Hi, folks. One of the major shortcomings of this home page has always been the lack of original scans among the many images. I draw a lot of crap, true, and I rip off a few bits and pieces, but people ask, where are the pictures of the people and places, the things that are important, in short, HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A SCANNER?
Yes. While I was working at Elmhurst College, I even got to use one, sort of. I probably didn't have the best idea of what I was doing, but still I produced images that look at least a little like the original pictures. I have all the original pictures somewhere (except for the student ID--I had to get a new i-card), so I could (and likely shall) try to re-scan them down here. Meanwhile, here's what I've got (a few of these actually were scanned at UIUC):

I suppose I ought start with me. Well, here I am, wearing one of my favorite shirts. I did not take this picture, so it looks pretty good. On the right is my now-obsolete UIUC student ID. That picture is good in that it looks like what I look like, which it is my personal philosophy that pictures used for identification purposes should.

These are pictures of snow. For those of you who have spent your entire lives in warmer climes such as the Sudan or Louisiana, take a good look; this is familiar stuff to the rest of the world. NOTE: I do cause snow.
This is Ken Bridges. He was my CHEM_ 107 and CHEM_ 108 TA. This picture was taken at the CHEM_ 107 final, a place where I suppose I really should not have had a camera, but oh well. He wore that Kuk Sool Won shirt a lot, talked a lot, and had his arms open like that a lot. He was a very exciting TA, and, in the words of Marc Mickiewicz (my SPCOM 101 TA), "Ken lived to beat the Merit Section." Every once in a while, we did.

These are pictures I took of myself. In the first one, I am well-dressed for one of Dr. Zumdahl's lectures, although Angela would complain about the pink shirt. She does not like my pink shirt. In the second, which I took with my right hand, I look too far away, but Angela woulld like the multicolor rugby better.


These are the official logos of Avery Coonley School, Naperville North High School and the Illinois High School Association. Neither is in exactly the right colors, but that's how they were printed when I scanned them.
I drive this car. VJU 921 has been my car since 1993, which is when this picture was taken. That was before the paint damage on the front and Breen's antenna tirade. I am very happy with my car, and it gets better gas mileage (33 city, 41 hwy) than anyone I know.

These are Matt Reeves. The one on the left is a standard picture. The one on the right finds him with my thermometer in his mouth.
These people are Alex Sheng (left) and Mark Fuhs (right). Alex is sitting in my now-defunct lawn chair. Why everyone was sitting around in my room I'm not sure; normally my roommate handled the social events.
This is indeed Mr. Brownback himself. Ben put up with me for two years without attacking me. I put up with him for two years, and only really attacked him once (okay, maybe twice).


My father in nature. The first one shows him standing by the side of the road holding a fish. The second one has a piece of fishing equipment, namely a fish stringer, but it is about to be used as a leash for a raccoon, while said raccoon watches curiously. The third shows the same raccoon in a slightly less tenable position on his (my father's) head.
My father in uniform.
My father at work. He's the one on the left. He worked for at least three years in the position on the right, that of an automobile salesman. Having a brother who knew how to play the game proved helpful for Jeff, the man in the middle who was actually buying a new truck. Playing his role of "maven" superbly, Gary worked the dealer. Jeff talked when necessary, of course, while I just sat back and watched (as well as going with Jeff on his test drive). Jeff bought a truck that night, talking the dealer down $450 past their last offer. My father only made one mistake; he misread the dealer cost off of the form, which caused us to later calculate Apple's profit on the car at less than $200. Given Jeff's trade-in had an undiagnosed cracked engine block, Apple lost money on the deal. Gary and Jeff figure that Apple should have this picture mounted on the wall with a warning never to sell anything to these two nice people. So my father put his hand partially in front of his face.

