read what others might have said.
Go back to the top.
P.S. If you liked the music that (should have) played automatically when this page loaded--it's a fanfare attributed to King Henry VIII --you might enjoy these other midis, as well:
How's the weather in Richmond?
This site brought to you by Abstract Concrete Works. (whatever that is).