A Condensed Autobiography
I was born in Pasadena, California, in my grandmother's house on December 5, 1951 at 11am. My mom didn't like doctors much so she used a midwife. I grew up in the L.A. area. We moved around quite a bit, for one reason or another. By the time I graduated from high school, I had gone to 9 different schools. I never had a sense of a home-town -- I was a child of a constantly-changing suburbia.
In high school, I loved math and science. I planned to be a physicist and help make nuclear fusion a practical energy source. Ever since I was a young child I was interested in efficiency and believed that cars should get a lot more than 12 or 14 miles per gallon This developed into an environmental and sustainability concern. By the time I graduated from high school however, I became enthralled with computers, so I switched my major going into college to Information Science. I went to the University of California at Santa Cruz and after a year became frustrated with the various experimental teaching styles (in some cases no teaching at all by the professor), so I dropped out and went to a computer school in San Jose, California, I landed my first programming job about 7 months later at the age of 21 at Caelus Memories, a disk drive maker that made disk drives the size of washing machines for mainframes. I was fascinated at how much storage capacity these disks had -- over 7 Megabytes!
I quit that job about a year later to go to East Coast and ended up in Atlanta, Georgia. I continued my computer programming career at a major bank in Atlanta, and got married to Amy, a girl I had met in Santa Cruz.
A daughter was born to us in the hometown of Emily Dickenson, Northampton. We named her Henna Ruth, but when she was about 14 she changed her name to Poxodd. In 1980 I returned to California, and settled down to a long, successful career in computer programming and database management, in Santa Clara, California while living in Santa Cruz. The commute from Santa Cruz was brutal but the job was fun for many years and I was well compensated. The 74-mile round-trip commute through the Santa Cruz mountains on Highway 17 started feeling even more brutal after I got in the middle of a five car pile-up. I didn't know what else to do and felt that marriage counseling wouldn't get us anywhere so I told my wife I was leaving her and moving to Santa Clara. A year a half later the divorce was final.
As the 90's rolled on, I became gradually frustrated with my job, as I saw things changing: outsourcing of jobs, and a sense of being devalued, even though I was making more money than ever.With the speed of computers increasing so fast and new software development tools changing every year, my niche skill of performance tuning did not have the same value, and I was placed on projects that I did not really enjoy. I decided to quit my job and I moved to Rochester, NY in 1999.
During this period I met two people who have had a long-term positive impact on my life: David and Jim Ross. We have been good friends even while living in different locations. David and Jim are creating a network of co-creators, and I am delighted to be a part of the process, supporting the effort with my website skills.
In Rochester, with money or without, I started to pursue the quest of "what's next". I had already watched enough Joseph Campbell videos to know that "follow your bliss" was a pretty decent idea. I recognized that my pursuit of material possessions for the sake of material possessions and status held no meaning or spiritual reward for me. I studied organic gardening, which led me to Permaculture. I obtained certification in 2004. I became focused on sustainable living and a vegetarian lifestyle with lots of raw foods and experimented with a 100% raw food diet. I decided I wanted to focus my life on creating a healthy organic food supply for myself and others.
During this period I also focused on improving my relationship skills and personal development. I took workshops with the Hendricks Foundation ("Conscious Loving"), the Human Awareness Institute, The Mankind Project, Re-evaluation Co-Counseling, The Heartwork Institute, and Sid Simon, as well as many other less-formal workshops and discussion groups. As a result of this work, I have a deepened understanding of myself, have gained self-confidence, and improved my ability relate to others in both one-on-one and group settings.
In December of 2003 I made another shift, after a relationship break-up, moving to Arizona to actualize the dreams I developed for a community of love, health, freedom, sustainable abundance, and spiritual development. My ideas about money have shifted into a more balanced view, since I have realized that money is very important to accomplish what I am passionate about. I took some workshops that helped with this: The Millionaire Mind workshop put on by Peak Potentials and a Christopher Howard workshop.
Therefore, in 2007 I began a web design and development business to encourage support my friends' creation of a social networking and educational site as well as assist sustainability in the business world, and to help fund the Sacred Garden Sanctuary and other projects. I never consider myself finished with personal growth, realizing that there is always so much more to learn and experience. I intend that the community which we will build here will provide opportunities for personal growth for all participants, and an abundance of sustainable health, wealth, connected relationships, joy, and satisfaction.
I am Steward of Sacred Garden Sanctuary. As Steward, I am responsible for managing Sacred Garden Sanctuary and taking the community development forward as time and resources allow.
My daughter is now married and living near Canton, Ohio
I am looking forward to launching http://you4ia.com with David and Jim Ross in 2010, which will be my website masterpiece.
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