I was born on the wrong side of the tracks (quite literally) on December 27, 1951 in Batavia, New York. We lived in a tiny upstairs appartment on Wood Street, next door to my grandmother and my aunt's family. This corner of Batavia was moslty working-class Italian. As a kid, I had no idea that we really were poor. My folks did a pretty good job of hiding the grim side of life from us kids.

We moved to a more upscale part of town after my sister was born in 1954. Our house was across the street was St. Mary's School where I started kindergarden. I loved that house. My best friend Maxie Wheaton and a gorgeous blond girl named Diane lived around the corner. I have no idea what happend to Maxi, we lost touch after we moved to Newark, New York in the winter of 1959. But he was quite a character and appears in several short stories: Secrets, Excuses, and Initiation.

My Grandmother on my mother's side, Mary Cuozzo Spatola, showing me off on Christmas, 1953.

My Great-Grandmother, Domenica (Dorothy) Falcone Cuozzo in a photo taken in Italy sometime in the 20's.

My brother Chris was born soon after dad moved the family to Newark. Patrick was born 3 years later. We moved around a few times in Newark and finally settled down on Charlotte Street.

Being Catholic my folks sent me (and all the kids) to parochial school, St. Michaels. The Catholic church is right across the street, very handy during Lent (we attended mass every day during the Lenten season). I started Newark Senior High in 1965, and graduated in 1969 (a very good year).

I was a horrible student in high school. Smart (apparently) but undisciplined. I spent most of my time thinking about and chatting up girls.

A family portrait from 1968: Left to right: our dad Don Sr., me, Chris (top), Patrick (bottom), Debbie, our mom, Delores.

Here we are again about 10 years later: Chris, Don, Pat, mom, dad, Debbie.

I started SUNY Cortland in the fall of 1969 as a chemistry major. I probably learned more that first year of school than the rest of my college career. Unfortunately, none of it was course-related and so I was unceremoniously booted.

I met Nancy in the winter of 1970. My best friend Scott set us up. At the time, I was making up the courses I failed my first year at Cortland. I settled down some after Nan and I started dating. We got married a year later while I was still in college. I graduated St. John Fisher College with a BS degree in Mathematics, and went on for my Masters at SUNY Brockport. During that time we survived the scourge of reefer, the Viet Nam war and the student unrest that came with it, Watergate, Nixon, and Disco.

I started a software engineering (a fancy way to say programmer) career in 1976 using a mathematical language called APL (a programming language). It was doomed from the start as the languge was mostly greek symbols that represented operations over n-dimensional matrices. Try doing that on a PC.

My boys came along in the 80's. Brian in 1980, and Shawn in 1983. Both are great kids and successfull in their own ways.

Left: Another classic 70's family photo. My dad got the biggest kick out of these photo shoots. He had an early model Poloroid camera with a timer (a mechanical gizmo that attached to the shutter) and a cheap tripod. Dig the crazy threads (Dad had just bought a men's clothing store in town). Nancy and I have no good excuse. The woman on my right is Nancy's hippy friend, Trudy. I'm holding Pierre, my mom's toy poodle. By this time in our lives, I was consumed with overblown self-importance, Debbie with teenage angst, Nancy with planning our wedding, my dad with his store, and my mom with my dad. Debbie is holding my god child, Jill, Scott's daughter (and the reason for Scott getting married).

Right: The Thunderbirds at Scott's Wedding, 1971. Top row: Gary ("Scare"), his brother Doug ("Stick"), Scott, Don, Mitch. Bottom: Bill, Wayne ("Council"). Wayne Smith died in 2005. Don't know what happened to everyone else. Scott got larger and lost his hair. I got larger and lost my smart-ass attitude.

Family photo at my sister's house, 1999: Pat, Debbie, mom, Don, Chris. Apparently I thought I looked good with the Colonel Sanders goatee.

Our marriage ran into trouble in the early 90s. I was doing longs bouts of travel to Europe (London, Wales, Netherlands, Sweden) for CSC and that didn't help. We separated in 1993 and eventually divorced in 1996. It wasn't easy, but Nancy and I have remained friends. I fictionalized some of my travel misadventures in the stories Travel and Infinity.

A little photoshop tom-foolery with Shawn with Cosmic Runner, an original painting by Peter Max.

Brian and Shawn Highland Park, Fall 2006. The stainless steel bollards in the background are part of the Vietnam War Memorial. Each bollard is inscribed with the name of a local soldier killed during the war.

So after 23 years of marriage I'm suddenly back in the singles market. I had never dated as an adult - I was 19 years old when I met Nancy - and simply put, had no idea what I was doing. I met someone right away. She was another CSC employee working in the Tampa office. We met at a company-wide meeting in Las Vegas and all kinds of rockets went off. It was love at first sight.

I have to admit, I was not an ideal boyfriend. I botched up the relationship, moved to Florida in 1995 with my son Brian in tow to try and piece it back together. Well, it was too late for that, but we've stayed friends through the years.

Then two weeks after moving to New Port Richie, Florida I met Jill through the personal adds. That romance didn't last either, but the friendship did. There's a picture of us below, left.

Scott and I climbing around Mt. St. Helens, 2003.

Jill and I going out on the town, 2003.

I started writing in the late 80's after reading a book of short stories by Barry Yourgrau, Wearing Dad's Head. I thought, hell I can do that, so I set off writing short stories, taking snippets of my life and adding a fantasy edge. I made two attempts to novelize the collection. A bad idea as it turns out. Chasing the Meridian started out as a set of connected stories. I abandoned that idea in 2005 and started from scratch. The result is Kiara's Gambit, the first novel in the Chasing the Meridian Series.

I live in Clearwater, Florida. My day job as a consultant for Perot Systems keeps me on the road pretty regularly. When I am home, I have plenty of interests to keep me busy. I built an art studio a couple years ago and dabble in acrylics mostly. I have a keen interest in music of all genres. I play piano, guitar (I have a fire-engine red American-made Stratocaster and a Vox amp) and do some composing using Sibelius. I'm a math and pyhsics geek and do what I can to follow what's going on the in the world of cosmology and high-energy physics. I've been interested in fractals since the early 90's. Fractals is an ongoing theme in Chasing the Meridian.

Lately I've been consumed with Dragon Boat and outrigger canoe (OC-6) racing. The training is intense, but my coach and treammates are awesome athletes. Tampa Blade Runners Red (my team) took first place in division A, beating out fifty other teams, at races held in Tampa on May 3, 2009. Here I am below with the first place trophy flanked by Jan on my right, and Judy on my left.

Shawn, my mom and Scott at my mom's house, Summer, 2006. Scott came out from the west coast to attend the NHS class of 1969 37th reunion.