Athletic activity has served me well as a favored pastime throughout my life. For me, athletics is an enjoyable method of reversing physical withering resulting from long periods of primarily motionless sitting when working at a desk. Athletics provides an applied setting in which to employ scientific and engineering knowledge and evaluate specific measurable personal … Continue reading FORUM: Sports

Seven months ago, an endodontic dentist performed a root canal upon me to “cure” a parulis condition. When I arrived for the procedure an office worker called my insurance company and learned that only $200 of the $1,000 total cost of the procedure was covered. I paid the $800 difference and was told that the … Continue reading FORUM: Falling

My parent’s family, and my family, supported numerous types of domestic and working animals over the course of our lives. Some creatures were hardly memorable because they had limited personality or intelligence, lacked affinity for family members, or lived a short time. However, some of our animal companions were unforgettable because of their uniqueness. Useless … Continue reading FORUM: Dogs and Cats

As an aide in developing ideas for Blog Posts I examined photos taken across my life (thus far) to help me recall my past. In this process it occurred to me that I never worried about “getting older” because I was too busy searching for interesting ways to fill time—increasing my aptitude in an area … Continue reading FORUM: Making a Planet

Dad was a PhD candidate and instructor in Mathematical Statistics at the University of Chicago: Kruskal and Wallis were his advisors. Mom was a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago: she worked with Bettelheim. Always impatient—even before birth, I was born a month prematurely at the University of Chicago … Continue reading FORUM: Heaven on Earth

I was born in the dawn of the space race, 15 months before the USSR launched the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, into an elliptical low Earth orbit. The excitement of the ensuing space race—what it required of and discovered for humanity, influenced the course of my life until today. My parents said, though … Continue reading FORUM: Joyful Surprise

My Mother’s family was captured by KGB in the first week of WWII. Her dad, my beloved Grandfather, was an estate owner and Officer in the Polish Cavalry. The eldest of three children, Mom was in third grade when two soldiers armed with machine guns entered her classroom and announced her name. Standing at attention … Continue reading FORUM: Discrimination

Friends in graduate school, Head, Grauton, Rayton and I lived by Lake Michigan on Chicago’s north side. School was done and we were working—some of us part-time. Still single, we enjoyed hanging out together when our schedules allowed. I was teaching part-time at University of Illinois, financially scraping by. I’d interviewed for a position as … Continue reading FORUM: First Time Treating

I was in my second year as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Medical School. I worked in the Department of General Internal Medicine, which addresses an enormous range of ailments, conditions and situations. Simultaneously I held a position as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Academic Psychology at the University of Illinois at … Continue reading FORUM: Tea Time with Yarnold

I was quite young—I can’t reliably be very precise. I moved so often during some of my early years that my memory of space and time are disoriented. Everyone who was with me then has passed away. Thus any estimates made of dates and ages during high-flux periods are likely to be inaccurate. I’d guess … Continue reading FORUM: First Professional Call

I was a soon-to-be third-year graduate student in academic psychology, in the school which was initiated by one of my top-ten heroes, Sir Isaac Newton: his studies of the apparent movement of stars in the sky became the field of vision psychophysiology. I had many brilliant, talented, fun friends in the psychology graduate program of … Continue reading FORUM: Nicknames

Two dear friends asked me if I recalled when others first began to recognize “gifts” which I was given. I had never considered this question, but I was pleasantly surprised to immediately recall two such incidences. As I began to write this story, I recalled several more. As a general response to the question asked … Continue reading FORUM: Recognizing Gifts

I was a 4th grade student in public school in Sierra Vista, which at that time was a small but growing Arizona town. Our house was located at the outskirts of town—we were feet from the Sonoran Desert. Dad was a mathematical statistician from the University of Chicago. He worked long hours in Fort Huachuca. Mom … Continue reading FORUM: Step-by-Step