Russell Thompson:  

The "significantly abridged" version: After leaving West Aurora HS, I spent four interesting, but uneventful years in college. After getting my undergraduate degree, I went on to Iowa State University Mathematics Dept. where I was working on my PhD. In the second year of the program, I suddenly realized how much I hated the world of pure mathematics, and lost interest in all my studies. I left the program, and that summer I enrolled at NIU in Dekalb, in the Dept. of Library and Information Science. I spent two very happy years absorbing my studies in Information Science. After a brief summer working at Argonne Labs in Illinois, I moved to north central Pennsylvania (Williamsport) where I lived and worked for 16 years. While in Pennsylvania, I met and married my wife, and we had two wonderful daughters who are now in their teens. In 1999, I moved back to Illinois from Pennsylvania, when I landed a job with a much larger automation firm. While I miss the Philadelphia area very much, it's really good to be home in the Chicago area (living in Schaumburg, IL). My current listing of 10 favorite novels -- unranked (but my choices change often): Brin, David. Brightness Reef. (1995) Mann, Thomas. Buddenbrooks. (1901...Expand for more