About

I’m very fortunate to have a job that encourages me to think about the future of computing and its intersection with consumer electronics. I’m also blessed to have sufficient disposable income to buy many of these tech toys and to have some free time to blog about them here.

I’m also very lucky to be alive today. Born with moderately complex heart defect known as Tetralogy of Fallot and doomed to an early death without surgery, I was lucky enough to be living in Minnesota, not far from the Mayo Clinic, where I had life saving open heart surgery in 1960. For 42 years I lived in blissful ignorance, assuming that the doctors who told me that I was fixed and to go out and live my life were right. Years of leaky valves took a toll on my heart and I eventually needed a second open heart surgery. The participants on the Adult Congenital Heart Association’s message board helped me greatly as I learned more about my defect and prepared for my surgery. Not long afterwards, I started volunteering for them, was elected to their board of directors, and then elected as their vice president and later board chair.

If you had open heart surgery as a child, I strongly urge you to visit the ACHA website to learn more about adult congenital heart disease and to seek out an ACHD cardiologist to have your heart condition accurately assessed.

Please consider supporting ACHA through sixdegrees.org and the Network for Good.