Douglas Eadline

Doug...@Eadline.org

Personal Resume (January 11, 2007)

For an abbreviated professional resume check here. You will find lots of dry facts when you follow that link. Not that dry facts are bad, this page talks about things that are not usually included in a professional resume.

Who am I?

Well, that is me in the picture trying to be silly. (Photo credit: Taylor Eadline)

My History

I was born on May 29th, 1956, which by the way, is the same day of the year in 1919 that a solar eclipse changed the world. And, just two years before the eclipse, John F. Kennedy was born. I showed up in Philadelphia. I'm the second of four children for those that believe birth order helps shape destiny.

As far as I can tell, I grew up middle class in a post WWII kind of neighborhood. I remember a lot of kids, woods, Boy Scouts, paper routes, school, cross country, and wrestling. My mother grew up on dairy farm in central Pennsylvania and my father's parents retired to the Jersey shore. This arrangement worked out well. Visits to the farm and shore were quite enjoyable. I actually worked for two summers at the Jersey shore (Cape May Point) while living with my grandfather.

By the time I reached 18, I was sure I had it all figured out (at least according to Alice Copper), and took job working for a printer. I hated it. Next I went to work on a golf course until the following year. My father, quite wisely, got me to defer my enrollment at Juniata College, so in 1975, I headed off for central Pennsylvania. I enjoyed a liberal arts education, the beautiful country side, and most of all an intimate learning experience. (By the way, liberal means open minded to me) I thought I was destined to become an biologist, but the amount of memorizing lead me to the cerebral aspects of chemistry. The Data General Nova minicomputer also got me excited about computers. So in 1979, I graduated with a BS in Chemistry and a ticket to Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. There I earned my Ph.D. in Chemistry and at the end of my time there, I meet my wonderful wife, Maddy.

Doug's Official Seal After a one year post doctoral appointment at Lehigh, I took a faculty position at Seton Hall University. And, much to my mothers relief, Maddy and I were married in September of 1986. It rained really hard that day. Someone told us that meant we would be rich. And that may be the reason why I started a software company in Bethlehem in 1989. Well after 14 years of trying to live up to our wedding day dreams, things did not quite work out. Think of a building being demolished by implosion - in slow motion.

Along the way, Maddy and I were blessed with a beautiful daughter, Taylor, a mutt (sorry cockapoo) named Maggie, and countless other relationships that changed our lives (that includes you Em). My father passed away in December of 2004. He was an An Honorable Man. I will miss him.

Currently, (in 2008), I am a consultant/writer to the high performance computer business. My brief tenure as a magazine editor ended after two years (the magazine was canceled). I am also running a website, Cluster Monkey that is similar to the magazine. I like to think I am pretty good at figuring things out and finding the essence of things. I throughly enjoy talking and thinking about science and life in general. Complexity, chemistry, physics, cosmology, computers, mathematics all play nice in my head particularly when there is a cigar in my hand.

Personal Growth

Some time in the early nineties I started on what I call my personal growth. It is not like I was not growing, it was more like the way I thought the world worked did not seem to be the way the world actually worked. In other words, I was not really happy. It took me while to figure this out. I had to go through some fear, anger, and sadness until I realized that my old way of approaching the world was not serving me very well. Think of it this way. For what ever reason, I had build a bunch of walls around myself that I thought kept me safe. The only thing is, these walls were more like a maze. I had no idea who I was or where I was. By allowing others to help me experience that these walls were basically constructed of paper and I could easily tear them down, I began to grow.

The thing that really turned over my apple cart was The New Warrior Training Adventure Weekend. I dare any man to see if they can make it through this initiation. (There are programs for women as well) Since the weekend I have been picking up my spilled apples. Some I keep, some I eat, some I throw way. In any case, I am a better husband, father, friend, and person. Oh yea, and I am much happier. I also attend some other trainings, one of which was Warrior Monk.

My personal growth has continued by staying involved with a local men's group (other New Warrior men). As a scientific type, I had thought that life was best lived in my logical head. The trouble was it did not work. So now I can live in both my head and my heart. Life is just more interesting that way.

Mission

As part of this growth thing. I have identified my personal mission -- or why I believe I am here. Simply put:

I teach the world to sing a gentle song by speaking truth.

Truth is important to me. My interest in science has been my quest for truth. Looking for the hand of God if you will. I have found that when you reach the limits of science and mathematics, what we can really "know" is limited. (Godel, Heisenberg, and Einstein were the guys that really messed things up for us). So if what we really can know is limited, so may be any truth we profess to know. And still, truth exists for me, not in the knowing, but in the moment that passes as your eyes gently drink these words.

I recently added a collection of my favorite poems (so far).

My Blog

Chances are you have found this page through my Blog. Interesting thing actually. The whole world has the ability to read what I write. That is if they are connected to the web, and if they find it, and they want to read it. If a web page is on the Internet and nobody looks at it, is it really there?

I like to write. No need to publish a book (yet), just put it on the web. A small corner of a hard drive, whose surface is imprinted with my words (much like a cassette tape) that when someone clicks on a computer screen anywhere in the world, manages to arrange the dots on their screen to be the words I have written. Those electrons, tamed just enough to get some work done, but wild enough to keep on dancing.

My "One Liners" and other assorted quotes

Control is an illusion
Stupidity is wasted fear
Success and failure are for the most part random events
Truth is a slippery fish
This statement is not self referencing
Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. And while you are at it; teach him to use Google.

My Six Words

When asked to "Try to tell your life story in just six words", I came up with this one.

Six words is too many, Ha!

I keep thinking about this. It is a good exercise.

Useless but Interesting Information

My Myers-Briggs analysis (many years ago) was INTP. Around the same time a "movement specialist" categorized me as a "shape with thrust overdrive" What ever that means.
On March 21, 2006, a google search found 29,500 English pages for Douglas Eadline - what does that mean ?
I have been to Great Britain (Where I saw Stone Henge), Sweden, Eastern Russia (Moscow, St Petersburg), Japan, Mexico, and Canada.
I have been to every state except, Alaska, Hawaii, Arkansas, Montana, and Idaho.
I had a few beers with Linus Torvalds, Don Becker, Jon Mad-Dog Hall, Steven Tweedie and a bunch of other Linux jocks in Monterey.
David Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair" is one of my favorite songs
Read anything by Rumi (sorry no links, you must search for yourself, Rumi would have wanted it that way)
To email me, use Douglas (at) Eadline (dot) org and replace the " at " with "@" and the " dot " with a ".". (or should it be with a ".." -- funny all those anal retentive "put the quote after the period." people never thought of this situation. Ha!) I do this so spam-bots that harvest email names from web pages will not recognize my email. But they will recognize this: you@are.stupid.com

Look a fish! Penguins

Need Some Motivation?

Half Ass poster

A larger version, suitable for your living room wall, is available here.