In case this website hasn’t told you enough, here’s more. Grab hold of something first.
In previous professional incarnations, I had a brief but enjoyable stint in radio broadcasting at a station that no longer exists. It wasn’t glamorous work (weekends and odd hours), but I look back fondly on those days. I worked with good people and we had fun. I had a briefer and much less enjoyable stint as a writer and editor of a newspaper that no longer exists. I enjoyed the reporting itself, and I was good at it, but the person who owned the paper taught me a lot about how not to treat people. (Since he is no longer among us, I’ll leave it at that.) I’ve also done some free-lance writing and sold the occasional article or two. It’s nice work when it happens, but it’s nothing I’ve felt I could plan a living around.
Eventually I decided academia was where I belonged, or more properly, academia decided it was where I belonged. I spent a year teaching at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida. Between not yet having found my sea legs as a teacher, and immediate superiors who didn’t show interest in keeping me around (and I’ll put that as delicately as I can), it was a disaster of a year. I ended up at Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina, which has been my professional home since 2001. They call me Professor of Communications and Program Coordinator, but in reality I do everything from teaching classes, advising students and overseeing curriculum and budgets to managing the campus radio station, maintaining the television studio, and taking out my own garbage. Oh, and I have to attend a lot of meetings, some of which get a few things accomplished.
That’s my day job. When I’m not on duty, I do a lot of other things. You’ve seen some of them on this website. As you may have deduced, what I do for a living is not necessarily who I am. Some of the other things I do include tending a too-large collection of old typewriters, finding space for a larger collection of books than I can read in a lifetime, and DVRing old movies off TCM that I will get around to watching, eventually. I also very much like to travel, but that costs money. I also operate a small business that specializes in self-deprecation, which would get more done if the proprietor wasn’t such a schmuck.
I’m married to Ralph Nardone and we live way out in the countryside. We live with Smokey, a yellow tabby who insists he’s a mountain lion, and with Gilda, who was recently diagnosed by her veterinarian as being the softest kitty in the world. Junior the Mighty Tiger, though he’s now gone off to be a tiger, still watches over us, and his spirit lives on through the corporate name Mighty Tiger Motorsports.
If you’re looking for anything especially interesting or racy about me, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m the most boring person you’ll ever meet. (Seriously. I drive a Camry, for crying out loud.)
Details on how to get in touch with me are coming soon.