Welcome to Kevin Daniel's Page!

Boo!!! This is my 2017 state id photo

The main purpose of this page is to efficiently introduce myself as I do not use any social media. After being relatively unchanged for several years, I am cleaning up some dead links, reformatting the pages, tweaking colors, backgrounds, etc., and making the text less/more chatty on this page. Please let me know if you find any errors!

• U.S. Army veteran. (Enlisted in the Regular Army at age 17 & served for four years of active duty plus one year of Active Reserves). New information about Agent Orange exposure.
  
• Education stuff
• A.A.S Electronics, Edmonds College, Edmonds, WA.
  
• B.S., Industrial Technology, Energy and Power Systems Management, Illinois State University , Normal, IL.
  
• M.S., Computer Science , Illinois State University. Really Applied CS but program descriptions have changed so much that this is the closest I could easily find to my degree.
  
• M.S., Library & Information Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL.
  
• Other schools attended: Illinois Central College, Seattle Central College and University of Maryland Global Campus.
  
• It may look as though I LIKE to go to school, but I eventually learned in my late 30s that I had to pursue continual professional and personal development, assiduously, as a way to improve my life, career (when I had one!) and future. As the result of three layoffs in my 30s, which completely wiped out my savings and put me back to square one each time, at age 38 I made a long term plan (25 years), with several short term goals, to get an education (which took five years), retrain myself, which I later did three times (two more degrees) to adjust to changing economic factors, and to find a job that would enable me to maintain my economic viability and to be able to dine on the better brands of cat and dog food in retirement. My roots are blue collar and I worked my way through  every single day of school without incurring any debt. Every male member of my family, myself included, has been a member of a labor union (Teamsters, UAW, Boilermakers, IBEW, Steelworkers). I still will not cross a picket line, but to get where I needed to go at my age, I needed earn college degrees.
  
• Myers Briggs INTJ, My personality type : link1 and link2.
• I retired several years ago after working in various technical fields for most of my 40ish plus year "career" (biomedical and aerospace electronics R&D, computer hardware and software, etc.), spending the last 20ish years of my work life doing Unix/Linux server level administration and security, information security and information security risk management for a Fortune 50 company. I just maintain my technical skills enough, now, to manage my Linux home computers.
  
• I dropped all social media when I retired; FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. I do participate in a few online groups for collectors of stuff and genealogy.
  

• My 1883 Victorian house. I have a second house, built in 1939, with many original features. I bought my second old house because, with increasingly severe weather in the area where I live, it started making sense to have a "back up" house since home repairs/rebuilding can take many months. It is also a good investment. I live in both houses.
  
• Motorcycling, Motorcycle Safety Foundation  ex-instructor.
  
• Genealogy. Author of several books, public speaker on topics including DNA research, publishing and general genealogy topics. If interested in engaging my services, contact me at the email link above. Click this link to see my genealogy stuff.
  
• Exercise, yoga, running, jumping rope, indoor/outdoor walking, bicycling, hiking, snowshoeing, etc.
  
• I have an appreciation for boxing and other martial arts. I am just an observer these days but studied several styles over a couple of decades in the 1970s and 1980s. This study was my introduction to the concept of seeking balance in life, which has had a major positive  impact on my life. I had to stop that type of activity due to various injuries. Styles formally studied:
  • Isshinryu Karate, while living in Okinawa.
  • Wing Chun Kung Fu, while living in Thailand.
  • Kenpo Karate, while living in Seattle.
• Injuries from my early martial arts study and other activities led me to start sparing my body and giving yoga a try since the first yoga studio I went to had a dojo-like vibe to it, except for the Yoga moms. I have now been practicing Hatha and Kundalini Yoga for over two decades. I like to mix things up and currently practice Hatha, Kripalu Vinyasa Flow yoga and Kundalini yoga. I enjoy exploring the various styles of yoga. I practice and meditate every day and have not missed a practice in 20 years. I occasionally do a Qi Gong or Tai Chi practice later in the day. It is a great way to experience fitness, balance and inner peace without the surgeries and physical therapy. Find a class with a qualified instructor and give it a try!
  
• I enjoy well made movies of any genre.
• I read 100-200 books a year, mostly Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Westerns, Mysteries, Classics, etc.
  
• Early acoustic Blues, Jazz, Swing, and Big Band music. Think Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Louis Jordan, Django...
  
• I enjoy classical music, especially piano and violin concertos and sonatas. Pearl has a great set of Artur Schnabel performing Beethoven's sonatas. Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Chopin have been playing in my car lately. Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations have become a fixture in my Sony BoomBoxes.
  
• I spend a modest amount of time keeping up on current music in several genres and anything from any period that piques my interest.
  
• I have a large studio and factory art glass collection, American, Japanese, Scandinavian, Italian, Bohemian.
  
• I am a recovering thrift shop and Netflix addict. Well..... Yeah, a hard habit to break...
  
• Art collecting and art history research, which was a focus of my UIUC degree. I had thought about becoming an art historian/cataloger after retiring but eventually decided I did not want to take the enjoyment out of collecting by turning it into a J-O-B. I once corresponded with an Australian collector who described himself as an "art tragic" due to his need to collect. Guilty. I can stop collecting any time I want to, though. Well.... Actually, I ran out of wall space years ago and started stuffing art in closets, etc. I now only add something to my collection if it needs rescuing.
  
• My art collection web site. Over the years, I was contacted by several teachers who somehow used this as instructional material for their students. I gave them permission but did not ask for details about how they planned to use it. Not sure if anyone still uses it. I do get a few emails from folks every year, years after I last made any changes to the site.
  
• My lost artists blog. Another site I no longer keep up, mainly because I am not collecting much anymore.
  
• My Japanese Art Glass site. My collection is much larger than this but I am not very motivated to create another web juggernaut like my art collection web site.
• I also have an interest in Japanese pottery and metalwork. I have many kettles and teapots but am not a tea drinker.
  

Return to Top of Page

• Visit my publisher: Heritage Books
•  USGenWeb Project Homepage    FREE site for U.S. genealogy research.
  
• FamilySearch. Genealogy research. Free access to global primary records. Peer reviewed family trees. Free account needed.
  
• Archaeology news. Free. No account needed.
  
•  Art news. Free. No account needed.
  
• Links for Atheists. A Wikipedia-like page with relevant links. No account needed.
  
• Links for vegan blogs. No account needed.
• Links for meditation practice. Lots of free videos.  There are many fine sources on YouTube, etc.
  
• If you care about animals. No account needed.
  
• Share your collections of "stuff". Free Account needed to post items. Anyone can view posts.
• Modern Japanese pottery marks blog. Free to view!
  
• American studio pottery marks project. Free to view!
  
• Glass forum for identification and reference. Free to view, free account needed to post to forum.
  

          THATS

                                    ALL

                                                                                               FOLKS!!