Hi. I’m a transplant to rural Maine, where my wife and I live in an off grid (solar powered) home. Actually, it’s a total of six buildings, three of which have their own, autonomous PV system. I’m working on systems for the other three, but they’re things like our sauna and the tractor barn, so I’ll get to them when I have the time. Nothing is connected to the grid.

I designed every building except the geodesic dome greenhouse, so if you like them, that’s great. If not, you don’t have to live here, so I guess that’s also fine. The property sits in a big blueberry field, surrounded by woods. As we continue to build things, grow things, and figure things out I try to chronicle my part of it, on this site. I’d put my picture on here, but apparently people do all sorts of bad things now on the internet, so here’s a picture of my dog. He’s awesome and most folks say he’s much more handsome than me. And like me, he’s got a few years on him.

I still lead a company I founded years ago, but truth be told, I don’t work with nearly the intensity I had when I was younger and before we moved to Maine. I’ve tried to be fair and even a bit generous with my business partners and employees, so my being able to relax a bit and enjoy life is now part of the deal. They’re usually smarter than me, anyway - they just have fewer battle scars. Frankly, I still so what I do in large part because I want to make sure our little company stays in decent shape as it transitions to being led by people who helped me build it, and I’m still figuring out when I can pull the plug on my career and still have enough money to fund our hobbies and enjoy a decent life. I’d worry about that a lot less if I thought we had fewer idiots running things in the world, but no point in getting into that here.

I get a lot of joy from tinkering with various projects on our 32 acres of fields and woods and enjoying simple pleasures. I still get a little thrill when a client solves a problem, or learns something new, or feels better about where they’re headed with their career or company, but I no longer want to compete at anything more serious than trivia night at the local brew pub. I’d rather spend time with my wife and friends, or move stuff around with my tractor, or listen to a Buddhist teacher’s lecture while sitting in the sauna. I plan to learn to can and dehydrate this coming spring and summer. And I love to help people explore solar energy. It’s a simple life, and I’m just fine with that. I no longer want to win awards, or be featured in magazine articles, or give speeches, or do much of anything that I once craved. Enough is enough is enough, and you eventually learn that most of that stuff is just hollow vanity. I’ll take a pass from here on out.

Sometimes people ask about the “Madcodger” thing. It really should be two words, but that doesn’ work well as a URL. The “mad” part is a nod to the mad scientists from Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid. Soooooo cool! And the dictionary defines a codger as “an elderly man, often one who is eccentric”. I can’t think of a better aspiration! I’m not yet truly elderly, at least in my mind, but I’m surely headed that way, and I guess that beats the alternative.

The way I see it, if people think of you as eccentric but not completely “full goose bozo” (hat tip to the late Robin Williams), you probably have the balance just about right.