I was born a poor country farm boy. No, really, I was born in Washington, D.C., adopted six days later, and spent most of my childhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve seen marriages, divorces, remarriages, births, bah mitzvas, reunions, reunifications, cancer, deaths, weight loss, hair loss, and monumental loss. Luckily or unluckily, they have not all been mine.

I’m an attorney who has gravitated to technology and who now oversees various web services and sites for the Minnesota State Bar Association. In between being born and where I am now, I have worked, in no particular order, as a lawn boy, executive director, litigation attorney, bike messenger, bag boy, file clerk, database manager, house painter, Legal Aid attorney, solo law practitioner, and envelope licker. I have likely forgotten about a dozen more, and there’s probably good reason for being stuck somewhere in the recesses of memory. Suffice it to say that, in July 1984, I was employee of the month at McDonald’s.

In between playing with my kids, messing around on the internet, and paying attention to my wife, I manage to have some thoughts. Usually, they are a bit more strident in print than they are in person. I’m unabashedly liberal, sometimes stubborn, but generally happy-go-lucky. My views do not necessarily represent those of my two-year-old, though they are surprisingly similar and at times just as incomprehensible. I can say with complete accuracy that my thoughts and opinions do not represent the views of the Minnesota State Bar Association, nor do they represent the thoughts of my neighbor Bob, my girlfriend in eighth grade (Hi, Debbie), any former employers except when I managed to employ myself, or that of any fictional character of which I am aware. As an attorney, I’ve spent a good many words explaining that my thoughts are my own.