• Attended Catholic School for 10 years (Corpus Christi from grades 1-8 and St. Ignatius from grades 9-10) before being asked not to return.

• Was sent away to The Grand River Academy - a boarding school for 'problem children'.

• Went to Baldwin-Wallace College for a while.

• Joined the United States Marine Corps Reserve – spent three fun-filled months in boot camp at Parris Island.

• Spent another three months learning about how to be a Maintenance Management Specialist at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek.

• Assigned to Truck Company (-), Headquarters Battalion in Erie, PA for reserve duty (1 weekend each month, and two weeks of active duty every summer -- mainly we ended up at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, in lovely 29 Palms, CA.

• Spent a few months as a car-washer/gopher at Spitzer Chevrolet (Now the #1 conversion van dealership in the country, thanks in large part to me.)

• Went back to Baldwin-Wallace and started hanging around the Political Science Department a lot.

• Completed Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Warfare school (now called Nuclear, Biological & Chemical Defense School) at Camp Lejeune, NC.

• Spent most of a semester attending the Washington Semester Program at American University.

• While in D.C., my Marine Corps unit was activated for service in Operation Desert Storm, so I got to spend a few months in Saudi Arabia.

• Finally got my political science degree from Baldwin-Wallace in 1992 (6 years after I started).

• Decided to get a Ph.D. in political science. I ended up at the University of Kentucky mainly because the Political Science Department offered to pay my way.

• In 1996, after four years at UK, I found a one-year job teaching political science at Lake Superior State University, in Sault Ste. Marie, MI.

• In the Spring of 1997, I accepted a position in the Department of Political Science at the University of Evansville. In the Summer of 2000, the Department was merged with Legal Studies, Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Anthropology (and probably a few more social sciences I can't recall at this moment) and turned into something called the Department of Law, Politics and Society.
   
• In the Fall of 2001 I moved onward and upward, to the Political Science Department at Northern Kentucky University, where I remain to this day.