Larry's Wacky World

"Winning isn't everything, but losing sucks."
Larry
Larry at work

Short bio:

Born on 12/6/53 in Cleveland, OH (ugh!) At age 2 I had the good sense to tell my parents to get me out of there, so we moved to Miami (home of the Dolphins). After graduating high school, like all good nerdlings, I went to MIT. While there, I recovered from terminal nerdiness (see the before and after photos, and take the MIT Nerd Test), got my degrees in Ocean Engineering, and then moved to the Washington DC area. After defense went bust (damn those commies for wimping out), I changed career focus and moved to Mitretek Systems, which provides technical and programmatic support to various government agencies. My most significant accomplishment to date is winning more national and world tiddlywinks championships than any winker in history, you can look it up here at the English Tiddlywinks Association's site.

Want to find out if I'm sweating like a pig or freezing my butt off? Check out the automated weather station that sits on top of our office building. It reports a variety of real-time meteorological conditions.

If you only have limited time (or limited intelligence), I've marked the particularly unusual or entertaining with a Hot icon. However, it's ALL good stuff! Comments? Sign my guestbook. Or if you're a wuss, you can simply view the guestbook.

Page me! I'm on ICQ, number 21704251. Best times to reach me are weeknights after 9 PM (Eastern US time) or really late on Friday or Saturday nights.

Happy Holidays! (Not always timely, but this was pretty good so I left it up) Here's the card we sent out to friends and family. Hope the conservatives weren't too shocked.

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Love and romance, engineer style

Having trouble getting a date? Use my Systems Engineering Approach to Finding a Partner Hot, a term paper I wrote for a systems engineering management class. Download it and distribute it to your nerdy friends who need help. If all else fails, give them a birthday present they'll never forget, an anatomically correct inflatable sheep! Also see a class project that studied Naturalistic Decision Making and Selecting a Spouse. For additional advice on how to deal with the opposite gender, see my (humorous but true) relationship page.

beartrapBite the big one

After 42.5 years, and probably against my better judgment, it was time to get married. Hope that congress actually does something sensible (that would be a first) and repeals the marriage tax. See our really outrageous wedding page Hot for details on a very nontraditional wedding, and lots of cool travel photos from our honeymoon in Scotland and Iceland.


hillbilly Meet the neighborhood white trash

Yep, that's us. During the year we moved (1995), our home was the least expensive of all the houses sold in the immediate area. Guess I'll move the pink flamingos around to the front. They'll match up nicely with the pink flamingo mailbox. Here's some pictures of our hovel and the surrounding area.

worry What common household item ...

is an infinite time and money sink that has no redeeming social value? Look here for the answer. Hint: it does nothing but eat, sleep, and whine, and no, it's not my last girlfriend. Or you can go directly to Sprogopolis Hot, a futuristic city with a unique power source.


dancersShake your booty!

A couple of years ago I was "strongly advised" by my significant other to take up swing dancing. Turns out I really liked it. Not only do you get to hear good music and get some exercise, but you also get to dance with lots of great looking women! Here's some vital dance information for women only. If you're in the Washington DC area, these are a good place to start:

tiddlywinksWanna see my big, thick squidger?

Try THAT pickup line next time you're in a bar! I've been playing tournament tiddlywinks ever since I was a freshman at MIT. It's not the game you learned as a kid, although there are some similarities. The tournament game is like a combination of chess and billiards; you have to shoot your pieces to where you want them to go. Check out these links:

Ultimate frisbee Get horizontal!

One of the best sports to play (or watch) is ultimate frisbee. Sort of a cross between football and soccer, only with a disc. I started playing in the early 70's (at MIT) and still go out most weekends to kick the younger players' butts. If you're visiting DC and would like to play, visit the Washington Area Frisbee Club website for a list of pickup games.

If you have a good hand, you don't need a partner

[spade] [heart] [diamond] [club] Bored with those silly card games like hearts and go fish? Try a REAL game like bridge. It's challenging and fun, plus you can always blame your bad results on that turkey sitting across the table from you. Here's a few links:

pansiesI'm no pansy ...

But I do enjoy houseplants and flower gardening. Not into pets, though. You can't water a cat and leave it for a week. Here's a gorgeous JPEG image of various orchids. If you'd like the Windows wallpaper bitmap version, download orch.zip (300K). Some helpful gardening links and interesting photos:

cameraWatch the birdie!

No, not THAT kind of birdie, you fool. If you want the ones with feathers, go to the next section. This is my "catch-all" area for travel and other photos that didn't fit anywhere else.

bird Why a duck? Why a no chicken?

If you don't recognize this quote, it's from the Marx Brothers film "The Cocoanuts". We like to do a lot of backyard birdwatching while relaxing on the deck. So far, we've been able to identify about 25 or so different species, but I still have a hard time figuring out the sparrows and finches. Most unusual bird so far has been a bright green monk parakeet!

chute It's a bird, it's a plane ...

I always wanted to try skydiving. Once, just to see what it was like. So in 1992 I signed up to do an Accelerated Freefall jump. You jump from 12,000 feet, freefall for about a minute (two jumpmasters are with you, holding your harness to keep you stable), then you pull your chute and float down by yourself. It was a truly incredible experience; I particularly enjoyed the parachute ride. The chutes are very maneuverable and you have time to look at the surrounding area.

The knee bone's connected to the ...

Hope you never have to have knee surgery, but if you want to read about my experience in dealing with a torn meniscus, here's my diary of how it went. Not for the faint of heart.

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Send comments, suggestions, or your VISA card number to: larrykahn AT alum DOT mit DOT edu


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