A few facts of life not found on my CV

I was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland, on July 1, 1952. I grew up there.

In middle and high school I founded and directed a theater group called "Fantasio". We put up one or two plays a year. Our biggest success was Arthur Miller's "All my sons."

I spent three years in Hong Kong, teaching French at the Alliance Française. I married a Chinese woman named Anita Lau.

We lived in Denver for two years, and then back in Geneva where I attended the university.

After that, Anita went her own way. We are still good friends.

I moved to California in 1982 to pursue graduate studies at the University of California, Irvine.

There I met Paula Hull. We quickly fell in love. We danced on the beach, listening to our walkman. We meditated in the sunset. We got married on June 19, 1983. We have been together ever since.

We lived in Irvine for three years, then moved to Silicon Valley, where I joined the newly-founded Institute for Research on Learning in January 1987.

We lived in the village of Portola Valley for two years.

We now live in North San Juan, California. Way out in the boonies, on twenty acres of forest.

You probably never heard of it. It only has a few hundred inhabitants. It is in the northern section of what is known as the "Gold Country" (where the gold rush took place), near the twin cities of Grass Valley and Nevada City.

We have three children: Jad, Sheena, and Kehan. They are living jewels.

I studied the classical guitar and music theory. But now I mostly play the piano. I am not very good, but I like to improvise. My style is halfway between baroque and cheap tearjerker movie music. Nothing you necessarily would want to hear. But it is fun.