HISTORY :
Kristina and I met each other in 1981, at a boarding school Sea Pines Abroad, in Faistenau, Austria. Kristina's father worked for ARAMCO in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, while my father was at USREP/JECOR in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Saudis do not want the Western teenage influence in their closed, conservative society, so they did not allow schools for Westerners to be built beyond 9th grade. Thus, we were forced to go abroad to school. When we met, I was a 10th grader, and Kristina was a senior. The school believed in "learning through travel," and the school often packed all 50 of us into a bus, and went for various trips around Europe. We fell in love during a trip to Paris, France. We actually first got together during a stopover in Rheims, the champagne capital of the world. Besides travelling, the most popular pasttimes at Sea Pines were skiing and Stiegl beer drinking, not necessarily in that order.
One of the highlights of the two years we were there was seeing Vytas- Kristina's brother, and my roommate at the time, jump into the canal in Venice - what a smelly mess he became! He ran home, sopping wet, and put his clothes into a bag to wait until next laundry day. When he opened it up - there was a Fungus Among us - needless to say, it was quite revolting.
Anyway, Kristina graduated, and went off to Randolph Macon Woman's college while I went back to Sea Pines. Over the next 12 years, we kept in touch, I went to William & Mary where I majored in Mathematics, and then on to teach at Memphis University School for 2 years. After that, I was lucky enough to get a job teaching at a private international boarding school in Switzerland, Institut Montana where I stayed for 3 years, teaching math, science, and computer literacy, doing alot of skiing, and travelling during the summers. I returned to the US in 1993, teaching math at Edmund Burke School and gaining the nickname of "Owen," as in 0 and 1, 0 and 2, 0 and 3, etc, for that was the record of the JV basketball team that I coached to a final record of 0-10. Oh well, Pat Riley I ain't.
It was around Kristina's birthday in Sept. that I tried to reach her for the first time since returning to the US. As luck would have it, she had recently broken up with her last boyfriend, and we arranged to meet. The rest, as they say, is history. Kristina was at West Virginia University where she had gone to Med School, and was doing her residency in Family Medicine. So, I went to join her, and get my MA in Math Education.
1 1/2 years later, we moved to Salt
Lake City, Utah where Kristina worked for the Salt Lake City community
Health Centers, and I worked as an adjunct professor at both Westminster
College and at Salt Lake community
College teaching mostly college algebra, and getting paid very little.
While there, we skied alot, we love Alta
and
did some good fun camping in the Utah
wilderness Click to enlarge:
Kristina's job, however, turned into
a nightmare. There were 24 hour periods where she delivered 7 babies,
and admitted them to 5 different hospitals, where she was expected to go
on rounds daily before clinic opened at 9am. So, we left Utah and
the Mormons to go live amongst
the Amish of
southeastern PA.
We joke that
we are travelling around the country sampling various ecclectic religions
- where to next? Maybe some cults in CA? How 'bout communes
in NM!?
Shortly thereafter, we got married
in Huatulco,
Mexico in a small, beautiful ceremony on the Pacific coast. Click
on the pictures to see larger images of our wedding photos.
Kristina works at a community health center, Welsh Mountain Medical & Dental center, and loves her job. The center caters to the "underserved" i.e those among us not fortunate enough to have adequate health insurance. They have a "sliding scale fee" system, in which patients pay as they are financially able.
This past summer, Vytas, form above,
got married to a great person, Tamara. click to enlarge.
The wedding was in Aptos,
CA at the wonderful Seascape resort. They then abruptly moved
to Corpus Christie, TX, where Tamara is doing her residency in Pediatrics.
We are quite happy living in the boondocks of southern PA, although commuting in weekly leaves something to be desired. Oh well, hopefully, within the next 2 years, I will finish my Ph.D. in Math Ed, and then we'll have 2 doctors in the family!
Although I have yet to actually write my proposal and begin my dissertation research, I do know that I am very interested in the use of technology to enhance the presentation and learning of mathematics. Towards that end, I have discovered a remarkable variety and large number of Java Applets designed to help accomplish these goals. I collected them into a web - page, and presented these findings to a technology conference held here at AU last semester. I invite you to click and explore some of the amazing innovations in math ed, brought about through the use of this medium. Click here to link to my java website page
Here are some pics of the rest of our family. Just Click to enlarge, and voila'
FAMILY PHOTO ALBUM :
Attention family members: I will continue to add pics to this collection - it ain't hard, but it is a time-consuming job. Feel free to e-mail me your favoritre pics (just attach them as .jpeg files under 1 MB size - the server can't handle anything larger - thanks! ) I'll try to put 'em up here for you.
Click here to learn more about Albert Einstein.
These days, I tool around in our Forester, while Kristina drives the Honda civic.
I welcome your feedback and/or comments on this page or any other that you might have linked to while visiting this site.
