I grew up in Lancaster PA. Home of the Amish (Pennsylvania Dutch). I was born in 1957, so I've been Jack Benny's age a few times now. My parents were born and raised in Lancaster, and mom still lives there. Dad died 17 Sept 1996. I'm from the generation that moves away from home. So were my grandparents - except they moved a few thousand miles west when they moved away from Italy. I'm just 200 miles or so north of home.
I worked at Lancaster Newspapers during high school and college. I graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in 1979, with an A.B. in physics (minor in philosophy). I wrote two theses during my senior year. The philosophy thesis was a tome on "Models in Science". The physics thesis was more manageable, on observable results of general relativity among astronomical phenomena. I forget the title of that one. All were typed and retyped and retyped on a little electric typewriter. The copies were even done by retyping the original. Those were the "good old days".
After graduation, I left the newspapers and became a baker's helper for about 9 months. I worked at Failla's Bakery in Lancaster, getting up before 4 a.m. and working 6 days a week at times. We usually worked from 4:30 to 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I learned how being salaried wasn't such a good thing. But I made some of the best chocolate cakes that were ever made east of the Mississippi, or so I was told. I still do, although with a different recipe now.
In the fall of 1980, Cornell's astronomy department was to become my home for the next 6 years. I did graduate work in infrared astronomy there. All of our observations were carried out from either NASA's Lear Jet or C-141 (Kuiper Airborne Observatory), both stationed at NASA Ames out at the Moffett Field NAS (or what used to be a Naval Air Station) in Mountain View CA. Went through the whole high-altitude training course at Pease Air Force Base in NH, except for the ejection seat training. We weren't actually piloting these craft, so we would just go down with the ship in case of trouble.
I learned a lot during those 6 years at Cornell, and met many of the people that have had a profound influence on my life. My desire to live in the boonies and zest for contra dancing and associated music all developed during those times. So did the relationships that have given me strong and lasting memories.
After graduating in 1986, I was a post-doc at UMass Amherst for 2 years, working at the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory (FCRAO). Beautiful part of the state - but too expensive to live there. While I was there, I married Betsy Gamble and spent most of my weekends in Ithaca visiting Betsy and working on a project with one of the professors at Cornell.
In 1988, I left UMass, moved back to Ithaca, spent about 14 months as a mechanical engineer at an ultrasonics inspection firm, and then began work at the Cornell Theory Center. I've been employed by Cornell since Jan 1990. Unfortunately, teaching jobs are hard to come by in astronomy, or else that's what I would be doing. In 1997, CTC lost its funding from the National Science Foundation, and I landed in the system group of Cornell Information Technologies. In 1999, I moved over to the network engineering group, did data networking for a year, and then moved over to voice engineering. I am one of the voice engineers for our Avaya PBX. It's a lot of fun - requiring some arcane knowledge and some skills in a wide variety of things.
Betsy and I managed to amass 300 acres of land in the Southern Tier, in the Portage escarpment for you geologist types. The land is mainly wooded, with streams flowing through 2 interglacial gorges. One of the streams has a 15-foot waterfall which is impressive during heavy flows. Part of the property was 45 acres of dairy farmland, complete with delapidated barns, a silo, and an old farmhouse which we called home. Some of the barns were razed (the ones that actually fell down during heavy snows) and the house was made habitable again by throwing a lot of $$ into it. There are well over 200 species of wildflowers and over 75 species of birds that also call the property home, for at least a part of the year.
I have no favorite season. As cold as winter may be, it has its joys. Even in the dead of winter on the coldest days, life abounds above and beneath the snow. Spring brings warmth and the first bounty of flowers. It also brings black flies. Summer has the deer flies, but the garden is producing like crazy by then. Fall has mosquitoes, and lots of work finishing up the harvest and putting the gardens to rest. It also is a time for butchering deer and saying goodbye to the year.
In 1995 and 1996, I took swing dance (jitterbug and Lindy mostly) lessons from Bill Borgida . Once a month, the Ithaca Swing Dance Network (ISDN) hosts a swing dance to a live band.
In February '97, I moved back to Ithaca to begin a new chapter in my life. I could walk to work, and started playing handbells at the First Congregational Church of Ithaca , and started learning how to swim. I can stay afloat for a while now - something that is handy to know. Haven't been doing any swing dancing since the beginning of '97, but still do some contra dancing on occasion.
In November '97, Betsy gave birth to our son, Jeremy Paul Gamble. He's been a lot of fun to watch grow and he still seems to have fun with his crazy daddy. They live down in State College, PA now. Jeremy seems to tolerate the trips back and forth well. Now at nearly 11 years old, he's big enough to do a lot of things. One of his favorite activities involves arts and crafts. He's a fine artist - very focused on doing things well.
In August 2000, I became a married man again. My wife is Monica Bosworth, an Ithacan and an ex-youth worker with the Ithaca Youth Bureau. She also is a licensed massage therapist (LMT), having graduated from the Finger Lakes School of Massage" in October 1999 and passing the NY state boards in Jan 2000. We bought our house on 50 acres in October 1999, and enjoy living out in the boonies. The down side is the 20 mile commute to Ithaca every day.
There are now two more children in our lives, Sophia Ursula (wise bear) and Francesca Rose. Sophie was born in Jan 2003 and 'Cesca in Sept 2005. They are fun and generally good children. Sophie had named her sister "Bunjo" before the birth - she's good at coming up with names right away. Sophie's official name for 'Cesca is "Francesca Rose Bunjo Baby Jesus Help Us Go". It's a long name and a bit of a long explanation - but with a name like that, you're bound to go places.
We did some addition/renovation work on the house in 2005 - which made it much more livable. There is still a bit more work that needs to happen now, and perhaps in a few years, we will do another addition (replacing the front porch with living space). The interior work on that will be done mainly by ourselves. At least, that's the plan for now.