I was born and raised in Wacousta, Michigan, went to Michigan Technological University, and worked in Wisconsin until 1995, when I moved back to Michigan a mile from my old home.

Me, in a lighter moment...(Oct 2004)

After completing the Ripon Triathlon (Aug 2007)

Swimming at the National Senior Games in Houston 2011

 I live in Wacousta with my wife Pam in a house on a dirt road (well, they have LOTS of dirt roads in Michigan...)
October 2004

I have two wonderful children: Lindsey (28) and Rob (26).Lindsey graduated from college in December 2005, Rob in May 2008.
 

Lindsey and friends Travis and Julie. 2009

My siblings:  Sandy, Sam, Jim, Jane (July 2010)

A couple of corporate giants that I've worked for: GE sold my group to IBM IBM sold us out before we could be vested. Kept lesser skilled workers... found work at Carl Zeiss Meditec, then lost it	What working for IBM was like...	Zeiss workloads due to vacations..
A Zeiss moment...	Zeiss HR	Zeiss HQ seemed to think that we had a big enough workforce....never mind we were overworked and underpaid.
the reviews...	Attitudes went south...	More tasks to track and less time approved to do them	Everyone's looking for work somewhere else...
and in the end...

Some cool links:

Cassini entered Saturn orbit 1 July 2004 Huygens enters Titan's atmosphere and touches down 14 January 2005

 Other links to NASA and ESA projects:

Pioneers 10 and 11.. Pioneer 10, launched in 1972, final transmissions received January 2003 and is over 7.6 billion miles from Earth. Pioneer 11, launched in 1973, final transmission received September 1995.

Voyagers 1 and 2. Launched in 1977. Currently both are operating and on interstellar missions. Voyager 1 passed100AU from the sun (Aug 2006). Voyager 2 is over 72AU from the sun.

Hubble Space Telescope Operating since 1990. Repaired for the last time in 2009 and is taking even more spectacular photos..

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter...  Launched June 18, 2009. LCROSS intentionally crashed on Oct 16.  LRO in orbit mapping the moon's surface..

Juno.  Spacecraft to orbit Jupiter.  Launched 5 Aug 2011.  Earth flyby Oct 2013, arrival at Jupiter in July 2016.

Stardust.. Launched Feb 99. Mission to comet Wild 2 (Jan 2004), to collect and return comet material to Earth in Jan 2006. Successful collection on Jan 3, 2004.  Returned to Earth but crashed-landed on 8 Sept 2004.  Spacecraft is alive and had a new mission (NExT) which flew by Comet Tempel 1 in Feb 2011.

Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous.. (completed with soft landing on the asteroid 14 Feb 2001)

Mars Odyssey (2001), Mars Express (2003), Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2005), Mars Exploration Rovers (2003), Mars Science Lab (Curiosity Rover)  Rover "Opportunity" continues to rove and transmit images. MRO reached Mars orbit March 2006.  Mars Phoenix landed in the north polar region in May 2008.  Rover "Curiosity" will launch 11/2011 and arrive August 2012.

Europa Orbiter.. Cancelled by President Bush

Project Prometheus/Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter.. Cancelled! Nuclear-electric mission to Jupiter's Galilean moons would have arrived around 2015.

Messenger.. mission to Mercury. Launched August 3, 2004. Gravity assists at Earth (7/05) and Venus (10/06, 6/07) and Mercury flybys (1/08, 10/08, and 9/09) before March 2011 orbit insertion.  Currently in orbit around Mercury.

Pluto New Horizons Launched 19 January 2006.  2007 Jupiter gravity assist, 2015 rendezvous (flyby) with Pluto.  Currently between orbits of Uranus and Neptune.

Ulysses Launched in 1990, in polar orbit around the sun since 1994.  Mission ended June 2009.

Genesis launched Aug 2001, arrived at L1 Nov 2001 to collect solar wind particles. Returned to Earth Sept 9, 2004.

Rosetta Launched 2 March 2004 to fly by two asteroids-- Steins (9/2008) and Lutetia (7/2010)--and orbit and land on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (in May 2014). The complicated flight path includes 3 Earth gravity assists (3/05, 11/05, and 11/07) and Mars gravity assist in 2/07.

Deep Impact --look inside a comet (Mission completed 4 July 2005 with impactor collision with Comet Tempel 1).  New mission (EPOXI) flew by Comet Hartley 2 on 4 Nov 2010

DAWN Ceres and Vesta asteroid orbiter using ion propulsion.  Launched Sept 2007,  currently in orbit around Vesta (7/11-5/12), and next is a Ceres (2/15-7/15) rendevous.

Venus Express ESA's mission to Venus launched Nov 2005 and arrived April 2006.

Kepler orbiting telescope launched 6 March 2009 to detect extra-solar terrestrial planets

Link to photo comparison of 4 Galilean satellites. Very nice!

Views of the planets and moons of our solar system

To put it in perspective, Lansing State Journal columnist John Schneider put it this way Sunday March 15,1998:

"...[we are] human ants clinging to a dirt ball orbiting a fireball, surrounded by infinite blackness and other loose chunks of debris. And not really knowing why."  And our solar system is just a spec in one of over a hundred billion galaxies.

last modified 22 October 2011