Perspicuity

About Craig Swanson

• I have an awesome 15 year-old son
• I have a wonderful wife (married Sept 16, 1995)
• I juggle -- I am a mediocre 5 ball juggler, now learning 6 & 7
• I love to draw -- but you could probably have figured that out
• I love to write -- see above
• I love to read -- I've got too many books (but see no problem with that)
• I play harmonica quite well; my guitar playing, on the other hand, is too simplistic and boring for my taste; I am teaching myself how to play piano
• This is what I look like in my Make Way for Dumplings Perspicui-tee shirt
• I memorized T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland -- with great annoyance to my friends.
• I have also memorized (among other things):
  • elements of the periodic table,
  • the Presidents of the United States,
  • the Best Picture for each year,
  • all 115 Supreme Court Justices, and
  • I can draw a map of the U.S., one state at a time, in order of acceptance into the Union, freehand
  • I can draw all of the countries in Africa, also freehand
  (I'm studying to be an idiot savant.)
• I love playing games and puzzles (especially Puerto Rico, Texas Hold'em, Go and Cryptic Crosswords)
• I enjoy graphics programming
• I watch far too many Red Sox games
• In my day job (at BEA) I manage a team of people who develop courses for people who use BEA products
• I was born at 11:30 in the morning in Ridgewood, New Jersey on 26th May, 1961
• I learned my first significant lesson about justice in first grade. Whenever any of us were caught eating candy Mrs. Breece would always say "Did you bring enough for the whole class?" We would inevitably say no and she would make us walk to the front of the room and throw the candy away. Well one day I went into the drug store before school and bought an enormous amount of Big Buddy bubble gum -- enough for the whole class. So during one of our reading lessons I deliberately took out some gum and began chewing. Since I was quite prepared for what would happen next, I chewed less surreptitiously than I might otherwise have. As I expected, she interrupted the lesson, asked me what I was chewing, I said gum, she said "Do you have enough for the whole class?" Dumping out the bag of bubble gum on my desk I said "Why, yes I do, Mrs. Breece." She promptly made me throw it all away in front of the class.
• I love to teach stuff
• This is what I look like in my Anatomy of a Clown cartoon tee shirt
• I go out to eat far too often
• I live in Malden, Massachusetts
• I (used to) drink one cappuccino at the Someday Cafe every morning and often one in the evenings. Now that it closed in mid-August, you can find me at the Diesel Cafe
• I am teaching myself music. I whistle and play harmonica in a band, and am learning piano.