Potential employers note: A link to my resume is here.

A word about the background in this frame...

What you see in the background is the Charles River, looking from the Newton side northeast across toward Watertown. I was quite taken with this view, considering how close it is to Boston, yet the only sign of human intrusion is the top of the building on the left and another nearly invisible in the middle of the picture. If you head further inland, the Charles becomes quite wild, where you can paddle some distance and see no signs of unnatural disturbance.

It is important to preserve scenes such as this, not only here but across Massachusetts and indeed across the country and the world. This is not only a scene, but an interconnected compendium of living habitats, the importance of which we have only recently come to recognize.

In the interest of preserving this and other habitats, for a number of years I have been a contributing member of The Massachusetts Audubon Society, The Trustees of Reservations, and The Nature Conservancy. I encourage you to look at these web sites and see the benefits of supporting these organizations.

Now, a question: Why do they call these things HOME pages?

I don't live here. All I do here is create a stage set, within which I perform some sort of theater. Perhaps the idea of a home page is to give people that nice warm feeling that they actually have a home in the midst of this virtual world known as the WEB. But is it perhaps just a web of deception? Are we all deceiving ourselves? While you ponder that question, let us move on to other topics...

Do you like music and sound?

I do! I am an amateur (and erratic) musician, with some training and facility on the guitar. I have four guitars - a steel string flat top, a classical, a solid body electric and a Dobro. "But what..." you ask, "...is a Dobro?"

I'm glad you asked. It is probably the best known of several brand names applied to a special type of guitar that first appeared back in the early part of the 20th century, distinguished by its aluminum cone resonator. Also called "resonator" guitars, the resonator is made of aluminum about the same thickness as a soda can and shaped like a loudspeaker cone. The resonator sits behind a bright chrome steel faceplate with a stylized pattern of cutouts to allow the resonator to project sound outward. It has a distinctive sound, and is popular both in bluegrass (played lap style1) and in blues (played bottleneck style2).

1. Lap style is with the guitar body held horizontally, the strings facing up. The strings are typically raised above the frets with a nut extender, the nut being the point where the strings sit in slots right below the tuning pegs. The strings are then "fretted" by means of a heavy steel bar that is held in the hand and moved around on the strings, acting as a single movable fret.

2. Bottleneck style is with the guitar held in the usual manner, but with a heavy cylinder placed over the little finger of the fretting hand. The other three fingers are free to fret the strings in the usual way, with the little finger providing a movable fret. The cylinder can be of metal or glass, such as the neck of a liquor bottle cut off, hence "bottleneck".

If my talking about musical instruments, music, and sound is interesting for you, click here to see my music and sound page.


Are you interested in transport?

I am. It is a good thing, transport. It allows you to get from one place to another place, assuming you think this can be a good thing. Most of us (in this transport crazy culture) do think this.

So how do I do it? Besides walking, biking, and kayaking, I drive a 1994 BMW 325i, a very nice car in several ways.

I also drive a 1999 Subaru Legacy Outback wagon, 30th anniversary edition, with two sunroofs, heated leather seats, tape player, CD player, this is also a very nice car.

And if you have perused this page previously, that 1962 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk. II I was babbling about never made it back on the road under my watch. I realized that my significant lifestyle changes made the prospect of dealing with this far too unlikely to be worth considering further. So, I sold it. Some regrets, but I am now free of this albatross. Considering I more than doubled my money, I did not do too badly.

Speaking of kayaks...

Yes, kayaks. Wonderful boats. One of the best boats in which to follow the sage advice of the Water Rat from the Wind in the Willows:

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

 Truer words were never spoken (or in this case, written)...

Here is a picture of my kayak:

This is a Sea Kayak, for leisurely or moderate or intense paddling in calm or slightly rolling or highly rolling waters, which may be a river, a lake, or the sea if calm, or most likely the sea if rolling. These are not so good for whitewater river rapids, because they track better than they turn, unlike whitewater kayaks, which turn better than they track. This is explained partly through length: A sea kayak tends to be very long, while a whitewater kayak tends to be quite short. The length and rotational inertia of a sea kayak are liabilities in the tight turns and dips of river rapids, but blessings in the rolling waves of open water.

This kayak, called the Caribou and manufactured by Current Designs of Canada, is an unusual design for a sea kayak. It has very hard chines, which means there is an abrupt transition from the side of the hull to the bottom. Notice the sharp line between the brightly lit side and the bottom in shadow. Most sea kayaks have softer chines, meaning a more rounded hull. The Caribou also has no rudder, a common feature on sea kayaks. The Caribou is modeled very closely on a Greenland Inuit design, but has a few modifications to make it more suitable for modern recreational use.

There is perhaps no better way than sea kayaking to be so intimate with the sea while floating on it. It is a visceral experience, and a seductive one.

The picture above is from an unknown source, but I want to give credit to the unknown photographer; it's a wonderful picture.

Now I want to talk about Massachusetts and a few of its towns.

Massachusetts is a state on the east coast of the northeastern United States. The northeast corner of the US, comprising the five states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine is fondly known as "New England", since this is where settlers from England, back in the early 17th century, came to build a new life for themselves at the expense of the native Americans.

I live in Fitchburg, in north central Massachusetts. Fitchburg was an industrial boom town about 100 years ago, and is loaded with architectural treasures from that time. Houses were built all over the place on extremely steep terrain, in some cases so precipitous you wonder how they stay up there. Since that time, due to changing economic conditions and some unfortunate decisions by government officials (such as stopping passenger rail service for a number of years and razing an architecturally priceless railroad station), Fitchburg began to suffer a period of decline. Too many of the architectural treasures have been badly abused, neglected, burned, or torn down. However, a significant number of buildings survive intact, and a number have been rescued from the edge of doom and restored. Passenger rail was resurrected, and a new (if architecturally uninspired) intermodal transportation building was built on the site of the old station. In addition to the wealth of classic old buildings, Fitchburg has a wonderful art museum, a state college, and a beautiful town park.

Fitchburg is directly north of the similarly sized city of Leominster, historical home of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed because he was an arborist with a passion for apple trees. Fitchburg is also the terminus of the northwest branch of the MBTA commuter rail line. This train will take you ultimately to North Station in Boston or anywhere along the way, including Porter Square in Cambridge.

Fitchburg resides along the Nashua River, which runs northeast to Nashua, New Hampshire and the Merrimack River, which runs out to the Atlantic Ocean at Newburyport, a quaint and lovely old seaport town.

Okay, now for something completely different...

Below are links to subpages which contain pictures with captions. Each one of these has a link below the picture to bring you back here. One of these subpages is not what it purports to be - can you guess which one?

Here is the shingle style Victorian I bought, which I share with my lovely wife, Svetlana, who is from the city of Tomsk in Russia. Therein lies another tale...

Let me show you how I look...

Let me show you Svetlana and me in a Greek restaurant in Vienna, Austria...

Let me show you Svetlana standing in front of a confectionery in Vienna, Austria...

Thanks for visiting!

Bradford H. Kellogg
bradfordkellogg@gmail.com

This page (or its subpages) last updated 15 December, 2009