What I Do in Real Life
In real life, I am a devoted amateur horn player. I play in a horn quartet, Vermont Horns, which meets regularly to play for fun, and occasionally performs for weddings and so forth. I'm a member of the Burlington area Amateur Musicians Orchestra, the Green Mountain Mahler Festival Orchestra, the Milton Community Band, and the Citizens Concert Band. I also perform in pit orchestras for local community theatre productions, including such shows as The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Brigadoon, and the holiday opera Amahl and the Night Visitor.
Other important demands on my time include ice skating, hiking Vermont's Green Mountains, reading (mostly non-fiction these days, but I still pick up science-fiction once in a while), and let's face it, spending a little too much time online (I've been hanging around Usenet newsgroups since 1993). I'm a huge fan of David Letterman, and Star Trek in most of its various guises (though my heart will always belong to the original cast).
That's me on the sled, at a free clinic at Lake Placid in February, 2001, with my friend Juleigh Walker about to give me a push. (No, I did not take a running start!) Juleigh was one of the pioneers of women's skeleton sled in the U.S., and went to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City as member of the U.S. National Skeleton Team.
One of the coolest outdoor activities I have ever tried is the skeleton sled, which is sort of like the luge, except that you go down the track on your belly, face first, with your nose just a few inches away from the ice. There are no brakes or steering mechanism on the sled; all you have to work with are gravity and body english.