I was born in the late '50's in Indiana.  My family moved to Australia, and then to New Jersey, where I grew up, married, and started a family.  I worked at a number of places in the New Jersey / New York area, including Paramount Pictures.  Then, in 1993, we moved to California, and I continued working at Paramount for a number of years after that before moving to Farmers Insurance.

I started running in 2004, and I'm happy with my performance in the longer races.  I've done five marathons in the four to five hour range, three of them close to four hours.  I feel happy to be in the middle of ability of runners in my age group, and that's about where I intend to stay as I get older.  As an outdoor activity, I find running to be inexpensive, enjoyable, and health-promoting.  Another outdoor activities I enjoy is snowboarding.  Southern California, especially the desert city of Palmdale, is ideal for these activities because it's almost always sunny, yet the nearby mountains have snow (some of it man-made) every winter.

I enjoy mathematics and philosophy, and I enjoy both teaching and learning.  When I teach, I find I learn as well.  For one thing, I learn how to teach, but in a more basic way, I learn the material much better when I try to organize it for someone else to learn.  This is a very satisfying aspect of teaching.  If it paid better, I would teach at a school, but since it doesn't pay well, I just do some Internet tutoring.