I was a founding member of the Bluegrass Extension Service, a 4-5-person band which played about 1,000 gigs between 1972 and 1998. After starting on banjo from 1972-78, I moved to rhythm guitar and sang lead and occasional tenor. We did a mixture of traditional bluegrass with more "modern" songs we liked, set to bluegrass instrumentation and with vocal harmonies featuring 2-4 male voices (in early years) and two male voices and one female voice (later years).
I want to make some of our music from the 1980's available to people who used to listen to the band, without violating copyrights. I've added a username/password to the links below, so if you'd like to click on one (or all) of them, you need to get the username and password from me. To do that, just email me with who you are and when you knew the band, and, for example, something about where you heard us play and when, and I'll be happy to send you the information, on the condition that you not distribute it further.
We cut our only album ("The Bluegrass Extension Service: First Time Out") in the late 70s, selling it out within about a year. We stopped playing regularly in the mid-90's, when our last banjo player left the area. Thanks to Pat and Tim Oren, who listened to the band in the 70's, for converting the original LP album to a CD and sending it to me so I could put it up! I've just reformatted them as MP3s.Chuck MacCluer, the BGES fiddle player, recently converted several Bluegrass Extension Service gig tapes to CDs, and I just went through and cut them up into individual songs, formatted in MP3. You can find some of these songs (" here").
We started another album in the early 80's, and (" here") are some cuts from it (.MP3 format).
I was president of Mid-Michigan Flight, Inc., a corporation which owned and operated a Mooney M20E "Super 21" aircraft, from 1980 - 1999. I am a commercial pilot with an instrument rating. Since my retirement, I have taken up flight simulation, and am beginning that adventure in a simulated Mooney. What fun! Thanks to former colleague Ed Rothwell for getting me started with flight simulation!
Before my son was born, I used to participate in USSA Citizens ski racing. I've given that up for a while, and now play tennis regularly. I started in leagues organized by Vik Shah, then added one run by Barry Horne, and now happily play with a group coordinated by Carol Regnier.
For a few years (1994-97 or so) I sometimes spent some winter evenings, occasionally even with my son, David, working on model railroading in our basement, and I occasionally get back to that -- and hope to do it again actively at some point in the future. Some pictures of our very-much-under-construction railway are here.
I started scuba diving in
A video I made from my dives in Chac Mool cenote is HERE. I made this one before I earned my Cavern Diver certification, so was only wearing a single tank at this time.
A video from some reef dives I made in Cozumel is HERE.
My son played for several years on a
premier soccer team for the
