School Story:
After Paly, I was a hippie for a couple of years. Then four years of Mills College, two years programming in Chicago, then 7 years of grad school in Denver, CO, studying Cognitive Psychology, in which I obtained my Ph.D. in 1985, with Distinction. This led me to a 19-year career studying human-computer interaction (usability) and working with software engineers. First there was a two-year post-doc at IBM Watson Research Center in New York, then IBM in San Jose for four years. I was fired. Terminated. Contracted in Silicon Valley off and on for the next five years and had a very bad drinking and drugging problem. The drinking and drugging led me to homelessness, unemployability, psych units, and living in a shelter in Palo Alto churches, Urban Ministries. My new jobs took me all over the country, from Chicago to the Bay Area to Denver to New York and New Jersey and back to Colorado Springs, CO. I finally landed in Portland, OR in 2004 and made a home for myself. Today, I live with my dear friend Christopher and my buddy dog Sparky, who is the love of my life. I am very happy and have no plans to move anytime soon. I enjoy life thoroughly, mainly because of my church involvement (UCC) and two volunteer positions, one as a website development and design person for the Multnomah County Dept. of Community Justice. The other volunteer position involves being the Grants Director for an incipient nonprofit based in San Mateo County. I work on that long distance and it's a lot of fun.
Update 2022: I'm retired now and have recently discovered that I love to paint. I work in acrylic and watercolor and even sold a painting! After Sparky died in 2012 and then Noah in 2021, I adopted nine-year-old Kody, a Pomeranian/Chihuahua mix. We are a team. He goes almost everywhere with me. Another recent change is my renewed interest in Buddhism and meditation. I've become involved with Open Gate Sangha, a spiritual community based in the Bay Area.
