An Introduction - of sorts!

Hi All,

My Name is Joanie and I reside on the left coast of the U.S. in a smallish town of about 140,000. (Small for the basic metropolitan area I reside in that is!) I am a liberal conservative in some respects. Believe me when I say that the previous is not mutually exclusive, as I am very conservative when it comes to governmental/private finances but with a liberal social policy in many regards. The reason for this? In 1969, after undergoing a severe period of depression and anxiety, I was diagnosed with severe Gender Identity Disorder. I started off my life as Jack, but have now moved on to the opposite side of the gender divide and am a much happier individual for doing so.

My interests are amateur astronomy, HAM Radio, electrology (licensed n my state of residence), jewelry making, Celtic music, and fine woodworking.

My past work experience has been one of starting off as an apprentice general machinist for one of California's largest aerospace manufacturers, moving into quality control for flight hardware, programming numerical data bases for digital design, NC machining and automated Coordinate Measurement Machines (CMM) programming. Later positions included Quality Engineer for electromechanical flight control systems. I have worked extensively with radar and laser target acquisition systems and weapons platforms. I have extensive past experience with quality inspection, test, and qualification of new large frame aircraft and was a key player in many FAA Standard Type Certificates (STC's) for many of the U.S. manufactured commercial air transports, as well as various military transport, fighter, surveillance, and special purpose airframes and modifications thereof.

A lower back injury in 1995 put an end to my career in aerospace, but I have also worked in the capitol equipment industry, for the hard drive media manufacturers, and done extensive technical writing in both aerospace and related manufacturing disciplines.

Anyway, I am interested in religion, ideology, semantics, and the way that they inflict xenophobia and bigotry into the cultures that they infest. My hope is that someday mankind can surpass ore values that engender these paradigms, moving on toward core beliefs that are life affirming at their core, and get past a lot of the historical attitudes that have divided mankind for so long. We are a the culmination of our individual cultures histories and I, like Loreena McKennitt, firmly believe that there is more of history with the potential to unite mankind, than to tear us asunder.

My best regards to all,
Joanie