Well
folks, here we are! It's funny how life can run around in circles, or maybe
in my case spiral progressively upward... (hey, you wanted to read this!:)
So I guess I have to take this chronology all the way back to high school.
I was one of those kids who really didn't fit neatly into any one of "boxes"
that the masses graivitate into. I wasn't so inclined to be a "jock" didn't
quite have the sense of superficiality required of a "social". Didn't do
quite enough drugs to be a "burnout". I guess I just wanted to be me &
do my own thing? Apparently, this was really a revolutionary thing in a
post-industrial Massachusetts town. So many of the people I knew in those
days are still hanging out in the sports bars in downtown Beverly, speaking
in thick Boston accents and drinking Bud. I sure did do my own thing. Straight
out of high school I joined the U.S. Marines for a four-year hitch. I had
done this primarily to get out of the academic environment for a while
(I was always trying to get out of something) , but I found myself in an
electronics school for over a year! I also learned that while life can
be hard as hell, there's still lots of fun to be had in any given predicament.
You can also make some friends for life in the military. Uncle Sam sent
me to Okinawa for 1.5 years, too hot & surrounded by indigenous (and
indignant) people that don't really want Uncle Sam's kids around. I got
a lucky break however- For my last year, I found myself with a really laxidaisical
unit at Camp Pendelton. I spent my weekends in Newport Beach, San Clemente,
Carlsbad & Encinitas. I really fell in love with all that exists south
of LA ( &mostly west of I-5 )and I knew that someday I would have to
return. I found myself back in Massachusetts at UMass to try to become
the other kind of vet. Along the way, my personal objectives got re-aligned.
I did some research work in my undergrad & gained some interesting
skills. I'm now working in an immunology lab at UCSD. Research lab technicians
usually become grad students after a couple of years, this means I can
join the ranks of mad scientists hopefully before 35.
