Who am I?
My 15 minutes
of fame
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Who am I? |
My 15 minutes of fame |
Idaho roots
Seattle
Where I stand
Household tips
Contact me
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My name is Eric Pence, and I am a husband, a father, and a web programmer. I could be described as a classic, aging, baby-boomer but I have
tried to stay current with the new things that have evolved in my lifetime (in my mind sometimes I am still 20-something), and my career
reflects this attitude. Throughout my life I have been fascinated by new and developing things. This influenced me to major in engineering when
I started college in 1966, and my active involvement in performing music ultimately lead to contemporary jazz, the most experimental form of
improvisational music. See my Music page for more on this. In the 1980s I became very interested in
another "new" thing—computers—and took up programming. Like most programmers at that time I started out working on a mainframe, but
I soon realized that I wanted something more challenging, and my career ultimately lead to web development. See my Programming page for more on this.
Having a website is the ultimate expression of many of my interests, and I enjoy it so much that in my job as a web programmer I feel like I get paid to do something I would do for fun! |
 My wife, Patti
Rosenfield, is a Nurse Practitioner, and we live in Hingham, Massachusetts, a coastal community south of Boston, where we have a beautiful, old, Victorian
shingle-style house.
We have two grown sons, Alex, who currently lives
in Malden, MA, and Ben, who is a student at George Washington University in Washington, DC. At home we have two cats, Mandy and Pepper,
and a dog, Hayley. See the Gallery page for pictures
of all of us, including the animals.
I work for Safety Insurance in the financial district in Boston, Massachusetts (see my building) and to get to work, I take a commuter boat—a pleasant half-hour trip—during which I usually read or chat with
friends (and sometimes have a little excitement!). The Boston Globe did a comparison of commuting from the South Shore by car, boat, train, and Red Line, and not surpisingly,
the boat came out on top. When I arrive at work in the morning or at home in the evening I am rested and relaxed, a very different state than
that of many suburban commuters, who drive their cars in the intense, bumper-to-bumper, rush-hour traffic. In my opinion, I have the best of
both worlds—a nice, peaceful, safe environment for my home and family, and the daily adventure of being in a great city.
Times have certainly changed since I was a kid. For several years, my mother has been using email from her home in Boise, Idaho, to help stay in touch with her children and grandchildren, who all live thousands of miles from her. Alex also communicated with us from boarding school his freshman year using another online method. He went to the Dialpad.com website on his PC in his dorm room, and using a headset he was able to place free (at that time) long-distance phone calls to our home phone number. Now he has a cellphone, which greatly helps us stay in touch with him. When Ben (who also has a cellphone) was away at camp one summer (French Woods) he used email with us (email at camp?) instead of the telephone or hand written letters. Ben also has a great website of his own. Family dynamics have also changed a lot in my lifetime, and they are effected by much more than just new technology. Here is an article I saw in the Boston Globe, "Raising a Perfect Child", that presents an interesting view of parenting today. There are links to more parenting articles on the Articles page. |
 I grew up in Payette, Idaho (this map shows
you that Idaho's in the Northwest, not the Midwest) and I lived there until I finished high school in 1966 (see my PHS reunion page). My great-grandfather, Peter Pence, was one of the pioneers of the town (there is more Payette history here). My cousin Bob assembled a Pence family tree, starting with Peter's
son (my grandfather). Payette's claim to fame is that baseball Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew grew up there. Here's an interesting juxtaposition, my childhood home in 1963 and 2005 (the recent photo taken by my friend Barbara Wilson). Following high school I went to the University of Idaho, where I majored in mechanical engineering, partly because my high
school guidance counselor pointed me in that direction and partly because I thought that when I got out of college as an engineer I could avoid
the draft. After my first 
year of college I went to Atlanta, Georgia, with my brother for a summer job selling dictionaries door-to-door, which I did
for about 2 weeks before I decided that where I really wanted to be in the summer of 1967 (the "Summer of Love") was San Francisco. So I went out to the
highway, stuck out my thumb, and hitchhiked cross-country to California. I was only in the Bay Area for part of a summer, not really long enough
to consider it a place of residence (but I did see Haight-Ashbury during its cultural peak), so there is no San Francisco section on this bio
page. That fall I returned to college at the U of I for another year, after which I came to the conclusion that life would be more fun without
the responsibilities of school. In 1968 I moved to Seattle, Washington.
