I was born – a number of years ago – in a Naval Hospital in California. I grew up as a ‘Navy Brat’, and lived in a number of different places as a child, including the island of Taiwan.
I spent my teen years in a small neighborhood in southern California, only a few miles from the US / Mexico border. I watched the area grow around me, including the construction of a new Interstate Highway. I held a number of jobs in my youth – everything from flipping hamburgers, to turning wrenches as a mechanic, and eventually, managed to get a commercial driver’s license, and delivered gas to local gas stations.
Being more than a bit ambivalent, and very much a procrastinator, I spent my twenties trying to figure life out – which as you can imagine, turned out to be an act of futility. Finding myself bored and restless, a bit late in life (later than most anyhow) I chose to follow in my father’s footsteps, and I too, joined the Navy.
The Navy’s Submarine Force got me straight, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t bored any longer! During the seven years I was on active duty, I circumnavigated the globe – twice. I’ve visited almost every major country (and a few of smaller ones) on the Pacific Rim at least once, and a lot of them multiple times. Although the work was hard, and the time away from home somewhat tedious, the tradeoff was the never-ending list amazing places I got to visit – at Uncle Sam’s expense. Unfortunately, I was forced to leave the Navy on a medical retirement in 1988.
I’ve actually lived (set up house-keeping and all!) in a number of different places and states, some of which include California, Washington, Hawaii, Guam, Japan (for a very short period), Florida, and now Kansas.
Writing. Hummm… let’s see…
It actually started with a very bizarre dream – as cliché as that sounds. One thing led to another, and in about a month, give or take a few days, I had the first 200 pages of my first book written, although very roughly. Then, it got weird. I wanted the story – titled aka, and the predecessor to the Solution Squared series – to be as historically correct as possible (even though it’s fiction), and thus, I was forced to discover the process of ‘research’. Let me be the first to say, ‘kudos’ to those who do research full time…
Two months, and ten reams of paper later, I had every wall in my house covered with ‘stuff’ – maps, text, images… you name it. From there, it snowballed, and as you can see from the website, got completely out of hand. By the time I’d finished Solution Squared, I was already four chapters into Recalculation, and had even decided how it would end. The Final Equation came about because a number of people told me I had to ‘tie the story off’.
The Audio Distortion series grew out of a challenge from some kids, at breakfast one morning. I must admit, that once the train got rolling, it was all downhill – and I think I may have been more passionate about telling that story, than I had been with Solution Squared. Perhaps the most satisfying part of the whole experience, has been the positive responses I’ve gotten from a large number parents. It makes me feel that I’ve done something positive, in that I told a story for kids, without the usual superfluous, and graphic ‘stuff’ found in a lot of books today.
Having spent 20 years as a Veteran Services Rep with the State of Florida (GO GATORS!), assisting military veterans in acquiring their Veterans Administration Benefits after discharge from the service, I moved on to doing the same thing for the rural veterans of Kansas, putting in another four years. Now fully retired, I continue to write, and am giving great thought to my next adventure…
I currently live in historic southwestern Kansas.
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