About me

edit

By profession I am an astronomer, by avocation a musician. I registered my Wikipedia account in late 2007, and have made few contributions so far. However, I think Wikipedia is a grand concept, and look forward to contributing as I am able. Generally you'll find me in the vicinity of astronomical and musical articles, but I enjoy writing and will happily help stamp out typos, clumsy sentences, and vandalized items wherever I find them.

My research focuses on the Sun and Sun-like stars, and you can find some references and professional links at http://www.lowell.edu/users/jch.

My musical tastes range from Gregorian chant to avant garde 20th century works. I very much enjoy some, but dislike most, rock and pop. My favorite composer is Bach, and as an organist, I especially enjoy listening to and playing his organ works. Find my synthesizer realizations of Bach and many others, with free MP3s for your downloading pleasure, at http://www.flagmusic.com.

When not doing astronomy or music, I enjoy mountain biking, Web design and programming, CGI multimedia development, and reading. I enjoy computer games like Civilization or Flight Simulator; I can't stand the brainless shoot-em-ups.

To contact me by email, send a message to jeff at flagmusic dot com.

General stuff

edit
PhDThis user has a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Astronomy.
 This user contributes using Microsoft Windows.
 This user prefers Mozilla Firefox.
 This user plays the
pipe organ.
 This user plays the synthesizer.
  This user makes electronic music on a home computer. Listen here.
  This user enjoys watching the weather.
C2This user rows on a Concept2 rowing machine.
 This user is a bicyclist.

Conan the Grammarian says

edit
ANAL 4This user advocates good grammar usage.
they
he or she
This user considers the singular they to be substandard English usage.
A, B, and CThis user prefers the serial comma.
its & it'sThis user understands the difference between its and it's. So should you.
byThis user does not use the passive voice.
which & thatThis user knows how to use which and that correctly.
,This user fixes comma-splices; they are annoying.
. TheThis user does not put two spaces after a full stop.
man-
kind
Regarding gender, this user prefers the vernacular, not what is politically correct.

Geek status

edit
xhtmlThis user can write XHTML.
 
This user can write Cascading Style Sheets.
LaTeXThis user can typeset using LaTeX.
JavaThis user can program in Java.
mysqlThis user writes programs that access MySQL.
PHPThis user can code PHP.
 This user can program in JavaScript.
CThis user can program in C.