Although I am now a New Yorker again, I have lived and worked on six of the seven continents.

I was a commuter, a subway student, for the first three years of my Columbia experience (in those days, that included two years at the College and the first of two at the E school). I commuted from Flatbush in the heart of Brooklyn. In my senior year, the associate dean, Wes Hennessy of Engineering, evidently thought that I would benefit from a senior year on campus. He found a prize room to go with my scholarship: #1001 John Jay Hall. I graduated on June 8, 1950 with a BS in Engineering, and got one of the rare jobs around that spring as a Highway Engineer in the interior of Alaska for the Territorial Government.

I looked forward to a great summer, hiking, camping and exploring. I got more than enough of that, because three weeks after graduation the Korean War started. Although I was in an essential job, I volunteered and received a spot commission as Ensign. I was off by foot, plane, and ship to plan and build airfields, roads, electronic installations, and docks/ports across the Pacific and Arctic (over to Greenland).

On a brief pass thru Morningside, in 1955 for the Columbia-Dartmouth Game, I met and married another Columbia student, Laurice White (later Glover) 'SW56. I was under orders to Antarctica at the time, but my Admiral was an understanding guy and changed my orders. (Mm - that would have made seven continents.)

We were divorced in 1963, but remarried in 1983. In the interim, I commenced an international practice, designing and building hotels in London, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Lisbon, Madeira, Madrid, Munich, Frankfurt, Brussels, Rome, Tunis, Istanbuhl, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Kuwait, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Dubai, Teheran, Bombay (oops - Mumbai), Hong Kong, Perth, Honolulu, Kauai, Molotai, Maui, Hawaii, Buenos Aires, Rio dJ, Lima, Mexico City, and a few others that may have slipped my mind. In 1983, I was building a new ski resort called Beaver Creek when I met that girl again and came back to NYC to take up where I left off.

To hurry ahead to the point, on 9/11/2001, I was once again traveling too fast. That afternoon, at the ICC downtown I was diagnosed with a massive heart failure. That evening, I had a new aorta valve and a quad by-pass. When they installed me in a CCU bed at St. Luke's, I was looking into the window of #1001 John Jay Hall, my old room! I was afraid this was a message. I worried a lot, since I had nothing else to do.

About ten days later, I suffered optical color reversal. The doctors were puzzled. I was diagnosed as either optical cancer or cerebral hemmorhage. Fortunately, the next day the senior neurologist gave another opinion. He thought I had suffered a stroke on the table and had a good chance of recovery. Some months later this was confirmed by many tests.

Some three and a half years later, I am up and around, walking and talking, and writing a new book about research on the mitigation of the effects of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which I have just completed.

I can't waste any of the time left me by the closing of the ring.