Some background on my interests and activities:
I have been online since a visit from the local Byte shop guru to My High School, logged an acoustic coupler into the ARPANET sometime in 1978. I was an active lurker on the source, and well known on Bix in the early 1980s. While working at Apple Computer I constructed my first web site in 1994.
When I was in seventh grade or so I saw Jacob Bronowski's _Ascent of Man_ which introduced me to the Jaquet-Droz automatons This began my lifelong fascination with watches and clocks, and other mechanical clockwork things (often referred to as robots.)
I am also interested in the technical side of animation. I made several short 2-D animations tests in the early 1980s. With the advent of Desktop video, I converted some of this to QuickTime.
Since 1984 I have been actively involved with The Renaissance Pleasure Fair and some of its related shows I am particularly fond of the works of Charles Dickens and have designed and constructed a number of sets (with a lot of help) for Dickens shows in the San Francisco area. I also designed a section of the "Friends of Fair" Garden at the northern renaissance fair, in Novato. Located at the north end of San Francisco.
I am quite fond of Victorian dancing and have been attending Gaskell balls since 1984, as well as PEERS events.
I helped establish the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild of which I was elected to the initial board of directors when the International Costumers Guild status was received. I have been active with the Baycon Science Fiction convention of which I have been on and off the staff over the last decade. I ran programming for Baycon in 1992, and 1993.
I have participated in a number of other Science Fiction convention masquerades including the 1993 worldcon for which I built Adelmous Fey Who has since been to Ren fair and a few other conventions, as well as appearing at the Marin County Fair Creatures and Models exhibition, in the summer of 1995.
Currently I am on the board of the San Francisco chapter of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, for which in 1995 I was chapter secretary.
Most of my free time is now spent studying mechanical watch making and animation. I have been fortunate enough to have traveled to Europe with the late Henry B. Fried. It was on one of these trips I first saw the Jaquet-Droz dolls in person. I decided to combine my interests in animation, costuming and watchmaking. It is a goal of mine to duplicate the sort of complex automata in the Jaquet-Droz tradition. This includes replicating the fine enamel work of the 18th century as well as the mechanical details.
Questions? comments or for more info contact me at : webmaster@delectra.com