Intro

[fbhjr]

Hello to any new folks to have friended me, and everyone who already did!

This is all about me! Bwahahahaha!

Honestly I don’t often write this sort of thing as I really have no idea what anyone would find interesting. So, I’m going to guess.

I am a male human currently 18,595 days old. (50.910 years if you prefer it that way.)
I have been married to my wife for 7,675 days. (21.013 years.)
But, we have been together for 11,406 days (31.228 years) as I had promised my parents to pay them back for my engineering degree before I got married and that ended up taking much longer than expected.

My wife and I have no children. We had hoped to have some, but it did not work out. Any story of all that went into that would take longer than an introduction, but lots happened, mostly bad.

I am not very close to my family. I haven’t talked to my sister in 20 years and my brother in 14. Although I have run across my mother a few times in the 14 years since my father died, I try not to have anything to do with her.
As with the kids thing, very long stories, mostly bad.

I am a mechanical engineer by trade. I have worked in a fair number of fields since I got out of school 28 years ago. (OK, 10,462 days…) I have designed ice cream makers, music synthesizers, telecommunications equipment, awnings for RV’s (caravans), laser markers, automatic inspection equipment, office furniture, giant robot freezers and these days regular robot freezers.
I am currently an engineering manager at a robotics company working on robot freezers about the size of a refrigerator that work at -190C/-300F.
My boss is someone I have worked for before at the laser, inspection and giant freezer companies. He moved over to this company last spring and hired me and many of the other engineers to follow him to the competition to be a fast design team.
It’s a pretty good job and I like it a lot.

My wife and I also run a performance troupe, Phoenix Swords. www.phoenixswords.com
We do sword fights, fire shows, kids shows and almost anything else we can get paid to do.
We’ve been running Phoenix for more than 12 years now. For a couple of years before that, we were both in a different performance troupe that did similar things before this, and it crashed hard.

Although it has been swords for the last 14 or so years for me, I’ve been performing in front of crowds since I was 7. (Nope, don’t remember the day…)
So, that’s about 43 years of performing in front of an audience.
I’ve done musical instruments (violin), singing, acting, public speaking and now the sword stuff.
As is often the case, when I leave one behind, I leave it.
So, I couldn’t play a violin any more, can no longer sing well and who can say about my acting?

Back before we got married, my wife and I used to do a comic book together. I wrote it and she did the art. We had a lot of fun with that, but it never had a big audience. We sold it at our local comic store and maybe 50 to 100 people read it at the most.
My wife also did some art for another independent comic that was at the time the oldest independent comic in the country. But, they stopped publishing back about the time we did.
We both still read comics, watch the TV shows and movies based on them and say “if only they had been this popular back then…”

In a similar light, I’ve always been a big fan of science fiction and fantasy. I have liked Star Trek since I used to watch it with my sister when it was first on in the 60’s. She also got me watching Doctor Who when it reached the US in the 70’s. Those remain my two favorites although I like many others. (Star Wars being a close third…)

I don’t play a whole lot of video games. World of Warcraft & Starcraft are about it. I play them fairly often.

Growing up I never did very well in school. For at least the first 5 years or so there was a very serious lack of communication between my teachers and myself. I honestly couldn’t understand what they were trying to get me to do, and they could not understand what I was trying to say.
So, I spent a few years in remedial classes because of that.
Finally one day I realized that they were calling me stupid and didn’t like that.
So, I set out to prove them wrong.

My life since that day in 1972 has been a result of the plan I came up with, at 8 years old, on how to prove it to them.
There are times I wonder about that.
But, like many other things mentioned here, that is too long a story for an introduction.

Comments

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

Nice to meet you Frank ;)

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Given how fast you responded to that, I think you must be pretty well caught up with your LJ!

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

I was almost there Frank - almost there ... and then just as quickly I fall far behind ....

[merilune.livejournal.com]

I like this introduction a lot :)

[anigo.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing, it's a pleasure to meet you!

[chaquir.livejournal.com]

I had no clue about the Comic. That's nice!!

[daturabelle.livejournal.com]

do you still have any copies of the comic that you and your wife created together?

even though we've been lj friends for a little while now, it's nice to read these introductions and learning more :)

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I have all 21 issues. (Only 20 were published...)
From time to time I play with the idea of scanning them and putting them on line.
I've scanned a few. But, haven't put them up...

[daturabelle.livejournal.com]

You totally should.
I'd love to read them!

[sweet3mich.livejournal.com]

I agree. You should put them up.

[meathiel]

Always nice to get to know more about your LJ friends.

[sweet3mich.livejournal.com]

Great introduction :) I'm glad I friended you.