by Daniel A. Grunberg   --   Kensington, Maryland U.S.A


I'm an electrical engineer.  Professionally, I am hardware 
(rather than software) oriented.  Nevertheless, I have been
involved with computers, since I took several post-graduate
computer courses, during the 1960s.  A few years ago, I attended a
lecture at my company, and I discovered the Internet. 
Ultimately, I discovered UseNet News.

I have three hobbies (and now, four, if you include UseNet News). 

  1) I'm a shortwave listener.  

  2) I'm a chamber musician.  My instrument is the recorder, an
     end blown flute that figured prominently in Renaissance and
     Baroque music.  I play the recorder weekly at a local,
     29-person, chamber music society.  

  3) I'm an avid bicyclist.  I maintain and repair my own bike.  

It's not too difficult to imagine the Internet as a tool in the
hobby of shortwave listening.  I've made an additional hobby of
responding to requests for information by other shortwave
listeners (SWLs) who sometimes post questions the Usenet News
rec.radio.shortwave.  Documents derived from some of my postings
are listed on my home page.  

I regularly read Usenet News rec.bicycles.tech, but post to it
relatively rarely.  Many of the people in r.b.t are professional
bike mechanics, who gladly share their knowledge with we amateurs
who ask for advice.  I've gotten many pointers, just by "lurking" 
(i.e. reading but not posting).  A few months ago, I posted an
article asking the reason for an unusual feature on my bike. 
Within a week I had the answer to a question I'd been unable
to find in books or by asking people face-to-face.  Documents
derived from one or two of my postings are listed on my home 
page. 

I regularly lurk around several music oriented UseNet groups,
including rec.music.early.  Although I have played the recorder
regularly for more than thirty years, and although I've posted to
r.m.e and to the other music groups, nothing I've written seemed
worth putting on my home page.  Maybe someday...
I use UseNet News to enlarge my hobby community, to learn more
about my hobbies, and to pass on whatever knowledge I have, that
I think others might like to know.  In a way, UseNet News, has
become my "cyber university."  




This article was last updated on 14 August 1997.