Life:
Well, let's see, neither of my parents completed high school (K-12). My father, Franklin Marion Schafer was a sharecropper's son and he was orphaned at the age of 10. My mother, Leona Ruth Davis was a farmer/moon-shiner's daughter. They married young, dad 21, mom 20, I was born about a year later in September of 1949, many important events happened that year, the People's Republic of China both were created out of the social convulsions following WWII. I spent my first six years growing up in a one room tarpaper shack or with various relatives in Arkansas. I have a sister 6 years younger and a brother 13 years younger. I think I have a 1/2sister by my father that is 5 years older than me and I know I have a 1/2 sister that is 21 years younger than myself. Dad was not very careful where he dropped his pants apparently. Dad and Mom moved around a lot and were called lower class or blue collar citizens here in the US of A. I must have lived 15 or 20 different places by the time I was 14 and they settled down in Oregon as lumber and plywood mill workers. I was educated through High School in Oregon, went to the Navy Submarine Service during Viet Nam (served seven years). I married my ex-wife when I was 21 and in the Navy, she was a girl that I met where I had gone to High School in Coquille Oregon. We had two children, boys, Patrick 23, Brian 20. I got a divorce from her after 16 years of marriage and the religion of 10 years of common hell. 'nough said about that. I met, wooed and married again to a wonderful woman and she and I are happily raising American quarter horses and building a horse ranch with partners in the Hell's Canyon Area of Eastern Oregon.

Education:
I woke up to education when I turned 14. Up until then I sat in the back of the class and got mostly average grades C, C-, D and avoided any attention. I was tested at age 12 in Arkansas and it was determined by the folks that did the test in Arkansas that I was not educate-able so I was sent to all the bonehead classes untill we moved to Oregon. In Oregon, three things happened, I got a pair of glasses the summer we arrived, I discovered used book stores and I was allowed to pick what classes I wanted to take when I entered High School because my records were delayed coming from Arkansas (my parents had not asked for them to be sent ahead, mostly because I think they did not know where we were going to end up). Mr. Davis was the Junior physics class teacher, he made the discovery that I had no math background about six weeks into the school year. He gave me a special exam that was verbal. I should not have been in any of the science classes, physics, chemistry, biology, etc... according to my school records(which had arrived from Arkansas). He accelerated my education, I completed two years of math study in what felt like six weeks(I think it was closer to six months), Algebra, Trig, and beginning Algebra II. I stayed up with my classmates of 1967 and went on to Oregon State University after HS graduation. The Viet Nam war, discovery of girls, booze and a lack of direction cut short my college career at that time. I also bought my first motorcycle,(a 305 Honda Dream) and put many miles on it as a loner. I enlisted in the US NAVY Nuclear Submarine Program for six years and avoided going to the Southeast Asia rice paddies. After completing a seven year hitch, I left the Navy in 1976, I went back to college at University of Portland and completed, in 1981, a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering with specialty in Computer Engineering. I attended school nights while working full time at an electronics company as a technician and then as an engineer. I was also introduced to "ZEN and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in 1979 by a senior engineer/bike rider. "Lila" as soon as published.

Occupations:
Roustabout in a plywood mill.
Electrican Mate First Class USN.
Technican in Computer based TV products.
Evaluation Engineer in Computer based TV products.
College teacher of computers and languages.
HardWare and SoftWare Evaluation Engineer in multiprocessing UNIX computer design.
Manufacturing Engineer in multiprocesser computer environment.
Quality Engineer in Communications and Aerospace applications.
Jack of all trades in a Starving Startup Company doing speciality computer processor test jig.
Senior Software Systems Engineer in System Design Integration and Test.
Now retired to head up an American Quarter Horse Ranch and do a bit of "this and that" as I dabble in the classical/quantum physics of large quantum super-conducting bodies.

Experiences:
First week in first grade I peed on a tree and was sent home for a week to learn "social manners".
Watching my grandmother cutting the head off a live rabbit in order to prepare it for dinner.
The death of John F Kennedy.
Lying on the beach looking at the Milky Way and knowing that mankind belongs out there.
Great Sex.
The birth of each of my children.
The first delivery by a horse of a colt here on our place.
Simply holding hands with someone.

Interests:
Just about everything? Neurolinguistc programming, communication with other thinking beings, MEMEs, listening really hard for the sound of OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnn....on a cold clear night.
The Brain, the Mind and the Body.
Reading of all kinds in science, philosophy, psychology, religion, politics, especially interested in following up a thread on Pierce(Purse) as the initial American pragmatist.
Cherokee tribe as it has survived and my ancestral association via a great grand mother.

Beliefs:
A little of this and a little of that. These are things that are either grafted on early and take a while to understand and then to do the necessary pruning or these 'thing-a-fications' that effect action, thought and deed which are carefully chosen to add to the base mix of myself. I am not always right, even if I want to be. Question first, then accept. Sometimes a gift is just a gift. When fear is inside, facts are waiting outside. There is really no inside/outside to me, it(inside/outside), the idea is just away to keep looking at dividing things into group-ables that appear to be understandable. Ideas are illusions that are persistent in the Human Mind pool.

Fantasies:
Hmmmm...Travel in space, to other planets, explore the galaxy and the 'mind'.

Expectations:
Look forward to swapping 'lies' some more.
Dfn: lies; what happens to the golf ball when it comes to rest, what happens on the score card when no one is looking, what happens between parent and child when the child has to be the adult, what happens when one monkey wants what the other monkey has and screams "look out a tiger!" to get the 2nd monkey to drop cut and run; everything the mirror of the mind does not say.
I would like to see the "School" work. :)