Feel Free to Deviate

Episode 26 of Feel Free to Deviate features Shayne Flaherty. He is currently the CTO for an IT management company called IndyConn, but to say he’s an IT guy would be selling him short. He’s been a professor, an arborist, and he has a few degrees. The important thing isn’t really what he does, but how he got to where he is, and how he acquired all of his knowledge. It’s about his approach. He’s dis...

Episode 25 of Feel Free to Deviate features Arne Reimer. He’s a photographer and music lover who teaches and makes books. Currently he’s working as a researcher for an Austrian publisher . He’s managed to make a living by merging his love of music and photography his entire adult life, and I think that’s quite an accomplishment. It takes a lot of perseverance to do that, or maybe it’s single-minde...

Episode 24 of Feel Free to Deviate features Solar Business Development Manager, Andrew Whitehead. He sells solar panels, but he got there by way of an arts education and a stint in the New York real estate market of the mid to late aughts. Listen to him verbally paint a detailed picture of how his career evolved, in an artful combination of deliberate and fortuitous moves to various jobs in variou...

Episode 23 of Feel Free to Deviate features Christina Willis. I met her when she was a physics major at Wellesley College. Now she is a laser scientist who works for a quantum computing company who is not afraid to learn new skills for big career pivots and intense hobbies.  Check out Christina’s book, Sustainable Networking For Scientists and Engineers at https://sustainablenetworking.net or http...

This is my favorite kind of episode... The guest on episode 22 of Feel Free to Deviate is an old friend named Todd Hennig. We were in a band together when we were in high school, and since then Todd has gone on to play with many bands like Great Collapse, Nations Afire, Death By Stereo, and Heckle, and he’s toured all over the place. He’s even gotten to play and tour with some of the heroes of his...

Episode 21 of Feel Free to Deviate features award winning high school English teacher Michael Switek. Michael is beloved by his students, and valued by his peers, some of whom were former students. How cool is that? The kids love him, and he loves his work. We talk about job satisfaction and school life during covid and take a peek behind the high school curtain to see how students and teachers se...

Episode 20 of Feel Free to Deviate features Gretchen Licata. Gretchen is the facilities director of the Pioneer Valley Regional School District in western Massachusetts. She’ll tell you exactly what that entails, but I will tell you that it’s a big job with lots of responsibilities, and she is an unsung hero, working behind the scenes to make sure that everything works the way it should. She makes...

Episode 19 of Feel Free to Deviate Features Thomas Margolf. Some know him as chip music artist firestARTer, or as Frau Holle, but now he is mostly know as the owner and proprietor of XOR Electronics and maker of NerdSeq. What is that, you ask? As the XOR website says, it “is a tracker based cv and trigger sequencer module (32HP) for Eurorack systems.” It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what that...

Episode 18 of Feel Free to Deviate features Dr. Kei Otsuki. We met when I first moved to the Netherlands, and we were students in the same Dutch class. Her title is Associate Professor in International Development Studies at Utrecht University, but she tells me that she views her role as bringing awareness and trying to find a bridge for communication between interested parties. As an intermediary...

Episode 17 of Feel Free to Deviate features x-ray technologist Jason Kelley. He lives in Portland, Oregon and happens to be an old friend of mine. I think this episode is a fine example of a searcher finding what he was looking for. Jason worked with food, movies, music, and arts during his illustrious career, and he grew a lot along the way. Most importantly, he learned when, and when not to thro...

Episode 16 of Feel Free to Deviate features Scott Patrick Wiener, but I usually call him Scott or Ween. He works for an organization called YouthBuild that focuses on teaching young people construction skills and facilitates the building of houses in their neighborhoods. It’s pretty cool. Like many of the other guests on Feel Free to Deviate, Scott has an art background. He is a photographer/artis...

Episode 15 of Feel Free to Deviate features Anna Wronsky. She is the Dean of Teaching and Learning at a school in Istanbul, but she’s also been an art teacher and a costume designer for the opera. I met her when she was a student at the University of Massachusetts, and even as an undergraduate she had a confidence about her work that I am still amazed at when I think about it today. Also, she was...

