I've bounced around a little bit along the road of my life.  I was born up in Massachusetts, and I lived outside of Boston in a couple of small towns there for my first six years except for a one year stint down in Maryland.  My father has worked for private companies on defense contracts all my life, and that led him to a position out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

    For five years, we lived on the lovely island you see here.  Kwajalein is the main island of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.  If you look at the picture you will notice how large the airstrip seems, taking up over half the island.  That's no super-runway, the island is only 3.5 miles long by 0.5 miles wide if you straighten it out and measure at the widest parts.

    I can't imagine going back now, but it was a great place for a childhood.  The temperature always hovered around 85 degrees Fahrenheit, dropped down to a chilling 75 at night, and the fast moving upper atmosphere kept even the longest rain storms down to about an hour.  Sure, the occasional typhoon blew through, but the whole island is only one or two stories tall with a palm tree here or there so there isn't much for such a storm to damage.  Everyone rode bikes wherever they wanted to go, I learned to SCUBA dive and sail a small catamaran with my family, and I found an old Japanese machine gun buried near the reef.  For a kid, a tropical island provides endless adventures.

    When I was eleven, my father was transferred back to the States (usually, terms on Kwaj are limited to two or three years, so our five was out of the ordinary).  We moved to Raleigh, North Carolina.  While I was based in Raleighwood I went through middle school and the first couple of years of high school, found out what it was like to be the weird new kid, gained acceptance by being the funny weird kid, rode the roller coaster of puberty, watched my parents divorce and my family reform, and learned how to make a sandwich the Sandwich Artist way.  (I'm certified, baby!)

    After my sophomore year in high school, I was accepted to the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (S&M), so I was in Durham, NC for my junior and senior years in high school.  Durham was a great experience, because it actually feels like a city.  Raleigh may be the capital city of the state, but it really feels like a big suburb with a little bit of a town here or there.  I made many friends at S&M, and many S&Mers go to Duke, which is a mile down the road.  Not only did I live in a dorm with students my age, one big taste of collegiate life, but I also spent a lot of time with friends down on Duke's campus and got even more exposure.

    Because of my somewhat unique high school experience, the transition to Davidson College wasn't an enormous one for me.  It was like having a few more freedoms added to those I was adjusted to already, not having the sudden freedom that many people experience when they go away to school.  The college is a small, liberal arts school with a good reputation (and a reputation for being tough!), and the town of Davidson isn't much more than a post office and the college.  Fortunately, the city of Charlotte is only a few miles down the interstate, so a person can occasionally find something to do.

    That's where I'm at right now, Davidsonland.  It's a magical place full of knowledge and challenges where I am one of the select few Physics Elves.

Kwajalein Bookmarks:  Military Site and Newsletter for Former Residents

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