The classic Big Potato postard I saw as a child.
Some Idaho links...
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Seattle
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Beginning in 1968 I lived for 5 years in Seattle, Washington, a great city. You
might call those my "hippie" years, when I had long hair and lived a lifestyle emulating the values of that culture. I went to many
antiwar rallies and marches (see Where I stand), rock concerts and rock festivals (see 60s music). I have many fond memories of my years in Seattle, where I made few commitments and pretty much
focused on the here and now, living a lifestyle of hedonism.
Some Seattle links...
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Where I stand
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"I want to tell America to wake up to the fact that on December the 12th, five members
of the United States Supreme Court committed one of the biggest and most serious crimes
in American history when they stopped the recount in Florida, took the election away
from the American people, and handed it to George Bush."
— Vincent Bugliosi, in an interview on Court TV, June 1, 2001
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I was raised in a household similar to the one I have now, where my parents taught me values that I retain to this day (I will
always remember the impression that was made on me when my dad took us to see Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird,
Harper Lee's story of bravery and justice in small-town America) and I have hopefully passed these on to my sons—values
like integrity and charity, and a desire to participate in a kinder and gentler world.
I took this Political Compass
test (a brief explanation) and the results
show me as "Libertarian-Left", meaning I believe in social freedom and some economic regulation. Not
surprisingly, I am at the exact opposite setting on the compass to George W. Bush.
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| Adjust, don't conform |
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"Humaneness is one of the hallmarks of being a liberal." — Walter Cronkite |
| My social and political views are very liberal, which is the essence of logical thinking and humanitarian concerns. During my formative years in the 1960s I was mostly surrounded by people with the same values, but as I got older and moved away from the college setting I came to realize that I had been living in a somewhat sheltered environment, and in order to co-exist with some of the others I met whose views were very different from mine I would have to keep some of my opinions to myself (though I would not have to change my values). I thought this philosophy was stated very well in the slogan at the progressive New England boarding school my wife Patti attended, the Windsor Mountain School in Lenox, Massachusetts: "Adjust, don't conform." |
| Pacifism & resistance |
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"My pacifism is not based on any intellectual theory but on a deep antipathy to every form of cruelty and hatred." — Albert Einstein |
I have always been a pacifist but my commitment to my beliefs was really put to the test in 1969 during the Vietnam War when I became a draft
resister. Like millions of other Americans I opposed the war for political and moral reasons and participated in many antiwar marches and
rallies. After a couple of years of college I took some time off which resulted in the loss of my student deferment, and when I received my
draft notice I responded in the spirit of what we used to chant—"Hell no, we won't go!"—I
refused induction into the army. Taking this stand put my personal freedom in jeopardy
for a period of time, but finally, after an anxious year involving lawyers and an FBI investigation, I was able to put that episode behind me
and move on with my life. I was far from alone in my war resistance—the Justice Department identified 570,000 men who violated the draft
laws.
 My draft resistance – a serious and stressful episode in my life We Ain’t Marching Anymore – draft and military resistance to the Vietnam WarAn interview with a Vietnam draft resister 35 years later – this could be meA "fan" letter – from someone who does not agree with my views |
| War is immoral |
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"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who
hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
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War is a hostile and barbaric action that is the result of a total failure of diplomacy (or as Isaac Asimov put it,
"Violence is the diplomacy of the incompetent."). I
strongly oppose war and I do not support our leaders who get us into wars when they cannot work out problems with
other nations using non-violent methods. I do support the men and women in the armed forces because they are honorably
putting their lives at risk for the security of our country, and they are not responsible for the failure of our
leaders' diplomatic efforts. We have a military to protect our freedoms if our country is ever threatened or attacked
by another nation (which is why we call it the Department of "Defense"), but when our troops are sent to
preemptively attack the citizens of another nation on their own soil as we did in Iraq, we are invading them,
and I say, "Bring our troops home!"
War Resisters League – "There is no way to peace – peace is the way." Nonviolence.Org – "War is just a racket." – Major General Smedley Butler, USMC
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Four more years of this?
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"How did we reelect a sitting president who inherited a record budget surplus and turned it into a record deficit, who waged
a war against a nation that never attacked us on pretenses that ended up being indisputably wrong?"
