For 20-odd years I was a political consultant.
Then I studied mathematics 1996-1999 and
graduated from college, age 46.  I spent a few
years working as a low-level assistant to Profs.
Geoff Marcy & Debra Fischer and the California/
Carnegie Extrasolar Planetary Search Team, then
five more as a telescope operator at Lick
Observatory; then another at a 3-telescope
infrared interferometry array at Mt. Wilson for a
group headed by Prof. Charles H. Townes of the
UC Berkeley / NASA Space Scieces Laboratory.  In
May '09 I went to work as a "SSA" (telescope
operator) at Gemini North Observatory.  Public
opinion continues to fuel a healthy bemused
interest but I feel I understand politics less &
ever less.

Personal mail Address: bernie@well.sf.ca.us

Registered as a member at Well:
Tue Sep 24 12:33:35 1985

Alternate mail address: wb6pio@arrl.net
Alternate mail address: bernie@berniewalp.com
Alternate mail address: bernie@influencevector.com
Alternate mail address: bwalp@gemini.edu

Computers: a Radio Shack I; an Osborne I; a Tandy
102; Windows 3.1 inside OS/2 on an PC emulator on
a Mac Book Pro; BASIC on the Stamps, gcc on the
AVRs.  At work, Linux on the PCs, Solaris on the
Suns and VxWorks on the VMEs.

Once I spoke Russian reasonably fluently but now
I don't.  Once I spoke Spanish reasonably
fluently but now I don't.  I wish I spoke, or
understood, Turkish, Arabic and Italian.  I wish
I knew classic Greek and Latin.  I wish I
remembered more of the philosophy instruction I
received in college.  Wish, wish, wish, wish,
wish.

On 25 April 2006 I married Martha C., whom I'd
begun dating in 1984.  Martha died suddenly
on 19 April 2007.