User Portlet

I am a game designer: for more than thirty years, I have been creating adventure games. Not the things that you play on a computer, but tabletop things that engage players through social and intellectual effort. These games range from military simulations (war-games) like Chaco (chronicling the war between Bolivia and Paraguay 1932-36), or Raphia (the ancient battle between Antiochus III and Ptolemy IV in 217 BCE), to science-fiction games, to tabletop miniatures games, to role-playing games (not Dungeons & Dragons, but like that), and even card games.

Its a fun life and I enjoy it.

But there's more. I am a consumer rather than a producer of music, but I think music has mountains of benefits for those who pursue it. My contribution is working with the Pratt Music Foundation to provide quality music instruction (in strings or piano) to students (grades K through 12) with talent, motivation, and a financial need. We've been doing this for almost twenty years, and this year provided these lessons (they cost the Foundation $35,000 for the year) to thirty deserving students.

Along the way, we discovered that these students had trouble even renting the instruments they needed, so we created Share The Music: an instrument recycling program that accepts used instruments, refurbishes them, and lends them at basically no cost to students in public school music programs. The street value of these non-rentals to about a hundred students was $50,000.

Both these programs are volunteer-driven, so they are basically without administration or fund-raising costs. Every dollar that comes in supports program.

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