I am responsible for acquisition, installation, and maintenance of the computers in the Boston University Astronomy Department and Center for Space Physics. I have been working here since 1982. When I arrived we had one HP-85 computer. We now have a fairly large network of about two hundred machines.

   I graduated from Blair Academy, a college preparatory school, in 1974. While it took me only three years to complete Blair's four year program, college took me rather longer... I began my career at Indiana University (Bloomington campus) by enrolling in the Music School, pursuing a degree in piano performance. I eventually became dissatisfied with the career possibilities, so I transferred to the School of Arts & Sciences. Unfortunately none of my credits transferred with me. I eventually received a Bachelor of Science degree in Astrophysics in 1980. I completed most of the coursework toward a Master's degree in Astronomy here at BU but ran out of enthusiasm before completing my thesis. During my studies I discovered I had a certain knack for computers, and decided to aim my career in that direction. It seemed a more reasonable career for me than either music or astrophysics.

   My main hobbies are sports, music and reading. I enjoy playing intramural sports here at BU - I play football, basketball, and softball.  We have won at least four (they run together after a while) intramural football championships: the men's division we play in as well as the three co-rec championships. In 1997 our co-rec team was invited to play in a tournament in Syracuse, New York, which was great fun even though we lost.  Apparently I started playing football at a rather young age.  Our last championship was the co-rec football championship in the Fall of 2001.

    Cindy and I have picked up SCUBA diving.  We have some SCUBA related pictures on our cable account page here.  (You will also be pleased to find more pictures of our animals.)

   We also love animals - we currently have two cats and one parakeet. Our first two cat's have now both passed away: they were named Robert and Clara after Robert and Clara Schumann (husband and wife, not brother and sister).   Our younger pair of cats, Ramses and Isis, are also brother and sister.  They were named in honor of our spring 2006 trip to Egypt.  We've recently adopted another cat, who we call Horus to stick with the Egyptian theme. Horus is a giant - when we adopted him he weighed 21 pounds. We hope to help him lose a bit of that, but he will always be a big cat. One striking thing (to us, anyway) is that except for the size thing Horus looks very much like Robert and Clara.

   All the cats have enjoyed sitting on the birdcage. The birds in the pictures are Franz (Liszt - a female) and Frederic (Chopin).  If you want to know the sad story of what became of our old budgie Frederic, click here. The parakeet we bought to replace Frederic was called Felix (Mendelssohn) - he was green and yellow.  Felix has also now passed away.  The birds love screeching along with our playing - they think they are songbirds.  One of the things we love about our home in Marlborough is that we live near a forest. We have many bird feeders set up and as a result we have a large number of birds living with us.  Occasionally see hawks flying overhead as well as deer and other smaller animals (like this woodchuck) in the yard. (Incorrect identification of woodchuck as muskrat identified by Tom Martin of Western Carolina University - thanks.)

   I have also enjoyed our occasional group outings to launch model rockets, which we call Rocket Day. Here's me with a smaller member of our fleet.    In the summer of 1998 we got to see the world's strongest men compete in Michigan, which was a blast. Here's me with a man ESPN addicts will recognize as the four-time world champion Magnús Ver Magnússon.

Here's a link back to my home page.

By the way, all of this stuff (text, pictures, sounds) is Copyright David Bradford, and All Rights are Reserved.