Pick-A-Day

March 2024
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About Adam

Me on the Beach!

Gulf of Mexico, Alabama, USA

Hi!

Thanks for visiting my blog and website, I really do appreciate the fact that you’re taking the time to read this.

I’m an American, currently living in Berlin, Germany, which, since I am a foreigner living in a foreign land, makes me an expatriate. However, I am not an ex-patriot.

My roots are stateside: I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, attending public school: Park Hill Elementary School, Smiley Middle School, and George Washington High School. If I were European, this information would be critically important and people would judge me based upon which school I attended – and this information would be prominently located on my CV.

But I’m not, so it’s not on my CV.

With the Buddy Bears

With the Berlin Buddy Bears

What is on my CV is the fact that I attended the University of Wyoming, located in Laramie, Wyoming, USA. There I earned a BA in Political Science with an Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) concentration, graduating in 1996. Since I hadn’t had enough, I turned right around and earned an MA in Political Science, this time with an Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) minor.

My Master’s thesis was devoted to Project Wagon Wheel, a proposal by the US Government to use nuclear bombs to extract natural gas out of tight sandstone formations by detonating nuclear bombs underground. Wells were drilled and used for testing in New Mexico and Colorado, where the proposals were met with (generally speaking) open arms. The people of Sublette County, Wyoming, were not so enthusiastic. You can read more about this project if you’re interested.

The summer after earning my BA, I dealt with a critical issue concerning myself: I admitted to myself that I was gay. But I didn’t actually do anything substantial with this information until the fall of 1998, after moving to Bloomington, Indiana. It was there, while starting work on a PhD (which, ultimately, was never finished) that I started telling large numbers of people that I was gay, saying something that others might have known, but I would never have previously admitted.

Berlin Wall: Taking The Piss

Peeing on the Berlin Wall. In Las Vegas.

Matthew Shepard was murdered that fall – hands down one of the most profound events in my life. I know it didn’t actually happen to me, but it hit me like a truck, shattering me in a way that I’d never been shattered before, or since. I literally crawled into my closet and cried. His death was a transformational moment for me: it accelerated my coming out process and it profoundly affected how I approached any number of things, including teaching.

In 2004, I moved to Germany. It’s hard to really explain why, but I ended up in Weimar, a smaller, East German, city located in the state of Thüringen. I lived there for six fantastic years, enjoying the people and the community.

In 2010, after my time in Weimar came to a natural conclusion, I moved to Berlin and took up what I can only describe as my dream job, in a dream environment. I feel incredibly lucky that every day I get to live, work, and play in Berlin – crossing over the wall at least twice a day – as I live in the former West but work in the former East.

My free time is usually well occupied: After work I tend to hit the gym, read books, and hang out. Vacations take me further afield: United States, United Kingdom, Armenia, Prague, Kiev, and more. Listing them all here would make me sound like a prat. Needless to say, I love flying.

Before I sign out, I must say thanks—I really am grateful that people take the time to read what I write. There’s no one steady theme to my blog; I cover lots of random topics, depending upon what I am doing, where I am, and what’s in the news. Surely my inconsistency can be a bit aggravating, but it reflects my mind: I’m never on any one topic for too long.

Adam