— Brian McGrory, in The bitter aftertaste 1, November 5, 2004
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| As a result of the 2004 presidential election, I am deeply disappointed in the democratic process in this country. Like millions of Americans, I assumed that Bush's disastrous performance on Iraq and the economy would influence the voters to get rid of him. In his first term in office he proved himself to be one of the worst and most divisive presidents in U.S. history ("I'm a uniter, not a divider." Hah!). If you agree that Bush has no business being president and want to show some support for this cause, one of the things you can do is wear a COUNT ME BLUE wristband. |
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"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents more and more closely the inner soul of the people.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White
House will be adorned by a downright moron."
— H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
"Over 750 signing statements allowing him to ignore any new law he doesn't like? That's just grotesque"
— Mark Morford, in The Morning Fix, May 17, 2006
"A moment I've been dreading. George (Sr.) brought his n'er-do-well son ("W") around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida; the one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work." — Ronald Reagan, in The Reagan Diaries
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Here are some of Bush's achievements (a small portion of a much larger list)...
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"The Democrats' mistake was in thinking that a disastrous war, national bankruptcy, erosion of liberties, corporate takeover of government,
environmental destruction, squandering our economic and moral leadership in the world, and systematic administration lying would be of concern to
the electorate. The Republicans correctly saw that the chief concern of the electorate was to keep gay couples from having an abortion."
— a succinct summary of the 2004 presidential election
"Other than telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children and, now, die, I think the Republicans have done a fine job of getting government out of our personal lives." — Craig Carter, The Oregonian, April 10, 2005
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BushLies.net – dedicated to holding Bush accountable for his countless lies and deceptionsNRDC: The Bush Record – catering to industries that put America's health and natural heritage at riskMichaelMoore.com – the renowned anti-Bush activist17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists The Smirking Chimp – expresses so many of my viewsLetter To The Red States – written by a woman in NYCElection satire links – I'm not always seriousThe Beliefs of the GOPGeorge W. Bush resume – received in an email |
| Why America scares the world |
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"America first" became the motto of foreign policy, as Bush rejected international cooperation,
arm-control treaties, the Kyoto protocol, and the very model of using the U.S. military as "world police."
— Gabriel Ash
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| Bush is behaving like a schoolyard bully, and his rush to go to war in Iraq was outrageous and based on lies. He is the only President in U.S. history to attack a country which did not attack or even threaten to attack us first. Dubya has decided that a unilateral, preemptive attack on another nation, although illegitimate and a threat to international law, is an acceptable American foreign policy. Saddam was evil and unquestionably a threat to world security, but if the U.S. was in such imminent danger of attack from his regime with their WMDs, so imminent that we had to cease inspections and diplomacy and start bombing Iraq, why have no weapons been found? (This smacks of Joe McCarthy claiming he had a list of people in the government and military who were Communists, and although he instigated a huge witchhunt that ruined many lives, not a single Red was ever found.) The U.N.'s former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix compared the aggressive behavior of the U.S. and Britain to "medieval witch-hunters", saying "In the Middle Ages when people were convinced there were witches they certainly found them." The lack of evidence shows that all this talk about weapons was just hype by Dubya (and just having a president who is guided by his religious beliefs and ignoring evidence to the contrary is pretty scary!). |
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"Why are our young people fighting, dying, and killing in Iraq? What is this noble cause you are sending our
young people to Iraq for? What do you hope to accomplish there? Why did you tell us there were WMD's and ties to
Al Qaeda when you knew there weren't? Why did you lie to us? Why did you lie to the American people? Why did you
lie to the world? Why are our nation's children still in harm's way and dying everyday when we all know you
lied? Why do you continually say we have to 'complete the mission' when you know damn well you have no idea what
that mission is and you can change it at will like you change your cowboy shirts?"
— Cindy Sheehan, from Hypocrites and Liars, August 20, 2005
"Has Bush lied to us to lead us into a war that cost 2,000 to 3,000 Iraqi civilian lives, 5,000 to 20,000 Iraqi military deaths, according to some sources, and a few hundred American and British deaths, not to mention billions of dollars and a possibly great loss of credibility in foreign relations?" — Spencer Harris Morfit, in a letter to The Boston Globe, June 7, 2003
"For about $1 billion tax dollars a week we have continuing GI and Iraqi deaths in a place where there was no Al Qaeda, no connection to Al Qaeda, no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear program in place, at present no effective nation building, and no end in sight." — Mike Ryan, in a letter to The Boston Globe, July 23, 2003
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| With still more than 20 countries in the world having chemical and biological weapons or missiles, is the U.S. going to continue in this hostile pursuit and attack some of them? What is to keep those countries from responding to this threat of attack by striking at us first? How has the war in Iraq made the world a safer place? And now Bush, this brave man who went AWOL from the National Guard during Vietnam, has stuck out his chin and issued a dare to the Iraqi militants ("Bring 'em on."), which will only result in more American lives being lost. |
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"George W. Bush has lied about September 11, the Iraq war, the economy, his record as governor of Texas, his relationship
with corporate criminals, and his own military record. In short, he has lied day after day after day about all of the issues he
and his administration claim to hold dear."
