Updated "About Us" Page

I've been meaining to update the About Us page all week, ever since Sally asked me to put her on as a Contributor to the blog.  That's finally done, but I'll spare you the trouble of clicking over to see what I wrote.  It's reprinted below, if you're interested.

And yes, I did use the format from the old-school Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe to format these bios.

Dan Head

Real Name: Daniel Head

Aliases/Nicknames: Dan, DannoE

Identity: Dan makes no secret of his identity, but he is not a public figure.

Occupation: Bulk power engineer (current); industrial engineer (former); cavalry officer (former)

Known Relatives: Sally (wife), Hannah & Emma (kids)

Group Affiliations: USMA Class of 1995, Friends of Army Swimming, Woodruff Family YMCA Triathlon Club

Education: MBA (International Finance), Fordham University; BS (European History), US Military Academy

Powers: Dan doesn’t mind walking all the way across a parking lot.  That may not seem like a superpower, but it keeps his car doors from getting dinged up.

Abilities: Dan is an accomplished competitive swimmer and triathlete (primarily Olympic distance), an occasional freelance writer, and arch-beer snob.  He is also a skilled Dungeon Master, but he doesn’t get a chance to play D&D very often any more.  Dan is proficient with G.E.’s Multi-Area Reliability Simulation (MARS), Multi-Area Production Simulation (MAPS), XA/21 SCADA Emergency Management System (EMS), and Siemens Power Systems Simulation for Engineers (PSS/E).

Biography

Dan graduated high school in Tampa, Florida, where he swam for the Chamberlain High Chiefs.  From there, he went to the US Military Academy, graduated in 1995, branched Armor, and was stationed with the 3rd Infantry Division (ID) in Savannah, GA.  He served as a tank platoon leader, headquarters company executive officer, and staff weenie.  Following the Armor Captains’ Career Course, Dan was sent to Korea, where he served with the 4th Squadron, 7th Cavalry, again as a staff weenie.  Dan left the Army in November 2000.

That was the height of the dot-com bubble, and Dan’s first job out of the Army was as a logistics consultant working for Kurt Salmon Associates.  He taught basic leadership techniques to junior management personnel at a major catalogue company and performed time-motion studies for an environmental company in the great state of Connecticut.  After the dot-com bubble crashed, Dan took a job at a power company in New York, moved to Hoboken, and started working as an overhead construction supervisor in the Bronx.  He finished his MBA in 2006, was promoted, and eventually landed in system operations in 2010.

Dan met his wife Sally at a running club in Hoboken in the summer of 2002.  They were married in December that same year and moved to Fairfield, CT, in 2004.  They moved from Fairfield to Stratford in 2007.  Dan and Sally have two daughters, Hannah and Emma.  Whenever they can, the family vacations in Maine, near Acadia National Park.

When he’s not working, Dan is a volunteer triathlon coach at the Woodruff Family YMCA and an enthusiastic writer of short stories for his kids.  He is hoping to put out a collection of short stories in the fall of 2014, tentatively titled “War Stories from Wanderhaven.”

***

Sally Head

Real Name: Sallyanne Head

Aliases/Nicknames: Sallybelle

Identity: Sally makes no secret of her identity, but she is not a public figure.

Occupation: Fitness instructor, English-to-Spanish translator, freelance art teacher; public school teacher (former); Peace Corps Volunteer (former)

Known Relatives: Dan (husband), Hannah & Emma (kids)

Group Affiliations: Fairfield County Holistic Mom’s Network, Girl Scouts of Connecticut

Education: EdM (Elementary Education), Columbia University; BA (Education), Boston University

Powers: Sally has a supernatural sense of smell and a photographic memory.

Abilities: Sally is a professional educator and fitness instructor, specializing in water aerobics.  She is an accomplished recreational runner, having completed several half-marathons, with a handful of finishes in under two hours.  Sally has finished four triathlons and is exceptionally fluent in Spanish.

Biography

Sally graduated high school in Fairfield, Connecticut, attended Boston University, and then volunteered for the Peace Corps.  She spent some time in Africa but was eventually stationed in the hinterlands of Paraguay for three and a half years.  There she taught indigenous school-age children basic skills, including Spanish, in order to help them better integrate with Paraguayan society as a whole.  She also traveled extensively at this time--so much so that it’s a miracle she wasn’t kidnapped by the Sendero Luminoso.

After she returned to the US, Sally went to Columbia University, got her Masters in Education, and began teaching--again in Spanish--at a New York City public school in the South Bronx.  From there, she moved to Hoboken, taught for a year in Hoboken’s public school system, and then went private, spending a year teaching second grade at the prestigious Geneva School in Manhattan.  It was at this time that Sally met her husband Dan, at a running club in Hoboken.  They married, moved back to Fairfield County, and she eventually had two kids--Hannah and Emma.

Sally started her own business, Art and the Artist, in 2012.  She teaches basic art skills to young school-age and preschool children out of her home, using children’s art and literature as the basis for her work.  She also teaches various fitness classes at LA Fitness, does some translation work for a local children’s therapy organization, and is the leader of her daughter Hannah’s Girl Scout Troop.