Glad you're smiling again Bruce. Sometimes it takes a little humor and fun to get to know people here at the 'Cat. I never intended my "whopper" to get under anyone's skin - I thought it as transparent as glass.

I DO love physics. I could'a been a contenda too, but my family consisted of doctors and teachers so I took up music to sooth my logic circuits.

I grew up following as much of the sciences as I could while avoiding medicine.

My uncle, Dr. Maurice Adam, was the chief of thoractic's at Baylor here and his wife a pediatrician.

My grandmother was a fifty plus year veteran teacher of foreign languages.

My brother, Stephen West, went on to write much of the code that put us on the moon and was one of the granddaddies of EDI.

My mother dated guys like Kirtley Mather (Prof. Emeritus, Harvard), Alan Mannion (Main Currents in Modern Thought) and "Freznel" (in joke) AND Bolsey and the beat generation crew - Jack and Neal. I was surrounded by intellect from the best of all possible worlds. If I had a question, there was someone I could find to answer it or point me in the right direction.

I used to mess with my homemade radios, telescopes and Theremin's. I helped my brother build a tic-tac-toe logic board game (out of tubes) in the late 50's. I have the "jargon" down because I have to tranlate for children. I hate to let a question go by unanswered in some basic fashion, or at least, point 'em to the fishin' hole.

I kicked off my musical road at five and haven't stopped since. I did it to have my own little niche. I surprised my family with my meager talent and they (to their credit) let me go to it.

Now, I have a question for you:

Maxwell vs. Fermi . . . who wins?

Great to learn a little about you . Hope it doesn't end here.