Personal Stuff

Family

• Here is a picture of our two sons (December 26, 2005), and an older one with some friends (April 7, 2004).
• Here is a movie and some slides on the Welch family history.
• Check out my beautiful new nephew, Gianni Matthew Squillace.
• There are some family and friend pictures on my wife Linda's home page.
• My father (John F. Welch) founded and is President/CEO of Sofia Violins. The violins are hand made, with the initial work done in Sofia Bulgaria, and the finish work done in Indianapolis, Indiana (USA). On January 17, 2006, he was named Global Business Person of the Year by the World Trade Club of Indiana. Here is the short bio they give for him. Also in January the IndyStar had a nice article on him titled "Enterprising businessman knows no borders" (on-line version here). In the Indiana Economic Digest in November of 2005 there was an article on how an "Indianapolis violinmaker finds success by raising prices". (There is also an on-line version of the article.)
• In this 2004 Fresh Air story on Steve Lacy you can hear a 1954 recording of Dick Sutton's Conception band, in which my father plays trombone (including a solo). The music is about 10 minutes into the program. In case you can't play the Real Audio stream, here is an MP3 version of the Fresh Air program, and here is the part with Dick Suttons's Conception band (in which my father plays).
• My mother is retired, but in recent years work as a computer programmer with the Marion County Justice Agency. Her career (besides being the world's best mother) goes all the way back to her first job at Argonne National Labs. It was (needless to say) unusal to find female mathematicians/computer programmers in such places.
• My aunt and uncle are Professors of Economics at St. Louis Community College and St. Louis University (respectively). My aunt is also the Mayor of their town (Webster Grove, MO), in her spare time....

Entertainment

• I like to travel to interesting places when I can. I stopped updating this aspect of the page some years ago (and continue to travel a lot since), but if you are interested you can see some photos, etc. from a December 2005 trip to New Zealand, a November 2005 trip to Monterey, CA (VRST 2005, pictures include students Danette Allen and Adriana Braun), a March 2005 trip to Germany; a December 2004 trip to Japan (Tokyo) and China (Shanghai and Hangzhou); a November 2001 trip to Banff (with my wife Linda); and an October 2002 trip to Beijing. From the 2002 Beijing trip I like this picture. Ruigang tells me that I looked like a friendly westerner so they wanted my picture. (I think they confused me with Tom Cruise.)
• Here is "Snag" the movie from my sister Edie's graduation ceremony (May 12, 2002). The funny thing was (if I have to point it out) that almost everyone's gown was catching on the hand railing as they descended the stairs from the stage. This was welcome entertainment while sitting through the reading of hundreds of names of graduates.
• I like reading a certain genre of mysteries that turn out to have women authors. I have read everything written by Agatha Christie and Josephine Tey, and am working on P.D. James and others recommended by my mother and friends. I also enjoy some early American history such as Undaunted Courage and Sea of Glory.
• Here is an example of what too much TV can do to (for?) you.
• Having said that, I do indeed enjoy watching This Old House, Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop, NOVA, all on PBS. I used to enjoy Mystery with Hercule Poirot, Inspector Morse, Hetty Wainthropp, etc., but I don't particularly care for the new, darker and more real-life themes. I try and catch Poirot et al. on A&E now when they are on.
• I even met my TV idol Norm Abram, co-host of This Old House and host of New Yankee Workshop (PBS).
• I like to (have to!) work on our cars in my "spare" time.
• I also like working on simple wood projects such as this train table and these other projects.
• If I could find reruns of The Avengers, I'd never get anything done. Ack! I found tapes and DVDs. My productivity will surely decline.... Here's a nice article on the series. Occasionally I indulge in Perry Mason reruns too.