A Little Background Info About Me
(updated September 15, 2002)

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Our Story Thus Far . . .

Well, it all began in a little 10,000-watt radio station in South Dakota . . . no wait, that's the Mary Tyler Moore Show. You see, that's a big problem with us TV-saturated baby-boomers: we have a hard time separating our lives from the lives of the characters on all those TV shows we used to watch. Why, just the other day, my brother Howdy and I were discussing the dysfunctional family dynamic Ozzie and Harriet created for us kids back in Mayberry . . . darn, did it again.

What can I say in a short enough space that doesn't put the average reader to sleep? Oh, probably not much, but hang in there and we'll get you out alive.

I was born in 1954 to a third-generation Arizona ranching family. On my father's side, I had a grandfather who was a bona fide tough-guy lawman who could have taught "The Duke" a thing or two: He escorted Dillinger to the airport after the legendary outlaw was captured (the first time), and he could out-ride, out-shoot, and out-rope every other old bowlegged cowboy who rode into town. My father was a hot-shot Air Force test pilot and fighter pilot. He may have been disappointed when I elected not to follow in his considerably large military-career footsteps; however, sister Mollie took care of that by becoming a "lifer," first in the Air Force, then in the Air National Guard. (That's Sergeant Morrow to the rest of you pilgrims, with a resumé long enough to swamp a laser printer's out tray.)

Brainy as Dad is (with his Engineering degree and steel-trap mind), he always claimed that Mom was "the smartest one" in the family -- and he's probably right. Doubtless she could have done anything she wanted, and it's interesting to speculate about what she would have done with an advanced degree or three (but Mollie and I are mighty glad she elected to hang out with the two of us tykes.) Mom's side of the family boasted a feisty Irish father from east Texas who stepped off the westbound train one day in Douglas, Arizona, looked around, and decided to stay. He went to work for the Southern Pacific railroad, then married my "abuelita." This maternal grandmother was a Mexican beauty who had fled north with her brothers and sisters after the deaths of her parents, who were killed during one of the many conflicts that tore Mexico apart when the twentieth century was still just a teenager.

I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where I went to grade school (while air-raid drills in the hallways were still part of the "normal" curriculum of the Cold-War years), junior high school (while girls' skirts were still so short they caused lasting damage to my cervical vertebrae), and Sahuaro High School (while we were all still pondering the Three Big Post-High School Options: College, Canada, or Vietnam). Fortunately, by 1972 Tricky Dick N. and Honorable Henry K. were helping us see that "Vietnamization" was going to lead to "peace with honor," so at the University of Arizona, I got my BA in Mathematics & Psychology (a dual major) with minors in French & Arabic. Then, naturally enough (he said facetiously), I followed those up with an MA in teaching English as a Second Language, with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies. (Remember, this was before the days when it was cool to get an MBA, back when we felt it was our god-given right to pursue studies that would deliberately not get us gainful employment later in life.) Some years after my college career ended, I read that Playboy magazine had rated the U of A the number one "party school" in the nation in the party-hearty 1970s. Much to my chagrin: I spent all my time there with my nose buried in textbooks; talk about serious, or maybe the adjective is "clueless."

After graduating, I knocked around in a variety of jobs that made for interesting stories, if not a robust bank account (see Top Thirteen Most "Interesting" Things I've Ever Done for Money below). In 1984, I quit the sunny southwest for Seattle, mostly to come live with my future ex-wife. True, one marriage didn't work out, but another one turned out to be the most stable relationship of my life so far: For nine years, Microsoft and I kept house. It was a strange and wonderful relationship, and as they say about classic literature, "it was a book I was glad to have read." Anyway, I met some great people there, and learned a lot of amazing information (some of which did not become obsolete within six months of my leaving). And where else could I have combined my educational background in English and Math?

Right now, thanks to Chairman Bill, I'm not commuting to a "real" job; inshallah, that will not soon reappear on my personal horizon. In the meantime, I still seem to spend a lot of time in front of a computer monitor ...

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Top Thirteen Most "Interesting" Things I've Ever Done for Money

As Dave Barry would say, "I promise I'm not making this up":

1. At an air-conditioning company in Tucson, Arizona, I dug ditches for new houses using a pick and shovel; also worked in the sheet-metal shop bending air conduits and stapling fiberglass (summer 1972).
   
   
2. Worked on a sulfuric-acid "leach field" in an open-pit copper mine near Safford, Arizona (summer 1974).
   
   
3. Taught private ESL (English as a Second Language) lessons to students in Barcelona, and substitute-taught 4th-, 6th-, and 11th-grade classes at the American School in Barcelona (1978).
   
   
4. Taught ESL to executives of IBM's Portugal division in Oporto, Portugal (1978); also taught ESL (including a special ESL for Scientists & Engineers class that I largely made up as I went along) at the University of Arizona's Center for ESL (1977; and 1979 to 1981).
   
   
5. Ran a North African cafe (The Casbah, specializing in the cuisines of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt) in Pasadena, California (1979). My partners and I also catered a few movie-release parties (wish I could remember more, but you know those Hollywood parties in the 70s).
   
   
6. Performed (at street fairs, store openings, etc.) with an otherwise all-female belly-dance company (1981 to 1982); company was led by Kathryn Ferguson, now an internationally famous performer and choreographer.
   
   
7. Was an "exotic dancer" (aka "stripper") for Strip-O-Gram in Tucson (1981 to 1982). Favorite gigs: "stripping Santa" at Christmas parties; "pirate" at large (400+ people) New Year's Eve celebration; "naughty doctor" at bachelorette party held by nurses of St. Mary's Hospital at a biker bar in downtown Tucson.
   
   
8. Was a "gypsy dancer" and "toreador" in the Arizona Opera Company's 1982 production of Carmen.
   
   
9. Worked as a licensed real-estate salesman in southern Arizona, specializing in farm and ranch properties (1981 to 1984). (Check out The R.W. Morrow Real Estate Home Page.)
   
   
10. Sold women's and men's dance apparel, as well as women's lingerie, swimsuits, and dance shoes (1981 to 1984).
    
    
11. Was a technical writer at Microsoft, where I wrote pretty much all the Basic programming-language manuals and headed the documentation and sample-program team for QuickBasic version 4.0 (1984 to 1987).
    
    
12. Worked in publishing-system technical support at Microsoft (1988 to 1993). Wrote all the conversion programs to take files from UNIX troff to Ventura Publisher on DOS platforms, using SED, AWK, C, and Basic (and to think I used to use those words without the slightest hesitation); also, wrote a number of tools in C & Basic to automate publishing in Ventura (indexing, etc.).
    
    
13. Managed a tech-support group responsible for implementing Word for Windows stylesheets and Word Basic macros used to publish Microsoft's software manuals (1992 to 1993).
    
    

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