Welcome to the personal
portion of my web page--the reason I've put this in is that many students
don't fully realize how human *most* of their professors are! As
with the rest of this website, the opinions, statements, or web-links expressed
herein should not be taken as positions or endorsements of the University
of Colorado at Boulder.
Anyway, I was born in
Northwest Indiana near Gary a long time ago, but moved at age 7
with my parents to Bloomington (home of Indiana University) in Southern
Indiana--which smells a whole lot better. After a mostly uneventful
grade school experience, I went to Bloomington High School, where I ran
cross-country in the Fall, played basketball in the Winter, and ran track
in the Spring (actually, if you know anything about Indiana, Fall and Spring
were also mostly about basketball!). Again, this was a fairly uneventful
period, since I was neither particularly cool nor uncool , and four reasonably
pleasant years slipped by.
I went to Indiana University
as an undergraduate (would have been viewed as a traitor by the family
otherwise) and , like many people, didn't have a clue what I wanted to
do when I graduated with an economics major and math minor. Also,
got married between junior and senior years which wasn't real bright--hard
to know who you are compatible with when its not yet even clear who "you"
are! I'd recommend waiting until you are at least 25 before
taking the plunge. Divorce almost six years later (but, it ultimately
worked out great as I've two beautiful daughters from it--one living in
Olympia, WA and one in the San Francisco area; plus I've had a lot of fun
over the succeeding decades!).
At any rate, since I
didn't know what to do with my life when I graduated from Indiana, I applied
to various graduate schools in economics. When Northwestern University
offered me a cushy fellowship (it even paid for dependents!), I went there
to get a Ph.D. in Economics. My first job was at Arizona State University
and I spent several years at the University of Chicago on a post-doc position,
prior to coming to Boulder. I have been at C.U. for more than two
decades (ignoring some leaves to visit Pepperdine and U.C.L.A., U.C. Davis,
and a Sabbatical spent in Hanoi, Vietnam). I live, with my trusty
yellow lab, Buddy (who replaced my trusty malamute, Winston), on University
Hill close to my office in the Economics Department--you may notice
him on the roof of my house which he goes on from the big deck in the backyard--I've
heard him referred to as "roof-dog." I've had a number of hobbies
and interests over the years, most of which I continue to keep up with;
if you wish you may check 'em out below:
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