Welcome to my user page. I began using Wikipedia as a resource in 2003 when I was teaching high school, and found it to be a huge help on some of the topics I was teaching. It was interesting to have some uncertainty about the reliability of the articles, but I was usually reading enough sources to verify things, and found that I was rarely, if ever, led astray by the material here. The only thing I remember correcting back then were some poorly phrased sentences on a page about galvanization.

I'm now a web consultant, and have just recently started contributing to Wikipedia. I'm very impressed with the level of activity here and am happy to lend a hand where I can.

I've never kept a blog or really gotten into online communities, but I enjoy the collaboration and productivity of contributing to Wikipedia. Looking forward to more!

I also enjoy construction, arts and crafts (in many mediums), cooking, and outdoor activities such as biking, swimming, hiking, camping, and snowboarding. I like watching movies and exploring new music. I am a news junkie and enjoy keeping up with current events on all topics, but especially science and technology, international news, health, business, and the arts.

Wildlife photographer in a ghillie suit standing and holding a camera
A ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment, such as foliage. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of burlap (hessian), cloth, twine, or jute sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with foliage from the area. Military personnel, police, hunters, and nature photographers may wear a ghillie suit to blend into their surroundings and to conceal themselves from enemies or targets. The suit gives the wearer's outline a three-dimensional breakup, rather than a linear one. When manufactured correctly, the suit will move in the wind in the same way as surrounding foliage. Some ghillie suits are made with light and breathable material that allows a person to wear a shirt underneath. This photograph of a wildlife photographer in a ghillie suit, standing and holding a camera, was taken in a forest in the Jura Mountains near Marchissy, Switzerland.Photograph credit: Giles Laurent