e-mail:bn5@umail.umd.edu
Job Since 1970: Physical Science Technician at UMCP Physics Lecture Demonstration Facility.
Main Job: Providing demonstrations, audiovisuals and computer facilities for undergraduate lectures in physics. Other Parts of Job: Washing blackboards; repairing, modifying, creating,shelving, indexing, photographing, documenting and explaining the demonstrations and other facilities.
Jobs Before 1970: Construction; cab driver; night watchman; measuring beard hair cutting forces for Gillette Research; radio intercept operator / admin asst & clerk typist in Air Force; sheetmetal work; carpentry; tv repair and antenna installation; finding, feeding and milking cows; general farmwork.
Education after High School: Apprentice program at US Naval Weapons Plant, Russian language program at Indiana University while in USAF. Nearly completed a BS in physics at UMCP in late 1960's. I have read 85 non-fiction books in my areas of need, concern and interest since college.
Life Outside the Physics Building: Family, A nearly 30-year passion for health-learning and activism. Activism has been in the areas of elementary education, tobacco, alcohol, psychology, mercury dental fillings, sweetener-free diet, and the food additive MSG. (I have concluded from these activities that individuals and families, for adequate self-defense, should be spending two hours per week on self-education about nutrition, health, surgery and all types of legal drugs.)
Other interests: religion, math, computers, music (untrained, very private performances on piano, guitar, recorder, harmonica, ocarina), mechanical design, farm machinery, electricity, auto maintenance, recycling, language, writing, word processing, child care, mental retardation, ancestry, psychology, impacts of marketing, employee relations, legislation, law, uncommonly perceived causes of crime, biking, physical fitness, social dancing and food preparation.
Published Work: 1) DiFranza, Norwood, Garner & Tye: Legislative Efforts to Protect Children From Tobacco, Journal of the American Medical Assn, June 26, 1987 2) Approximately 100 letters to editors of newspapers since 1970.
Talent Which I Prize Most: The ability to come up with new ways of organizing and constructing things and ideas, the ability to put together related, or previously unrelated, things and ideas in simple new ways to solve problems.