These pictures are from the 1990 National MathCounts competition, at which the Illinois team placed third and I was 49th individually. The first is at O'Hare Airport and shows (back row from left) the Wahlerts, Mrs. Kipp, the Bendas, (front row from left) Bee-Lan Wang, her son Stephen, Benji Gold, me, and Brian Wahlert. The second is in Congressman Harris Fawell's office in Washington and shows (from right) Mrs. Kipp, Brian, me, Benji, and Congressman Fawell. (Fawell's district included Benji and me, as well as Avery Coonley School, where Mrs. Kipp coached.)
A less formal picture of Mr. Gold, taken in a hotel room at the Sheraton Washington.
This picture was taken 05 June 1993 in Iowa City, IA. ARML '93 was one of my two favorite single competitions of my career. (The other was ICTM State '94, but that was because we finally won.) The reason that competition is as wonderful as it is to me is because you get to work with great people who are your sworn enemies throughout the year, and you find out that they really are great people. This is the team picture for the Chicago B team; Captain Benda is in the red sweater, and Captain Schafer is in front of me in the dark shorts. I can still identify by name 10 of these 15 students, and I apologize to the 5 I don't remember. The list is: (from left to right, back row) Unknown, Soren Dayton, Jason Elliot Benda, Dar-Lon Chang, Marty Blase, Andrew Smolik, Unknown, Unknown, Yi Tang, (from right to left, front row) Jon Frederickson, Unknown, Matt Bender, Sherwin Tam, Unknown, and Emily Schafer.
Another group picture. Unfortunately, Benda the Wonder Photographer cut off half of Dan's head. You'll have to take my word that the rest of him was really there when this picture was taken. (This picture was actually taken before invasion.gif below.) Despite the fact that I named the picture blaisdell.gif, only one person pictured (my roommate) lived in Blaisdell at the time. Melissa and Marisa still both went to Northwestern, Dan and Don lived in Oglesby, Andy was in Carr, Ann in LAR, and Lisa I don't remember. Yet here we all were (I took the picture, so I was there, too), smack in the middle of UIUC's finals week our first semester here. (We get a lot of academics done during finals, don't we?) Pictured are (from left to right, back row) Don Osborne, Marisa Greco, Andy Ebervein, Lisa Michelson, Ben Brownback, (from right to left, front row) Dan Anderson, Ann Grelecki, and Melissa Biancalana.
This is actually two pictures welded together. The pair on the left is Ben Brownback and Melissa Biancalana sitting on my living room couch in Naperville. The pair on the right is Ann Grelecki and Dan Anderson sitting in a different corner of the room. You can see the propellor thingy on the table in both pictures, so you can get an idea of what is where.
Pictures like this bother me a little. I'm not in them, of course, but that's not the problem. While I could easily tell you the exact date when this picture was taken (15 May 1992), and I can identify all the people whose faces I can see, I basically don't know any of these people anymore. One of them does have a peopletrace file, but still I don't really know what is up with these folks. Most of them I wish I did. This picture is from my Enriched Written Communication class, the first ever eighth-hour section of that course. It was one of my favorite classes at NNHS, not because of the material but because of the people in the class. I felt comfortable being around and talking to every one of the 19 other students, which is not something that I've ever felt in a class before or since. For those reasons it bothers me that I don't know these people anymore. They are all excellent people, and they all proved that over the course of that semester. The ones I can see in the picture are Lauren Englehorn (standing, horizontal stripes), Larry Christian (standing, far right), Sean Fraser (behind Larry), Matt Johnson (wearing glasses), Ben Johnson (head blocking streamer), and Colleen Collins (seated, eating). Oops, I missed one (sorry Kate). Kate Cleland is the other seated female, the one in the middle of the picture. All these people are presumably somewhere doing something, but generally speaking I don't know.
This is from the 1991 Math Awards Night at NNHS. The five then-freshmen pictured are (from left) Darshan Mehta, Umair Qadeer, Amit Goel, Peter Breen, and me. Yes, folks, that's really Breen in the white shirt. I know he looks about 10, but it's really him. (He looks much older now.)
This is part of a group that went to UIC in 1992 to take a chemistry test. I took third on the test, which meant that some nice people at Nalco gave me $1000 to take chem courses here at UIUC. (They don't know I failed 109.) Umair (white shirt, back to camera) took fifth. This would be the last time I ever beat Umair in chemistry. Also pictured are Amy Potter (at left), Eric Whisler (partially obstructed by Umair), Andy Binkowski (at right), and Peter Breen (in the hat). The background looks like Naperville Central, so I think we must have gone with the Redhawks (or the then-Redskins).
Well, lookee here. It's Mister Breen himself. Breen got mad at me when the only picture I had of him on here was that one from 1991. This is from 1992, and he's a little older. I hope he's happier now that he has so much exposure on this page.
This is Dan Sachs. Imposing, isn't he? He doesn't always have that "I'm pissed off ... at YOU." look. He looks good like that on this page, though; he makes a nice buffer between Breen and Angela.
This is Angela. Angela Scavello. It's really a good picture of her, except it's a little bleached. I really like that sweater she's wearing. (She knows this, and she likes it, too.) It's a realistic picture; it's what she looks like (or at least what she looked like then, which was probably around February 1995).
In the background of this picture is a very important item: a Naperville Community Unit School District 203 bus. It carries the Huskies and Redhawks to all their extra-curricular events (well, almost). This one brought a varsity softball team to Glenbard South; that's a Huskie batter swinging through a pitch.




