Michael S. Kenniston
Contents of this page:
If you're a friend or colleague from the "good old days,"
here are some contact resources to help us all stay in touch.
If you haven't yet started working on the
Y2K problem,
it may already be too late.
On second thought, it is now definitely way too late. :-)
I'll leave the page up anyway so you can see how cloudy
my crystal ball was. (I made only three modest predictions,
and every one was wrong.)
You can reach me at these
addresses.
Experience:
- I'm trying out being self-employed for a while
(SouthBaySafetyGuy.com) just
so see what it feels like.
- My latest gig at a "real job" was a 5-year stint
at a little start-up called
Google. You've probably heard of it.
I got to work on some really big systems there.
- For about 6 months I did contract work
for the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange, using technologies that you might not
expect such an old, established organization to be adopting.
- For three years I joined academia full-time,
as a Visiting Assistant Professor on the faculty
of the DePaul University
School of Computer Science,
Telecommunications, and Information Systems.
-
For five years I was a software engineer/computer analyst working for
FutureSource,
a commodities information vendor in Lombard, Illinois.
-
I spent almost ten years doing computer programming and systems work at
AT& T Bell Laboratories
in the parts of the company which later became
NCR and then spun off as
Lucent Technologies and
later merged with
Alcatel.
Academic Degrees:
Organizations:
Fun stuff:
- I'm developing an authoring framework for Interactive Fiction,
as a way of making computer programming more accessible to kids,
and also to make it easier for teachers (especially foreign-language
teachers) to develop courseware for their own students.
You can read about it at jiffeegames.com.
In addition to taking care of our kids,
my wife Rosemary is also an artist.
She has her own web page.
Our two
Newfoundland
dogs
Aslen and Nellie
also have their own page.
Actually, we think of them both as a 100-pound-plus teddy bears,
but they really are dogs.
If you keep voting for the lesser of two evils, that's just what you'll keep getting.
If you don't vote at all, you can complain but nobody will listen.
If you want more than a 5-second sound bite, check out the choices.
If I recall correctly,
there are four parties that were on the ballot in all 50 states
in each of the last two presidential elections.
A candidate or party doesn't have to win to influence policy,
so you do have a choice.
And for nonpartisan information:
-
Project Vote Smart.
This place is so great I actually give them money.
They are of course non-profit, and they stay unbiased by accepting donations
only from individuals and foundations (no candidates, no PACs, no companies,
no political parties).
Their web site has tons of information on all the candidates,
including great data like the actual voting records of incumbents.
Note that they are non-partisan (bi-partisan sometimes
just means the Democrats and Republicans shut everybody else out).
-
The League of Women Voters.
Another good, non-partisan source of information.
-
Open
Debates America wants to open the presidential debates to
let you hear from more than just the two biggest parties.
-
C-SPAN.
Check today's programming schedule.
Earth-Sheltered Housing
The advantages of earth-sheltered architecture seem so great to me,
that I would like to have an earth-sheltered home someday. Such a building
can be very energy-efficient, is
enormously resistant to weather damage, is very quiet, and has low
maintenance costs. It can also be very light and airy; not at all like
the dark, damp dungeon that most people envision when they think
"underground." Of course, it has to be designed properly - I've seen
some that I would not want to live in.
If you want to learn more, check out any books by Malcolm Wells.
He's an architect who really captures what an earth shelter should
be.
Solar Energy
This is still in the realm of "someday," but I'm very interested
in renewable energy, especially passive solar heating and photovoltaics.
My goal is to someday have a home that can supply most or all of its
heat and electricity from the sun - no pollution, no gas bill, no
power failures in a storm.
Both Rosemary and I are very interested in the environment, ecology,
energy conservation, and stuff like that.
Here are some interesting related links:
- The goal of the
Rocky Mountain Institute
is to foster the efficient and sustainable use of resources by harnessing
the problem-solving power of free-market economics.
In other words, they figuring out how to get bottom-line payoffs
from conservation.
- Home Power magazine
is full of examples of people who are "off the grid,"
generating every watt-hour of their own electricty. Neat stuff!
-
Rosemary and I are both life members of The
Nature Conservancy.
They have a very direct strategy:
Instead of lobbying to save land, they just buy it.
-
I used to lead an occasional day-hike with the
Sierra Club,
way back in my single days when I had lots of time;
leisure hours are now spent with my wife, the kids,
our house, the dogs, and the Internet :-).
Outdoor Activities
I'm not really a die-hard hiker, but I do like to go for a nice
walk in the woods now and then, and
my wife Rosemary and I also enjoy
canoeing and backpacking.
Model Railroading
I've been a model railroader since (at least) the age of 4.
What with our new old house and pre-school twins and
two dogs and all,
my model railroading activities
are pretty much on hold, but I do maintain my membership in the
National Model Railroad Association.
Another web site for model trains is
Model Railroader
Magazine.
Gardening
Summer 1996 must have been good for plants,
because even though it was the first year I've ever had a garden,
the 6-foot high beans, peas, and melons almost got crowded out by
the tomatoes and cucumbers
(picture).
Of course, we won't discuss the carrot (singular) or peppers
(whad'ya mean, that's a weed?).
-
The 25 most
linked-to Web sites (includes NASA, various search engines, etc).
-
The Dilbert Zone.
- Looking for someone:
- Looking for a book? (You remember, those things whose
"pages" are printed on "paper" with "ink.")
- Naperville information:
- Other local information:
This is visit number 3688 to this page since 1996-06-29.
Contents copyright © 1996-2010 by Michael S. Kenniston.
Last updated on 2010-08-22 by
msk@michaelkenniston.com (Michael Kenniston).
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