Episode 14 of Feel Free to Deviate features Judith Black, but I call her Judy because I know her. Judy was the photography professor at Wellesley College for 25 years, including the 7 years that I worked there. She’s a great photographer whose work centers around home and family life, and since Corona she’s released two books, Pleasant Street and most recently Vacation, and has become one of the d...

Episode 13 of Feel Free to Deviate features Giuliana Funkhouser. Giuliana is a trans-disciplinary artist who “combines digital code and synthesized audio with field recordings to produce story-driven installations.” I met her long ago when I first started working at Wellesley College in 2001. She  was one of the students who worked for me, but since those days G has been busy working in the gaming...

Episode 12 of Feel Free to Deviate features Ben Licata. He’s an old friend who currently makes his living as a tattoo artist. We talk about how his illustrious career began in the tobacco fields of Hadley Massachusetts, and how he’s always found ways to grow and learn whether working in a sweltering plastic bag factory or making instructional videos with distinguished tattoo artists. He says that...

The guest on episode 11 of Feel Free to Deviate is Melissa Woods. She runs Trued Apparel, which is a sustainably sourced fashion company that caters to goths. Well, not exclusively goths, but to anyone who likes to wear comfortable women’s clothing that is predominantly available in black. Melissa was a student at Wellesley College when I worked there, and I think she’s the first millennial guest...

Esme Valk is the guest on this landmark tenth episode of Feel Free to Deviate. She is a Pikler Pedagog. You probably have no idea what that is, so I’ll give a brief introduction, and Esme will clarify many of the finer points. Pikler Pedagogy is a child rearing philosophy developed by Dr. Emmi Pikler. The people who disseminate Pikler’s ideas are known as Pikler Pedagogs, though some folks may be...

You know how sometimes you hang out with someone who is super nice and positive, but you feel like they are trying to convince themselves that they are nice and positive? Well, that’s not her. She is a genuinely light, happy, and curious person, and a joy to be around. Episode 9 of Feel Free to Deviate features Naomi de Kuiper. She owns and runs a children’s clothing company called MingoKids which...

This episode features Jonas Wulff: Doctor of Computer Vision! He’s a super genius who wants to make computers see. I suppose that either sounds awesome or terrifying, but seeing as you are probably listening to this podcast on a tiny supercomputer with at least one giant electronic eye, you should probably check your paranoia at the door…  I invited Jonas not only because of his high level of acad...

Episode 7 of Feel Free to Deviate is a conversation with Robin Chase. She was a teacher for 20 years, some of which she was miserable due to a less than favorable work environment. After some soul searching and encouragement from her support network, she pivoted and became a food photographer. Sometimes I forget to ask the key question, “What is your definition of success,” and this is one of thos...

This episode features Tomasz Kaye. He makes anti-political propaganda films. You may be thinking, “What the hell does that mean, and how the hell does one get a job doing that?” Well, that’s why I asked him to be a guest. We don’t get too deep into the content of his work, so I recommend checking that out on your own. It may not be your cup of tea, but it also may open your eyes to viewpoints that...

Episode 5 features Ed Mubarek, who is an old friend of mine. We’ve know each other since high school, we’ve lived with each other, played in bands together, and stuff like that. He’s a super smart guy, is very well read, and he is a great musician. Although we didn’t really talk about it, I believe he has a degree in journalism and is trained as a recording engineer, but… He fails to meet most of...

Episode 4 of Feel Free to Deviate features David Teng Olsen! Dave is an old friend, and he talks about how he found his way to being an artist and a professor despite never thinking of becoming a teacher and being certain that he didn’t want to make art. I asked him to send me some Dave related links, but he went on vacation and sent nothing. If you search his name you’ll find some gold. Most of t...

This episode features Bjorn van Spengen. Bjorn was one of the founders of Fotomat, which is the company I used work for. He left the company around the same time as me, pivoted, and started working for a bigger company called Metrological in a management position. Bjorn is a good guy who does good work, and he makes it all look so easy, even though it’s not. I think he has a lot of traits that mak...

This episode is a conversation with Rebecca Simons, whom I used to work with at Fotomat. I asked her to be on the show because she is adept at finding ways to get paid while working on things that she loves to do. It’s a remarkable skill, and I was hoping that she would tell me how she does it. I think she actually revealed the secret, and it’s rather obvious, but I’m not going to tell you what it...