My other hobby -- antiquing -- is a much more recent one for me. Thanks to eBay, I discovered stereography and antique postcards and photography.
I have been many places and done many things in my life. On this page, I'll try to summarize them and give you links to places you can go for more. I first created this page in 1995 as an early experiment in web page development. As such, there is nothing terribly fancy on this page or any others that I maintain. I've always believed that pages should load fast and be informative.
I used to teach political science at the University of Wisconsin -- Platteville. I received my PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Russian Politics and Political Philosophy. As an undergraduate, I attended Simon's Rock College and got my A.B. from Vassar College.
I published a book called Pornography and Democratization: The Case of Legislating Obscenity in Post-Communist Russia with Westview Press in 1999 and I have published several articles on that subject (as well as giving several talks at various universities and institutes).
After seven years of fruitless job searching, I gave up on finding a teaching job in academia.
The next step after leaving teaching was to get a job as a project manager with Epic Systems Corporation -- a producer of medical administration software and electronic medical records (EMRs). I helped to install the products and worked as a writer of SQL reports using Crystal Reports.
After three years at Epic, I moved on working as a consultant with SafeNet Consulting and occasionally freelancing as a writer on healthcare revenue cycle management. Consulting led me to a permanent position with Agfa HealthCare, working in Instructional Design (neatly combining together my two past careers in one!).
But after 15 months of an incredible daily commute (125 miles each day!) and a daily routine of not enough work to keep me busy, I got a unique opportunity to return to writing SQL reports for Epic installs, but as a consultant. Now I work from home for Infologix-HIA and I'm loving it a great deal!
I have two major big hobbies -- medieval reenactment and antiquing.
I have been a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) for over 25 years now. In that time, I've done all sorts of things, including heraldry, embroidery, and crossbow shooting. I've held a variety of offices ranging from Hospitaller to Seneschal. About ten years ago, I founded an organization called the Slavic Interest Group, which promotes amateur research into medieval life in Eastern and Central Europe. In the SCA, I am known as Paul Wickenden of Thanet, a Anglo-Norman noble residing in my ancestral abode on the Isle of Thanet in the Year of Our Lord 1249.
Check Out Some of My Links:
My other hobby -- antiquing --
is a much more recent
one for me. Thanks to eBay, I discovered
stereography and antique postcards and photography.
My passion is collecting pictures of children and I now have amassed about 3300 stereographs, 3000 postcards, and several hundred cabinet cards and CDVs. Call it indulging my nesting urge or a luxury I can enjoy now that I horde my wealth for myself. For whatever reason, collecting photos has become perhaps my biggest interest these days.
Check Out Some of These Links:
I was born on March 29, 1967 (Aries!) in Bellefonte PA. I own a house and live happily in Middleton, Wisconsin, home of American Girl. I like cats. I'm a Quaker. I am a really big music fan and prefer my music to be really obscure. I like to read good children's literature for fun (not having any children of my own, I don't have a good excuse, so I'll just fess up to it!).
I love dark chocolate. Kriss and I enjoy trying out new brands together. Read our reviews.
I like to travel a lot and have been enjoying making use of my digital camera these days.
Try Some of My Other Links:
My Scrapbook. About twice a year, I try to take a trip to someplace different or do something different in a place I've been to. To record these trips, I've created an online scrapbook. Take a look at my voyages:
Drop me a note (goldschp@tds.net) if you want.
This page last updated on May 30, 2009