Ah, softball. One of my most-loved extra-curriculars at NNHS was keeping the book for the softball team, something my basketball statistician friend Mara filled in for me after I left. These pictures show different phases of the game. On the far right is Coach Williams, currently varsity coach at NNHS, studying the play. Left of that is Theresa Higgins (if that's a #13, and I think it is) sliding into second base at Glenbard East. The next two are of catcher Jennifer Korbas, squatting at Glenbard East and then sliding for a popped-up ball. The far left is the aftermath of the game, where the coaches and plaers attempt to console one another for misdeeds and congratulate one another on jobs well done. I think I know who is crying in that picture, but I'm going to ask her to look at the picture first before I post her name.
In 1991, Comiskey Park opened. At the same time, the White Sox's previous ballpark, Comiskey Park, was slated for demolition. For those who remember the old park fondly, this is a painful image: a picture taken from the new park of the old park being torn down.
Welcome to the Naperville North High School Library. That's what this is, folks. Of course, it looks a little better now then it did in June 1991 when I took this picture of it, but it was one of the undertakings of the 1992 Construction Project at Naperville North.


Ah, basketball. To be specific, the 1994 East Aurora Sectional Final between the #1 Naperville Central Redhawks and the #2 Naperville North Huskies. Just thinking about this game wears me out. On the left we see Naperville Central's Mike Burke (#50) attempting a jump shot, along with a bit of the crowd and most of the players. This was as intense a basketball game as I have ever witnessed, and it shows a little bit on the face of Huskies coach Mark Lindo (center), squatting among his players during a time-out in the fourth quarter, his team down and a sectional title on the line in the building where he was once a student. Naperville North went 5-0 in that gym that year, but it took triple overtime to knock off the Redhawks 76-60 and allow the Huskies to hoist the Sectional plaque (right) and Jason Buckley (#51) to grin with delight.
The one on the left is me. It's in 1991, but it's me, with my head blocking cobalt. The one on the right is "The Man," as he was affectionately referred to by several of his competitors (and fellow coaches). Robert W. Martin, Jr. was the head math team coach at Naperville North High School from before leaving the Tennis team in 1982 until his death in a plane crash following the Penn State-Illinois football game, 12 November 1994. The program he built at Naperville North has thus far won three state titles: his only title as head coach in 1994, a state record the following year, and a surprise third win in 1996.The archives have a letter of recommaendation for Mr. Martin written by three of his students.

Like in the previous picture, I have my picture taken with a very important person. This time, though, I'm on the right. The person on my right is the best friend I have ever had. That picture was taken the night of the triple overtime game mentioned above. It was taken before the game, as Mara and I were both a little more disheveled afterwards. You can go read all about her in my file on her, so I won't reproduce it here. Suffice it to say that she is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met, and I am very glad that she is my friend. That said, she's going to be a little unhappy about the picture on the right. That's the same night at East Aurora. She's the one in the foreground with her back to the camera. For a while, this one was the only picture I had of her, because I had lost the other one. If you look closely in the background, you can see Naperville North Athletic Director Neil McCauley (to the right of my head, in the beige sweater, above the Huskie cheerleaders).

This page could not feign completeness (not that it does anyway) without some feline pictures. I took both of these, which partly explains the awkward orientations. The one on the left is Sylvester with his head in a bowl. Whatever I had been eating, he had decided to finish it. It's hard to tell what diretion is up; in fact the blankets are all on the floor (this was taken during one Spring Break when I spent a week in a different bedroom of my house). The picture on the right is amazing solely by its existence. Chance and Sylvester (right to left) were never very amicable cats (see felines.html), and this is the only time I ever remember them both being on that shelf on which Chance had traditionally eaten. After this incident, Sylvester ate on the shelf while arthritic Chance stayed on the floor. I'm sorry Sylvester's eyes are closed and that neither of them are looking at me, but I didn't have a lot of time to wait to take this picture.
There should be more to come, as long as I can find (a) pictures, (b) a scanner, and (c) disk space. Any suggestions on how to improve this page (or reorder it) are most welcome.
![[9]](picture/31.gif)
At any time, click the 9 button to send me
mail. Click the pound sign at any time to return to the top page.