Ken's Life: The Early Years

Ken's Life (or lack thereof): Now

Ken's Family

A Long-Lost Relative?

Some guys in my grad school lab found this photo of Ted Kaczynski (aka The Unabomber) from when he was on the Math Department faculty at UC Berkeley. I found the similarity rather disturbing...

A Few Photos

Grand Canyon

Rainbow in Bryce Canyon

Sunset over San Francisco Bay

"Out of the Fog" (Mt. Tamalpais)

Hong Kong Island at night

Louis Tiffany/Maxfield Parrish collaboration, "Dream Garden" (composite photo)

"A Hurricane's Power" (Schuylkill River bridge after Hurricane Floyd)

Winter waterfall in Wissahickon Park, Philadelphia

2001 Leonid meteor shower

"All Roads Lead..." (Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia)

Distinctive Things About Ken

• I am left-handed. Clearly this has had a major impact on my personality - it means I am one of the top 10% of humanity (we're the only ones in our right minds). Of course, it also means I am sinister and gauche, but anything worth having comes with a price.

• I am Jewish. Although I have trouble accepting the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent deity, I really love matzoh-ball soup. Ain't religion wonderful?

• I play the violin. Not very well, but I was good enough to be in the Brown University Orchestra. That may not seem like much, but during my four years there we performed with Pinchas Zukerman, Eugenia Zukerman, The Dave Brubeck Quartet (at Carnegie Hall), and (in what was probably the highlight of my life) Itzhak Perlman (in Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall). Not bad for a mediocre violinist.

• I am an Eagle Scout. In an age when the Boy Scouts are not politically correct, I am still proud of my time and my accomplishments with that organization. I may disagree with the political leanings of the national administrators, but the Boy Scouts still teach lessons that more people could stand to learn: environmental consciousness, emergency preparedness, trustworthiness, and the importance of service to others. Have you done a "good turn" today?

• I am an incorrigble punster. Do not incorrige me. Anyone who has been around me for any length of time has felt the sting of my sense of humor (most will question the use of the word "humor"). If you want a taste, see my cartoon series The SDS-Page. Be warned, they are very heavy on the biology.

• I like to write limericks. But mine are all clean. For example:

  If you're surfing the Web for a spell
  And you land at my .html
  Stick around for a while.
  And I hope that my style
  Won't induce you to jump down a well.

  Pretty clever, huh?

• I play Ultimate. "Frisbee" is a trademark of the Wham-O Corporation, so the game is actually just called Ultimate. When I played at Brown University, our team was called Brownian Motion (which pretty well described our play). Puns and Ultimate: two great tastes that taste great together.
  Brownian Motion is much better now - they have won several collegiate National Championships, including 2005
  If you are interested in finding an Ultimate game near you, check out the list of pickup games.

• I am a Red Sox fan. World Champions - who knew it would happen in my lifetime?

• I swing dance. Thanks to a couple of labmates, I got addicted to swing dancing, and particularly the Lindy Hop. I have to say that swing dancing was way down on my list of things I expected to learn, much less fall in love with. I was a perennial wallflower at dances, and I was well aware of my total lack of dancing skill (can you say "White Boy Shuffle"?). But thanks to the awesome instruction of the University of Chicago Swing Dance Society, I am comfortable asking almost any woman at a swing club to dance, and the follows seem to want to dance with me. Maybe there is some hope for me after all...

  If you are looking for places to go swing dancing in the DC area, check out:

  • Glen Echo Park. A former amusement park (check out the restored 1921 Dentzel Carousel!), it is now an arts education center. Dances are held in the fabulous Spanish Ballroom, the intimate Ballroom Annex, and the open-air Bumper Car Pavilion.
  • The Jam Cellar. They are no longer located in a cellar, but their dances and instruction are still great.
  • Capital Blues. I got into blues dancing a few years ago, and I can't say enough about Capital Blues. They put on fantastic dances (mostly at Glen Echo) and workshops.
  • The Washington, DC Lindy Exchange, aka DCLX. A weekend of wall-to-wall dancing in and around DC, held every April.

Here's my list of "favorite things":

• Movies:
  • The Princess Bride ("I'm not left-handed!")
  • Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan ("From Hell's heart I stab at thee!")
  • Young Frankenstein ("Werewolf!" "There wolf! There castle.")
  • Silent Movie ("Non!")

• TV shows:
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000, aka MST3K
  • Seinfeld
  • The Tick
  • The Simpsons
  • Animaniacs
  • Star Trek (the Original - don't even talk to me about TNG or Voyager)
  • The Prisoner
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Due South
  • The Closer

  Note: Joel Hodgson (creator and orignal star of MST3K), Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander (George), The Tick, and Bart Simpson (and creator Matt Groening) are all left-handed. We're everywhere!

• Authors (oh, yeah, I read a lot):
  • Roger Zelazny
  • Larry Niven
  • Isaac Asimov
  • Greg Egan
  • Alexander Jablokov
  • Steven Jay Gould

• Comic Strips:
  • Dilbert
  • Sherman's Lagoon
  • Sally Forth
  • Baby Blues
  • The Far Side
  • Mother Goose & Grimm
  • Calvin and Hobbes
  • Fox Trot

• Music (sort of a strange amalgam):
  • Baroque music (esp. if it has solo recorders or harpsichords)
  • The Monkees
  • They Might Be Giants
  • The Rentals
  • Fountains of Wayne
  • Indigo Swing
  • Tom Lehrer ("There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium...")
  • Allan Sherman ("Hello muddah, hello fadduh...")

That pretty much sums it up. You now know everything there is to know about me.

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