— William Rivers Pitt, in Anyone But Bush, October 22, 2003
"We brutally invaded his unhappy nation and laid waste to it for absolutely no justifiable reason whatsoever, but finally Saddam Hussein has been captured alive, yay yay go team. With our outward display of savagery, new America-loathing terrorists are being spawned faster than BushCo's war machine can possibly keep up with them." — Mark Morford, in The Morning Fix, December 15, 2003
"And now, more than 1,300 U.S. soldiers have died and over 10,000 have been wounded and countless tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, women and children and families, have died, brutally, horribly, and the war is getting uglier, worse, more violent and out of control and increasingly controlled by guerrillas and astoundingly effective Shiite radicals and no one anywhere really knows why we're at war anymore. No one." — Mark Morford, in The Morning Fix, January 19, 2005
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Is the U.S. going to be a liberating force in the world, or a destabilizing one? In foreign relations Dubya definitely favors 'domination' over 'leadership'.
As Senator Kerry said, what we need is a "regime change" in Washington.
 The Arrogant Empire – Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, March 24, 2003The coming crisis of American imperialism – Gabriel Ash, YellowTimes.org, March 6, 2002The Cost of the War in Iraq – the total cost, the cost in your community; in comparison to other programsWaterboarding – Bush endorses this interrogation technique |
| Liberties & rights |
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"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, that you can't even passively take part; and you've got to indicate to the people who run it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" |
| It is everybody's right to live free of arbitrary, unnecessary rules, and we should all be able to openly express
our personal freedoms. Unfortunately, we do need laws to protect these freedoms because not everybody is respectful
of the rights of others, but if you want to engage in a non-harmful activity there should be no law restricting you.
Free Speech Movement ArchivesHuman Rights Campaign – working for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights |
Wedding distractions – Brian McGrory, The Boston Globe¹, 2/13/2004
Where Is My Gay Apocalypse? – Mark Morford, SFGate, 3/5/2004
Human Rights Watch: Women's RightsA Woman's Right to Choose – at the Center for Reproductive Rights
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun ViolenceThe ACLU on Gun Control Rants
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"People who think they know everything are annoying to those of us who do." — Isaac Asimov |
| So far I've said where I stand on some of the important issues of the day. Here are some things that may be less important, but they are still annoying. |
National Do Not Call RegistryState "Do Not Call" ListsFight spam – my own how-to section
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"If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."
— On a sign in a non-smoking area
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Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)CDC's Tobacco Information and Prevention Source (TIPS)
| Disclaimer | |
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If I sound very opinionated it may be because I grew up in the 60s, the era of the Free Speech Movement, when it was considered pretty normal to express yourself openly. See my Articles page for more in support of my views, or on the lighter side, see Political satire. |
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1 Some articles have links that expire too quickly so I save them offline.
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Over the years I have stumbled upon a few tricks for doing things at home that I would like to pass on to my sons, now that they are grown and
living independently. I could have told them these things or jotted them down on paper, but that has 2 shortcomings—One, I would have to
remember the tips all at one time, and Two, they could forget what I say or misplace the paper on which they were written. Putting them on my
website seemed to be a good solution because I can add to the list as I recall things, and also it has a more permanent quality.
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Household HintsRobbie's Handy Household Tips and TricksBob Allison's Ask Your Neighbor: Helpful Household Hints
| To protect myself from spamming I am not spelling out my complete email address contiguously anywhere on my website (for more on this, see Fight spam). However, if you want to email me you can assemble it yourself using my name (eric) and my domain (penceland.com) in the format 'myname@mydomain'. Patti's email address has the same domain, just substitute patti for eric. The boys' email appears to have been superseded by Instant Messenger. |
