RioRico

About Me

My name is Ric, born near Los Angeles around 1950, ran off to San Francisco to be a hippie in 1967, played guitar on many North American streetcorners till I settled down around 1980. I've variously been a liberal arts student, street freak, day laborer, bicycle messenger, plant hunter, songwriter, radio engineer, military photographer and medic, project librarian, software engineer, and landlord, among other things. Now I live below Lake Tahoe, California, but mostly travel, driving around Mexico and Central America.

I started playing with electronics around 1960, with computers around 1975, and with big commercial software systems around 1980. (I'll confess: I wrote COBOL programs for a major insurance company.) I built my first microcomputer from a kit around 1980 (Heathkit H8) and have been online ever since. Most of my network presence consists of cynical, skeptical writings about culture, conspiracies, and the paranormal. I am otherwise interested in electronic music and composition, fretted instruments, Native American pottery, recumbent bicycles, hard science fiction, experimental photography, desert wildflowers, cartography, and accumulating books. I avoid television.

I started editing on Wikipedia in early January 2007. As of 4 July 2007, I've mostly contributed articles about characters and publication of the American Southwest, including Harry Oliver, Desert Rat Scrap Book, Lost Ship of the Desert, and Calico Print. Future articles will likely be on similar subjects.