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About myself:
I was a "crash baby": Born in the fall of 1929.
1947: graduated from Geneva Community H.S., Geneva Illinois.
2 yrs. Wabash College, Indiana. Zoology.
1 semester U. of Illinois, Navy Pier, Chicago, Physics.
1 year West Virginia U. Morgantown, Zoology.
1950-1954 U.S.N. Hospital Corpsman, Oak Knoll N.H., Oakland Ca.
U.S.S. Bayfield, APA 33 ( Japan. Korea. N.Viet Nam evac. to Saigon.)
1 yr. back at WVU. Poly sci.
1 yr. School for Am. Craftsmen, R.I.T. Rochester N.Y, Ceramics
1 yr. Los Angeles Co. Art Institute, Ceramics
1 yr. U. of I., Chicago Circle campus, finally getting my B.A. in Philosophy.
Jobs: Aircraft painter; Iron foundry pattern-maker; Tech rep for paint Co. Machine tool inspector; steel investment casting trouble shooter/engr.
THEN, I married Lorraine S. Balles, a Grinnell College grad, (Biology). 'Best thing I ever did ! We met at a Mensa party in Chicago, and were married eleven weeks later and immediately moved to Berkeley for her grad school work at UCB.
I did about 6 years of population dynamics research in U.C.B.'s Entomology dept.
1982: We moved, (2 kids and all), to Seoul, S. Korea for 2 years where Lorrie, and sometimes I, taught elementary science at Seoul International School. I also ran the Yong San Army Base's craft workshop for a while. Lorrie's now retired after 38 years of teaching Biology and AP Environmental Science., etc. at College Park H.S. in Concord, CA.
We both, let me say, love all animals, from Micro to Mega,
-----except for sub q. chiggers and some humans.
Back in the U.S.A. I worked for several years doing sculpture for jewelry under the microscope and other gold, silver and bronze foundry jobs at Cirecast, in San Francisco.
I got into whale sculpture, and then, (from 1988 to about 1994), into the "Escher type art" on this website, I call this art "figurative tiling", or "Amphography", which I define as simultaneously drawing different things,-- (which will fit together without any gaps or overlaps and so form a tiling),-- with each side of one's line.
Our son, Andrew, has 3 great kids : Endlessette, John, and Alyrica.
Our daughter, Heather, has 2 great sons : Frederick and Harry. They all happily live fairly near to us, and so Lorrie is a busy grandmother. -- Meanwhile, I, John, having been an artist and a scientist, -- (WOO!)---, I have finally grown up and am now trying to be a serious philosopher.
My enduring interests: Critical, rational philosophy, evolutionary biology, and particularly the puzzles that we strange H.sap animals present. But for fun: Summers of snorkeling in the cold-water rapids of our, (N.Wis.) Oconto River and finding the grotesque Sui Seki that I call "Oconto Gawa Ishi", and then emerging to enjoy the cold-water-induced, (and really marvelous!), psychodilation of my visual/cerebral sensorium!
I'm a member of Mensa, Intertel (another HiQ soc.), and of Triple Nine.Org.
HUMILITY
Lest my humility ever take flight,
Let me put my mistake in plain sight:
I once thought I was wrong,
But as things went along,
I found I was wrong! I was right.
by humble John A. L. Osborn, 4 / 18 / 2002
