This is my life story from my ~20s. All the good
stuff happened on the first page - its been garbage since then.
In the fall of 2000, I entered graduate school at Johns Hopkins University, in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy for a PhD program in Astrophysics (M.A. September 2002) . Since my arrival in Baltimore, I have had the good fortune to hold a Research Assistantship with the Sounding Rocket Group, working for Dr. Stephan McC. and Professor Paul F. In February 2001, we launched our rocket experiment aboard NASA/JHU 36.198 to observe the reflection nebula IC 405 in ultraviolet light, and I guided the rocket in real time from a control station to make the observation.
When I first moved to Baltimore, I took up residence in Charles Village, living in a one bedroom place on the 4th floor (no elevator). I liked it there and stayed for two years, but eventually got tired of being aggrssively harrassed by homeless people, turning over half of my salary to rent, and it got sort of lonely; so I picked up and headed to Hampden. In August 2002, Marin R. and I moved over to West 40th Street, into a newly almost-remodeled house. Hampden is alot like rural parts of West Virginia, except in rowhouses instead of double-wide trailers. We were soon joined by Sean, (also Marin's boyfriend) on 40th St. and we spent roughly the next 18 months pirating phone service from the RoFo around the corner, building snow forts to jump off of our roof onto, and generally observing our insane neighbors. In March 2003, Sean and I founded S.K.I Brewing (Sean and Kevin International), and have been producing the best hand-crafted beers this side of the Milky Way since then. When the house was leaking on all floors with no sign of repair by our cheap, irresponsible, and criminally negligent landlord Perry Petrosillo, we abandoned ship. I headed further north-west to scenic Medfield.
Since joining the P&A department, I have started annual camping trips, ski weekends, and annually reprise my role as Santa's Helper Elf, Kelfin, during the department Holiday Party. Starting in September 2003, I joined Sundar, Erik, and Gabe to form IGwAD 3.0 (Indian Guy With American Dreams). We have been performing weekly at fine venues around Charm City, lending our "unique" perspective to everything from Bjork to Billy Ray Cyrus. When not being an imitation rock star, I spent the fall of 2003 being an imitation Rocket Scientitst, traveling to various NASA/military facilities testing our latest rocket payload. In December, we launched successfully from White Sands Missile Range to observe the gamma-Cassiopiae / IC 63 system, and I was again responsible for real time manuevers.
On a rainy Tuesday in October, I decided that Mr. was no longer grown-up sounding enough, so I became Dr. Kevin Freedom, five years and two months (almost to the day) after arriving in Baltimore. My PhD thesis was titled "Far-Ultraviolet Molecular Hydrogen Fluorescence in Photodissociation Regions", it reported on the observations we had made with rockets and FUSE. Emily and my parents braved the "Blizzard of Jane Lew' to be there for the talk and the party. The defense went pretty well, so I am now overqualified to work at Wendy's, even in a managerial capacity. I stayed on at Hopkins as a postdoctoral fellow for the next few months while I applied for jobs that would liberate me from The City That Reads.
The old crowd still gets together once or twice a year and I have begun a quest to hike in every Maryland State Park that offers it.
Page 3: The lands of polar bears (Toronto) & Subarus (Boulder):
