favorite teachers
Miss Skelly
Mr. "B"

favorite musical artists
Grateful Dead
"Doc" Watson
The Wilders
Little Feat

favorite songs
Franklin's Tower
Arkansas Sheik
Watson's Blues
All that you Dream

favorite editors and authors
Bud McKirgan
Robert Pirsig
Johnny Milton

favorite comic strip
Dilbert

favorite visual artists
Lee Henneberry
MC Escher

Leave a message for Bill on the THS-83 virtual Tolo!

CURRENTLY:  I'm living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with my sweet wife, Lisa. I'm constantly improving our 100-year-old Craftsman bungalow (that means 'little house': learnt that word in English class). Nope. No children, but plenty of cats and two dogs to introduce you to. Cats are fantastic critters. Each one of ours has a very distinct personality, and Lisa and I enjoy their companionship. Our dogs are named after a couple of Grateful Dead songs: Cassidy (the border collie) and Ayko (the black lab). Years ago, at an outdoor deadhead fest (featuring Jake's Leg) near Alton we learned that lots of deadhead folk name their dogs after these songs (our dogs were freaking-out whenever some stranger called one or both of their names).

"Cat-n-Case," cats are (L to R): Bear and Drizzy (photo by Bill McKirgan)

I still play guitar, and get together mostly with friends and co-workers to jam (that means, 'play music improvisationally': learnt that on the street). My favorite instruments are a couple of Martin guitars (a 1995 D-28 and an all-mahogany 1948 OO-17). My favorite guitarist is "Doc" Watson (he's got a great singing voice too). For work, I do SAS programming and database management for the Iowa Mental Health Clinical Research Center at the University of Iowa. Coincidently many of the people I work with also play guitar, and it's not unusual to have a few psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses on hand for each jam session. Click here to check-out one of my favorite newsgroup sites (for SAS-nerds only). I think programming is fun, and this newsgroup is chuck full of solutions to common SAS programming problems. Still, when the weather is excellent, I long for the outdoors and could see myself getting into the building trades again as a contractor someday. Hey now, somebody's got to fix those old bungalows.

 Here's a picture of our charming cat, Oliver, who loves to welcome all visitors.  

MAJOR EVENTS:  Last summer Lisa and I climbed Longs Peak near Estes Park, Colorado.  We were there for my cousin, Michael's wedding.  We decided to stay a couple extra days so we could at least try climbing Longs Peak.  Starting from the trailhead at 2:17 a.m. we made it to the rock shelter where the climbing began around 8 a.m.  I'm pretty comfortable with climbing, but this took my breath away.  Lisa never climbed before and picked up on it quickly.  It was not a technical climb, but we had to walk some narrow ledges, and Lisa never backed down.   We were on the summit by 11 a.m. and back at the trailhead by 7 p.m.  Exhausted!

 
Lisa and Bill atop Longs Peak Summit with geological survey marker inset (photo by a fellow climber)

BEST MEMORY:  Gee, that's got to be when we asked for and received permission to paint the storage shed in the parking lot with graffiti.  "Just don't paint the roof" was the only restriction, well that and keep it within the bounds of good taste.